On-Tour in Iraq: Striking a Chord

By Joe Bendel. With the success of The Surge, the nature of military service in the Iraqi theater is much safer and more predictable. Of course, that is a blessing – but it also means American military personnel have more time to get bored and dwell on their separation from loved ones. However, nothing works like music to console the weary soul. Even though they might not be household names, the military brings in a number of entertainers to play for the troops like singer-songwriter Nell Bryden, whose second tour military tour of Iraq and Kuwait provides the structure of Susan Cohn Rockefeller’s Striking a Chord, a documentary short (see the trailer above) now playing the festival circuit.

The USO books the big name stars. The Multinational Corps handles the professional gigging artists without the fame or the egos. One such musician is Brooklyn-born Nell Bryden, the first entertainer recruited by Lt. Col. Scott Rainey, the chief of programming for the Corps. A blues-and-roots influenced pop vocalist, Bryden is a charismatic performer and a good sport. She does not simply chopper in and out for her gigs. Rockefeller shows her visiting hospitals and touring bases, talking to anyone looking for a sympathetic ear. Indeed, the rapport she quickly establishes with soldiers appears deep and genuine.

It helps when you check your politics at the airport. Several of her band members agree, noting the deep personal connections they have been able to make once they jettisoned their own political baggage. Likewise, Rockefeller tries to play it straight and avoid partisanship, largely succeeding. While bookending the film with grim expert commentary on post-traumatic stress syndrome arguably has certain implications, she also gives voice to soldiers’ frustrations that none of the good news they see unfolding in Iraq is ever reported in the western media. Continue reading On-Tour in Iraq: Striking a Chord

The Last Days of East Germany: The Mistake

By Joe Bendel. The personal should not have to be political, but it always was in the former DDR, often with tragic consequences. As a still attractive woman of advanced years, Elizabeth Bosch ought to be able to pursue a September romance with a handsome visitor to her provincial town in relative peace and privacy. Yet, since he is West German (a Hamburger), their affair attracts the wrong sort of attention in Heiner Carow’s The Mistake, the best and final film of the Anthology Film Archives’ Wende Flicks retrospective, which concludes at the landmark East Village theater this coming Wednesday.

Elizabeth Bosch has always cleaned up after other people, yet she does not even have hot running water in her modest pre-Wende East German home. That means she and her visiting grandchildren must take their baths in the yard, which catches the eye of the wandering Jacob Alain. Though he starts off on the wrong foot, he quickly wins over Bosch. It is not as if he has much competition, aside from Bosch’s boss Reimelt, a small man unfortunately blessed with a measure of power. The town’s slovenly mayor, he blusters about the hard work of building socialism unaware that it sounds like a punch-line to the weary Bosch.

While Bosch and Alain might ordinarily prefer to take things slowly, they simply do not have the time. For a while they make do with letters and all-too brief rendezvouses in East Berlin, but the situation is clearly not sustainable. When Bosch’s older Party loyalist son announces his promotion, it further complicates matters. Now family contacts with the West will come under increasing scrutiny.

Mistake is a sad but wise love story that also serves as a pointed reminder of what life was like under Communism. Bosch does not even have hot water, yet the Stasi still takes an active interest in her romantic affairs. The film also pays tribute to those who stood up to injustice in the DDR – bringing together Alain, Bosch, and her younger son Holger at a candlelight Christmas prayer service for East German dissidents. It all has remarkable emotional heft thanks to the finely nuanced work of its leads.

Angelica Domröse and Gottfried John look like an attractive, warts-and-all couple who we would like to see together. Yet we know the system is stacked against them. Domröse is especially compelling, finely balancing strength and vulnerability as Bosch. It is one of the great unsung performances of world cinema.

One of the best cinematic depictions of mature romance, Mistake is an outstanding film. It is also a heartrending and infuriating document of life under the oppressive Communist system, yet its inescapable political implications never eclipse the human drama. Highly recommended, it screens this Wednesday (11/3) in New York as the concluding film of the Anthology Film Archives’ Wende Flicks retrospective of the East German DEFA film studio’s final productions.

Posted on November 2nd, 2010 at 11:35am.

The Last Days of East Germany: The Land Beyond the Rainbow

By Joe Bendel. Arthur Koestler and his fellow apostates from Communism called the ideology “The God that Failed.” One can see how apt a term that was in Herwig Kipping’s The Land Beyond the Rainbow, a scathing critique of the secular religious fervor mandated by Stalinism. A selection of the 1992 Berlinale, Beyond remains a scorching critique of Communism, and screens next Tuesday as part of the Wende Flicks retrospective of post-Fall of the Wall films from the East German DEFA studio at New York’s Anthology Film Archives.

It is hardly a coincidence that Beyond takes place during the eventful year of 1953. Of course, that was the year Stalin died.  Three months later, Soviet troops invaded East Germany to suppress an outbreak of strikes and demonstrations. However, life appears peaceful in the fictional provincial collective of Stalina. Both Hans and Rainbowmaker have eyes for Marie, the film’s ethereal narrator. Yet Rainbowmaker’s grandfather, a strict Party leader, brings the isolated community to grief.

From his cowl-like cloak to his prayer-like invocations to the recently deceased Stalin, Rainbowmaker’s grandfather is an unambiguous figure of orthodox faith. He also appropriates whatever he pleases from the collective and purges members at will. However, his greatest specialty appears to be encouraging children to inform on their parents. Unlike more allegorical films produced behind the Iron Curtain, there is absolutely no question what he represents. In fact, Stalin’s apologists are probably watching Beyond in Hell for the rest of eternity.

Yet the blistering Beyond cannot be dismissed as mere post-Wall score-settling, given the eerie rendering of the hyper-Communist community and Kipping’s occasional flights of surrealist fantasy. This is an angry film, but an artful one as well. It also features some surprisingly compelling turns from the then-young trio of Stefanie Janke, Thomas Ewert, and Sebastian Reznicek, as Marie, Hans, and Rainbowmaker – the pre-pubescent love triangle.

There may truly be no more viscerally anti-Communist film than Beyond. However, Kipping’s in-your-face Christ-like imagery might put off some Christian audiences. Indeed, there are strong visuals throughout the film, the cumulative effect of which is a damning indictment of the GDR. Accordingly, anyone with a scrap of interest in the Communist and immediate post-Communist eras should make a special effort to see Beyond when it screens Tuesday (11/2) as part of Wende Flicks at Anthology Film Archives.

Posted on November 1st, 2010 at 9:06am.

The Last Days of East Germany: Miraculi

By Joe Bendel. Filmmakers working behind the Iron Curtain had a natural affinity for the absurd and the surreal. Given their experiences under Communism, they could easily relate to such Kafkaesque cinemascapes. It also behooved them to keep their social critiques obscured by layers of allegory and symbolism. A passion project only made possible by the fall of the Berlin Wall (or the epochal “Wende”), Ulrich Weiß’s Miraculi represents the culmination of such cinematic strategies. Finally produced in 1991, Miraculi screens next week as part of Wende Flicks: Last Films from East Germany, a retrospective of the East German DEFA studio’s final years (1990-1994), presented at Anthology Film Archives in conjunction with the Goethe-Institut New York.

In the Czech Republic, one of the few annoying holdovers from the Communist era are the plain clothes transit inspectors looking to fine riders who cannot produce their appropriately punched tickets. Evidently East Germany had these transit narcs as well. Through a series of chance circumstances, Sebastian Mueller, a mild mannered juvenile delinquent, joins the ranks of the volunteer transit inspectors. In truth, he is not very good at his duties, but he takes them very seriously, alienating his father, who labels him a traitor to the workers.

Episodic and trippy, Mueller’s story defies pat description. In a strange way, Weiß invests Mueller’s reviled voluntarism with strange and cosmic dimensions. Yet, one can easily glean the power dynamics at work. As one character explains, stiffing the tram is truly the only safe method of rebellion available to her, so who cares if she is caught.

Miraculi’s dense layers of meaning are probably only fully grasped by those who experienced the oppressive drabness of the GDR. That being said, there are plenty of signifiers astute westerners should be able to catch. Indeed, the significance of an abnormal psychology lecture delivered to Mueller and his fellow inspectors is hard to miss, if viewers have any familiarity with the Soviet bloc’s record of institutionalized psychiatric abuse.

Undeniably both subversive and demanding, there is no possible way Miraculi could have been produced under the Soviet-dominated GDR regime. It is a world away from Soviet Realism, even though it scrupulously captures the depressed grunginess of industrialized East Germany. It is a rich, challenging work, recommended to viewers who do not have to “get” everything they see to appreciate a film. It screens this coming Monday (11/1) at Anthology Film Archives as part of the remarkable Wende Flicks series. Truly a cinematic event, many of the Wende selections have never been subtitled or shown outside of Germany, until now. Yet films like Miraculi are both historically important and fascinating in their own right. The Wende Flicks series runs in New York from November 1st through the 3rd.

Posted on October 29th, 2010 at 10:58am.

LFM Review: Eastwood’s Hereafter

By Joe Bendel. That bright light must be significant. Near death researchers argue that since so many accounts agree on the particulars, there must be something to them. Some even hint at a conspiracy of silence in Clint Eastwood’s latest film, but the jazz-supporting actor-director thankfully never veers too far into such X-Filish territory in Hereafter, which expands nationally this Friday following its limited New York opening.

Frankie McLaren in "Hereafter."

Conversing with the dead made psychic George Lonegan nearly unfit for life among the living. Much to the dismay of his slick operator brother, he chucked it all in, despite the serious money to be made, preferring a quiet blue collar life. Yet, just like Pacino’s Michael Corleone, he keeps getting pulled back into his former life. French television talking head Marie Lelay got a glimpse of what haunts Lonegan. Caught up in a Southeast Asian tsunami, she briefly crossed over and back. Slightly preoccupied with the experience, her career and romantic relationship suffer as a result – while in a third story arc, young Marcus, an identical twin grieving his brother Jason, is desperately searching for a legitimate medium like Lonegan amidst all the charlatans of London’s New Age scene.

Eventually, these three twains will meet, but it takes an awfully long time to get there. Despite the supernatural themes, Eastwood strives for an elegiac tone throughout Hereafter, eschewing cheap chills. (However, it is truly horrifying when the action culminates at a publishing trade show.) Though a bit snoozy, the director’s string-heavy score sets the right mood. Indeed, Hereafter has a very Euro-art film sense of time and ambiance.

Arguably, Hereafter is one of those films of which the whole is less than the sum of its parts. The opening tsunami sequences are reasonably tense and realistic. However, subsequent scenes of Lelay moping around taking bad career advice are paint-by-numbers stuff. Lonegan’s relationship with his brother is also rather standard issue, but his aborted flirtation with a fellow student in his adult ed. cooking class is sharply written and finely turned, by Matt Damon and Bryce Dallas Howard, respectively. However, the most reliable strand involves the two twins, quite impressively played by Frankie and George McLaren. Completely natural in every scene, they are remarkably assured young actors.

Sensitively lensed by cinematographer Tom Stern, Hereafter is certainly a classy package. The discrete payoff might also grow on mature viewers upon later reflection. However, the overall presentation is a bit too long and much too self-serious. A respectable film but nowhere nearly as engaging as Gran Torino, Hereafter seems unlikely to be a major player come awards season. Earning a modest recommendation, Hereafter opens wide today.

Posted on October 22nd, 2010 at 10:57am.

LFM Review: The Portuguese Nun

Leonor Baldaque in "The Portuguese Nun."

By Joe Bendel. For his latest film, Eugène Green did not set out to adapt The Letters of a Portuguese Nun, the scandalous epistolary romance now attributed to the Comte de Guilleragues, but he plays a director shooting such a project. Yet, even that film-within-a-film is highly unorthodox in Green’s oddly spiritual The Portuguese Nun (trailer here), which opens this Friday at the Anthology Film Archives in New York.

Julie de Hauranne is a Portuguese-French actress fluent in her mother’s language, but making her first trip to Lisbon for Denis Verde’s avant-garde re-working of The Portuguese Nun. There will be no dialogue and few scenes of her together with her co-star. Instead, they are filming the visuals that will accompany their pre-recorded voice-overs. Those rather easy set-calls allow her plenty of time to explore the city. In doing so, she makes a fleeting, but perhaps deep connection to D. Henrique Cunha, a would-be aristocrat disgraced by his family’s connections to the Salazar and Caetano regimes. She also meets Vasco, a veritable street urchin and becomes fascinated with a real Portuguese nun, Sister Joana, who prays nightly at the candlelit Nossa Senhora do Monte Chapel, a place where the spirit could move even an avowed atheist.

If nothing else, Nun will convince viewers Lisbon is a spectacularly beautiful city. The word “picturesque” just does not cut it—not even by half. Its architectural splendor is perfectly matched by a soundtrack of exquisitely sensitive fados. These things are particularly noticeable since Green seems determined to keep the audience at arm’s length from the on-screen drama.

Rarely do Nun’s verbal cadences ever approach anything realistically conversational. Instead, there is a distinctly recitative quality to the dialogue, which Green emphasizes all the more by regularly directing his cast to deliver their lines straight into the camera in self-conscious close-ups. Though de Hauranne is frequently in motion roaming through the city, the film often feels static, like a series of frozen tableaux. Despite the sparkling sheen of Raphaël O’Byrne’s cinematography, Nun has the rigid formality of medieval paintings. Appropriately, it also takes questions of religious faith just as seriously.

Though one suspects the “North American born,” French-naturalized Green leans somewhat to the left, there are absolutely no cheap shots taken at Catholicism in Nun. Instead, meeting Sister Joana is a transformational experience for de Hauranne. In an exchange one could never find in a Hollywood film, the saintly Nun explicitly connects faith and love with words that are powerful, because they are spoken with humility. Likewise, instead of being a snarky Bill Maher, the worldly actress’s questions elicit heartfelt responses, because they are meant in good faith, so to speak.

Frankly, Nun is a strange film to get a handle on. At times, Leonor Baldaque is so deliberately inexpressive as De Hauranne, she could be mistaken for a bad CGI effect. Though essentially playing himself, Green is nearly just as stiff when appearing as Verde. Conversely, Diogo Dória’s turn as the haunted Cunha is deeply compelling and fundamentally humane, while Ana Moreira radiates piety as Sister Joana.

In terms of method and tone, Nun almost approaches experimental filmmaking, yet it has a romantic soul and a respect for the transcendent faith of Sister Joana that borders on genuine reverence. It also shows unexpected flashes of sardonic wit. Clearly, Nun is intended for an exclusive, self-selecting audience, yet it has moments of arresting beauty well beyond the sights and sounds of Lisbon. It would surely baffle multiplex audiences several times over, but the elusive Nun is highly recommended to the stylistically adventurous. It opens this Friday (10/22) in New York at the Anthology Film Archives.

Posted on October 21st, 2010 at 9:55am.