By Joe Bendel. Life as the only admitted alcoholic in a small coastal Irish village is difficult for Syracuse (Colin Farrell), especially with his mean-spirited ex-wife constantly belittling him in front of his wheelchair-bound daughter, Annie. It is easy to see how both father and daughter would welcome a bit of fantasy into their lives in Neil Jordan’s Ondine (see the trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York, following its high-profile run at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival. Syracuse made a hash of his life through binge drinking. Now on the wagon, he uses the church confessional as his surrogate AA meeting. Barely eking out a subsistence living, one day he pulls up his fishing nets and finds a beautiful woman tangled up inside. Adamant that she not be seen by anyone, Syracuse lets her recover at his recently deceased mother’s ramshackle cottage.
Though Syracuse tells Annie about the mystery woman calling herself Ondine as if it were a fairy tale, the bright young girl automatically assumes it to be the truth. Inevitably, Annie soon meets the woman she believes to be a ‘selkie,’ a mermaid like creature from Celtic mythology, half convincing her father and perhaps even Ondine herself with her ardent conviction. Yet, Jordan periodically drops hints that Ondine’s origins might be darker and worldlier than Annie’s romanticized version of reality.
The human need to believe in something good and edifying lies at the heart of Ondine, but Jordan also deftly incorporates themes of family and personal responsibility. Completely shedding his movie star persona, Colin Farrell is thoroughly convincing and undeniably likable as Syracuse, despite the character’s myriad faults. Indeed, he is the lynchpin of the movie, serving as the tragically flawed moral center of this emotionally deep film. Continue reading Review: Neil Jordan’s Ondine
Republican Congressman Joseph Cao (right) along with protester.
By Joe Bendel. Most armchair political analysts were stunned when Joseph Cao, a Vietnamese-American Republican, defeated scandal-plagued Democrat William “Big Freeze” Jefferson to represent nearly the entire city of New Orleans in Congress. Alas, party registration will likely represent a challenge for Rep. Cao’s re-election. However, he will have an important base of support in the Crescent City’s Vietnamese community, whose strength and resiliency has emerged as a major post-Katrina political development.
Documenting the unexpected rise of the New Orleans East neighborhood that challenged an out-of-touch municipal government and ultimately elected the nation’s first Vietnamese-American congressional representative, S. Leo Chiang’s A Village Called Versailles (see the trailer here) airs this coming Tueday (check your local listings) as part of the current season of Independent Lens on most PBS outlets.
Many of the older Vietnamese residents of the Versailles neighborhood (named after a large housing complex in Eastern New Orleans) had already endured two painful dislocations. Mostly from two predominantly Catholic towns in the North, they had first fled the North Vietnamese Communists to the South, only to come to America as refugees following the fall of Saigon. Indeed, the Katrina evacuation brought back many painful memories.
However, this time they returned – reclaiming their homes and neighborhood – in large measure thanks to the unifying role played by Father Vien Nguyen and the Catholic Church. Unfortunately, their rebuilding efforts were nearly sabotaged when then “Mayor” Ray Nagin used dubious emergency powers to dump an environmentally questionable landfill in their midst. Continue reading Faith & Activism in New Orleans: A Village Called Versailles
By Joe Bendel. After Danis Tanović’s No Man’s Land won the 2002 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and Jasmila Žbanić’s Grbavica captured the Golden Bear at the 2006 Berlin Film Festival, serious fest watchers had to take Bosnia’s small but accomplished film industry seriously. Unlike most former captive nations, recent Bosnian films have been less likely to address the Soviet experience, instead focusing on the 1994 war. Those ghosts could again be seen in the selections of the Seventh Annual Bosnian-Herzegovinian Film Festival, which is perhaps ironically one of the friendliest fests in New York.
Indeed, the war loomed large in all three programming blocks of three features preceded by a number of shorts. Though already available on DVD (and streaming on Netflix), Hans-Christian Schmid’s Storm (trailer above) would probably be of the most interest to Libertas readers, given its cynical view of the International Criminal Court – portrayed as a typical government office, full of petty corruption and bloated egos. Struggling to prosecute a Bosnian Serb accused of war crimes, Hannah Maynard’s case is in danger of imminent collapse unless she can convince a reluctant witness to come forward. Her serpentine boss, a master at navigating the Court’s roiling bureaucratic waters, backs her efforts, but only so far.
Storm is a German-Danish-Dutch co-production directed by a German starring a Romanian actress as a Bosnian, but its lingua franca is English, with some subtitled German, Bosnian, and Serbian thrown in for good measure. It might be an international affair, but it hardly engenders confidence in aspiring world-governing bodies like the international court. The performances though, especially Romanian Anamaria Marinca and the jowly Rolf Lassgård as Maynard’s world weary Swedish lover, are quite impressive. Political but genuinely nuanced, Storm is an intriguing film worth checking out (despite a Hollywood-style ending that seems at odds with the rest of the film).
From "Sevdah."
A meditation of Sevdalinka, the Bosnian blues, Marina Andree’s Sevdah is also haunted by the war. Representing a culture under siege for Bosnians exiled during the war, the documentary captures the beautiful melancholy of the music. Particularly memorable were a Sendalinka rendition of Gershwin’s “Summertime” and a Delta Blues take on a Sevdalinka standard.
Easily the oddest selection of this or any year’s BHFF was Geoffrey Alan Rhodes and Steven Eastwood’s Buried Land, which recently had its world premiere at Tribeca. Incorporating elements of fictionalized documentary, mockumentary, and performance art video, Land ostensibly documents a film crew shooting a film about the Visoko Pyramids, which may or may not be monuments of an ancient civilization predating the Egyptian pyramids (most experts seem to be skeptical).
In Rhodes and Eastwood’s film, most of the local Bosnians embrace the pyramids as a positive development for their country following the horrors of war. However, they are skeptical of the film crew, fearing they will try to give them the “Borat” treatment — concerns that soon appear to be justified. [Thanks for giving us a bad name, Hollywood and Sacha Baron Cohen.] It is hard to judge, but Land could well be an ironic statement on either provincial gullibility or media cynicism (or both). It is a strange hybrid, but the scenery is striking. Defying easy classification and description, Land is a film for those who appreciate cleverness more than emotional engagement in cinema. It definitely made for a diverse slate at this year’s BHFF.
BHFF might be one of the smaller New York fest (for now), but it always has something good to cover. Usually coming hard on the heels of Tribeca, it is worth sticking around New York for.
The new Libertas Film Magazine (LFM) is almost here! LFM is a new on-line film magazine focusing on the idea of freedom as expressed in movies and popular culture.
LFM celebrates the democratizing of film. Talented, free-thinking artists from America and around the world are currently using digital technology to make films that celebrate freedom and the individual. LFM will feature the best of these independent and foreign films – and occasionally even Hollywood films – that promote the ideas and values vital to the future of democratic civilization.
Stayed tuned for the launch of LFM on May 19th, 2010! The independent film world will never be the same. LFM is the new voice for freedom in movies and popular culture. Join us each day … and free your mind.
By Joe Bendel. Life as the only admitted alcoholic in a small coastal Irish village is difficult for Syracuse (Colin Farrell), especially with his mean-spirited ex-wife constantly belittling him in front of his wheelchair-bound daughter, Annie. It is easy to see how both father and daughter would welcome a bit of fantasy into their lives in Neil Jordan’s Ondine (see the trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York, following its high-profile run at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival.
Syracuse made a hash of his life through binge drinking. Now on the wagon, he uses the church confessional as his surrogate AA meeting. Barely eking out a subsistence living, one day he pulls up his fishing nets and finds a beautiful woman tangled up inside. Adamant that she not be seen by anyone, Syracuse lets her recover at his recently deceased mother’s ramshackle cottage.
