Category: Tribeca Film Festival

By Joe Bendel. Sex for money can be so liberating – at least, that is what some guys always say. A similar position is staked out in a rather mature new film produced and directed by women and featuring a largely female cast. Even if you adore Juliette Binoche, this is not a film to watch with your parents. However, a lot of people saw it with other people’s parents when it screened at the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival. And mere days later, Malgoska Szumowska’s Elles has opened its conventional theatrical run in New York.

Anne is a wife, a mother, and a freelance writer. Her latest story is a confidential profile of student prostitutes. The assignment came at an awkward period in her marriage, around the same time she busted her husband for a certain kind of net surfing. As she talks to these confident young women, she becomes obsessed with their explicit stories. According to Charlotte and Alicja, their approach to sex is healthier, because there is no hypocrisy. They make a comfortable living exploiting men’s weaknesses of the flesh. Maybe so, but liberation never looked so demeaning.

Films exploring the jujitsu ’empowerment’ of prostitutes are nearly as old as the profession itself. One obvious comparison is Steven Soderbergh’s The Girlfriend Experience, which also screened at Tribeca three years ago. Yet that film, starring an actual pornstar, is far more circumspect in what it depicts. In fact, there is no on-screen sex and only a spot of nudity is to be seen here or there. It is the emotional entanglements surrounding sex that concern GFE. In contrast, Elles jumps right into some of the more explicit scenes you will see in a public theater. And it was not tagged with an NC-17 rating for no reason.

Frankly, Soderbergh had the right idea. Even if Szumowska had a razor sharp analysis of sexual politics to offer, it is hard to get past some of the things she shows the audience. However, the film’s feminist themes are pretty threadbare and the drama is more frustrating than absorbing.

Normally a bedrock of reliability, even Binoche seems a little off here as the journalist. Her reactions to everything often seem wildly disproportionate to the circumstances at hand. Still, Anaïs Demoustier and Joanna Kulig both bring smart, attractive presences to bear on this material. For the record, I briefly met Kulig on the way to a post-screening Q&A and she seems like a lovely and engaging person. I imagine the audience had a lot of questions for her, but whether they had the guts to ask them is another matter entirely. It is also worth noting that the legendary Krystyna Janda (whose credits include Andrzej Wajda’s Man of Marble and Ryszard Bugajski’s The Interrogation) also co-stars in the largely thankless role of Alicja’s mother.

Something about Elles simply does not click. It is not necessarily because of the subject matter, but it makes the lack of depth and cohesion more conspicuous. Due to the accomplished cast, cineastes should have it on their radar, but it is not recommended as a satisfying theater-going experience. After its high profile Tribeca screenings, Elles is now open in New York at the Angelika Film Center.

LFM GRADE: D+

Posted on April 28th, 2012 at 10:38pm.

By Joe Bendel. The Ragunan Zoo is a slightly run down Eden, and the city around it is jungle. One innocent young woman will learn the nature of the world outside in the singularly named Edwin’s Postcards from the Zoo (see clips here), which screened today at the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival.

Abandoned in the zoo as a young girl, Lana simply stayed there, falling in with a group of itinerant workers who do odd jobs around the park and sleep on the premises. Growing up amongst the animals, she seems to have special bond with them, particularly the giraffe. However, her sheltered existence is turned upside down when word comes of the migrant workers’ imminent eviction from the zoo.

Fascinated by a mysterious street magician dressed as a cowboy, Lana is lured out of the park, becoming his assistant and ambiguous companion. While she acclimates to their performance routines, it is not long before she is working at a massage parlor in an even more ambiguous capacity.

Like Lana, Postcards should have never left the zoo. In those early scenes Edwin and cinematographer Sidi Saleh create a breathtakingly delicate, fable-like environment. It is fascinating to watch the quietly subtle ways Lana interacts with the animals. The Ragunan Zoo is also a truly wonderful setting, looking a bit wild and over-run by forest, in a way that further heightens the fantasy atmosphere.

However, once she leaves the idyllic zoo, Postcards becomes a largely by the numbers end-of-innocence tale. While there are arresting visuals to be found throughout the film, usually involving return trips to the zoo, we have been down this road hundreds of times before. Yes, it reflects the reality of Jakarta, which is also why it clashes with everything special in the film. It is also getting emotionally exhausting to see yet another little girl abandoned or abducted in a film from the region. The filmmakers ought to start picking on someone more their size.

Even if Postcards is undermined by its second half, it is impossible to take your eyes off Ladya Cheryl’s Lana. Her earnest engagement and exquisite vulnerability gives the film an emotional center of gravity, preventing it from becoming a mere exercise in archetypal tropes. It is haunting work.

There were obviously some crack animal trainers contributing their talents to Postcards. Cheryl is also an absolutely luminous presence. However, viewers are more likely to fall in love with her or the Ragunan Zoo than Edwin’s movie. Richly crafted but somewhat disappointing, Postcards from the Zoo screened again today (4/28) as this year’s Tribeca Film Festival enters the home stretch.

LFM GRADE: C+

Posted on April 29th, 2012 at 9:31pm.

By Joe Bendel. Jo Nesbø is best known for his gritty detective Harry Hole, but film adaptations of his work have largely focused on the criminal and the compromised. Just as Morten Tyldum’s Headhunters begins its American theatrical run here in New York, Magnus Martens’ even better and bloodier Jackpot (trailer here) screened last night as part of the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival.

Oscar Svendsen is not a criminal, but the artificial Christmas tree factory he works at specializes in hiring released convicts. According to the detective interrogating him, this means he is used to thinking like a crook. Be that as it may, Svendsen certainly has some explaining to do, such as how he came to be found clutching a shotgun beneath a rather large dead woman amid a bloodbath at a strip club. Let the flashback carnage begin.

Reluctantly, Svendsen agreed to enter a betting pool with three of his scariest co-workers. Against all the odds, their dubious betting system produces a twelve-game winning ticket. Everyone should be happy, but when Svendsen returns to his apartment, he finds a dead body. Supposedly their late colleague got greedy and attacked the other two, who killed him in self-defense. Or so they tell Svendsen. True or not, there is a corpse to dispose of. This will get messy. Not for nothing, Svendsen wonders if he will be next.

Based on a Nesbø story, Jackpot is a lot like early Coen Brothers, but with a greater body count. Evidently the process for fabricating fake Christmas trees is a lot like sausage-making, so you know what that means. The pieces are sent flying almost as fast and furiously as the constant double-crosses. Indeed, Martens is not exactly shy in his approach to the material, but he keeps a tight rein on the narrative, never letting the proceedings descend into absolute bedlam.

As Svendsen, the game but unassuming Kyrre Hellum resembles a rag doll being tossed about. However, that works rather well in the context of the film. In contrast, Henrik Mestad displays mucho screen presence, supplying much of the film’s mordant wit as the investigating Detective Solør. Yet even more laughs come from blood-splattered slapstick gags that would make the re-launched Stooges blanch. Still, Svendsen’s three knuckle-headed co-conspirators are all rather generic. Indeed, that lack of a flamboyant villain is the only real knock on the film.

You should probably know by now if Jackpot is your cup of tea. Frankly, the execution (so to speak) is superior to many other films in what could be considered the recent Scandinavian noir invasion, but it definitely makes the typical Tarantino-impersonating film look rather sedate by comparison. For those looking for some good chaotic fun, it definitely fits the bill. Recommended for connoisseurs of outrageous crime drama, Jackpot screens again this weekend as the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival concludes.

LFM GRADE: B+

Posted on April 27th, 2012 at 8:54pm.

By Joe Bendel. A prodigal son plows through a blizzard to make it home for Thanksgiving dinner. However, this will not be the stuff of a Norman Rockwell painting. Instead, his fate will become intertwined with that of two wanted fugitives in Stefan Ruzowitzky’s Deadfall, a chilly thriller from the Academy Award winning director of The Counterfeiters, which screens during the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival.

Having endured a traumatic childhood together, Addison and his sister Liza are now hopelessly codependent. He also has a propensity for violence.  They just knocked over a casino, but a freak accident mars their getaway. Splitting up (for reasons driven more by the narrative than by survival considerations) an exhausted Liza is rescued from the frozen roadside by Jay, an ex-con former Olympic boxer, who through a complicated set of circumstances already suspects the law is after his dumb hide. 

Liza knows the cops are looking for her and Addison, so his parents’ home near the Canadian border sounds like the perfect rendezvous. Much to her surprise though, she quickly develops intense feelings for the dumb palooka, which she can tell are mutual. Liza does not yet know Jay’s father is the former sheriff and his successor’s unappreciated deputy-daughter is a close friend of the family, but she will learn when Jay’s Planes, Trains, and Automobiles story turns into The Desperate Hours.

There are an awful lot of contrivances in Deadfall. Indeed, Jay and Liza fall for each other faster than light-speed. Still, in his case, it might be rather believable, considering he just got out of prison and she is played by Olivia Wilde. In fact, for the most part, Ruzowitzky’s energetic pacing and the conviction of his cast largely overcome the credibility gaps.

Most importantly, Addison and Liza make an excellent villain-femme fatale tandem. Eric Bana compellingly brings out Addison’s avenging angel complex, while Wilde nicely balances Liza’s cunning and vulnerability. Though Charlie Hunnam is not exactly a great thespian, the audience can certainly believe his ex-boxer has taken a number of blows to the head. Not so surprisingly, Sissy Spacek adds a real touch of class to the film, playing Jay’s mother with grace and intelligence.

Despite the ragged edges, Deadfall is an easy man vs. man vs. the elements thriller to get caught up in. Sure to become a family Thanksgiving tradition, it screened yesterday as part of the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on April 27th, 2012 at 1:12am.