Category: Documentary

By Joe Bendel. Twice they answered the call to protect democracy, prevailing against the odds each time. In 1948, a number of former American WWII military pilots volunteered to fly for the fledgling state of Israel when it was under attack from nearly the entire Arab world. They were vastly outgunned and outnumbered, but their experience and sheer guts became game-changers. Director Roberta Grossman and producer Nancy Spielberg (sister of the other filmmaker named Spielberg) chronicle the birth of the Israeli Air Force in Above and Beyond, which opens this Friday in New York.

When the Arab nations launched the War of 1948, it looked pretty grim for Israel. The Israeli military did not have a single plane to its name, but the Egyptians had an extensive fleet. Rectifying the situation would be a tricky business. Although Pres. Truman supported the creation of Israel, his foreign policy advisors were much less enthusiastic. In fact, they pushed through an arms embargo, ostensibly for the entire region, but disproportionately falling on the almost entirely unarmed Israel.  It was not like there were not plenty of surplus fighter planes leftover from WWII. Fortunately, engineer Al Schwimmer (formerly with TWA and Lockheed) devised a plan to smuggle planes from America to Israel.

Of course, he also had to recruit pilots, such as Lou Lenart, whose Lindberg-like flight over the Mediterranean serves as the film’s gripping prologue. They were not just risking their lives, they were also risking their American citizenship and perhaps even their liberty for violating the Neutrality Act, but they had their reasons. While not necessarily ardent Zionists, most predominantly but not exclusively Jewish volunteers were determined to avoid a repeat of the Holocaust’s genocidal horrors. However, they were still military aviators, with all the swagger you would expect.

Above documents a truly desperate time in Israeli history, yet it is also hugely engaging, thanks to the boisterous reminiscences of the surviving volunteers. They all have great stories to tell, but Grossman and Spielberg were particularly blessed by the documentary gods when they sat down with Gideon Lichtman, who couldn’t tell a boring story if he tried.

Through its first-person interviews and supplemental commentaries, Above assembles a full portrait of Squadron 101’s early days that is chocked full of fascinating episodes. Shrewdly, it refrains from playing the conspiracy card with respects to the untimely death of legendary ace Canadian volunteer Buzz Beurling, but its straight reporting of the facts still makes you wonder.

This is a flat-out terrific film that is not ashamed to celebrate heroism and derring-do attitude. Indeed, it is truly inspiring (and often wickedly funny) to hear the volunteers recount their exploits. Grossman and company have crafted a fitting platform for their oral history, supplying solid historical context and some surprisingly cinematic visuals. Rigorously researched and wildly entertaining, Above and Beyond is very highly recommended (especially for students) when it opens this Friday (1/30) in New York, at the Village East.

LFM GRADE: A

Posted on January 26th, 2015 at 5:57pm.

By Joe Bendel. Turning Superman into a bomb-banning peacenik was an idea destined to fail. Nobody should have understood that better than the men who brought the world the American Ninja franchise. Unfortunately, they got caught up in the deal and the predictable failure of Superman IV: the Quest for Peace spelled the beginning of the end for scrappy Cannon Films. The rise and fall of the self-made, 1980s defining moguls Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus are chronicled in Hilla Medalia’s The Go-Go Boys: the Inside Story of Cannon Films, which screens during the 2015 New York Jewish Film Festival.

While working in his native Israel, Menahem Golan attained a level of international respect for films that combined popular appeal with critical respectability, such as his Oscar nominated Operation Thunderbolt. His first English language productions were not so successful, but he kept trying until he found the right formula. Indeed, formula would be the right word. With his cousin, Yoram Globus, Golan acquired Cannon Films, turning it into the little studio that could, by releasing a series of cheaply produced but highly satisfying action movies.

With a regular stable of stars that included Chuck Norris (including the Delta Force and Missing in Action series), Charles Bronson (especially the Death Wish sequels), Michael Dudikoff (American Ninja), and a Belgian waiter named Jean-Claude Van Damme, Cannon became the action house of its era. Any guy who remembers the 1980s will have fond memories of Cannon. When Golan and Globus respected their competitive advantages, they were wildly profitable. In fact, Cannon became notoriously successful pre-selling films they had not yet made (a standard practice these days), largely on the strength of the stars they had signed and a bankable concept.

Even dabbling in art cinema did not doom the Cannon empire. The same team behind Ninja III: the Domination (a longstanding fan favorite) also scored an Academy Award for foreign language film for the Dutch WWII drama The Assault. In some cases, they even leveraged distribution for prestige pictures with their signature action movies. Unfortunately, when the more artistically ambitious Golan convinced the fundraiser-extraordinaire Globus to start bankrolling traditional studio level budgets, the box office results were disastrous.

Anyone who loves martial arts films and B-movies will inhale Go-Go Boys. Medalia scored long in-depth sit-down interviews with the late Golan and the surviving Globus, even capturing their reunion after years of estrangement. She also talks to most of the principle supporting players, including a highly animated Van Damme and a more reflective Dudikoff. It is also nice to see Andrei Konchalovsky get his due as a Cannon artist (most notably for Runaway Train). However, the oversight of the late great cult action star Steve James, who played an important role in many iconic Cannon hits, is frankly inexcusable.

Clearly in retrospect, Cannon never should have never bothered with the middling middle ground. Their bread-and-butter action films like Avenging Force and Bloodsport still hold up to this day, while their art house releases, such as Norman Mailer’s Tough Guys Don’t Dance and Godard’s King Lear remain distinctive for their idiosyncrasies. For the most part, Medalia gives them their due in a breezily affectionate profile. Even though the absence of James will annoy fans, The Go-Go Boys is still recommended for cult film connoisseurs when it screens twice this Thursday (1/29) at the Walter Reade Theater, as part of this year’s NYJFF.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on January 26th, 2015 at 5:56pm.

Natan – Trailer from screenworksfilmandtv on Vimeo.

By Joe Benel. Bernard Natan (born Natan Tannenzaft) should have been the Louis B. Mayer of France and for a while he was. Unfortunately, a Jewish mogul helming the storied Pathé film studio was more than the French establishment could handle. With the help of a dubious “whistleblower” and an unfortunate secret in his past, the French media destroyed Natan’s reputation and largely erased him from the cinema history books. David Cairns & Paul Duane defend the groundbreaking producer from malicious slander and historical neglect in their expressionistic documentary Natan, which screens during the 2015 New York Jewish Film Festival.

Since Natan lived in 1930s France and his doc was selected by the NYJFF, you can probably guess why he is not capable of defending himself. He did indeed perish in a German concentration camp, after the French authorities eagerly deported him, but there is far more to the story than that.

Natan was a Romanian Jew, who became a naturalized French citizen after honorably serving his adopted country in WWI. He had an instinctive affinity for motion pictures, scuffling his way from a projectionist and lab technician to a scrappy mini-magnate, who acquired the famous Pathé brand when Charles Pathé decided to liquidate rather than deal with the advent of sound. Unfortunately, while he was still a desperately poor immigrant, Natan was convicted of peddling dirty movies. Much will be made of this later, to the detriment of Natan’s historical standing.

Even though it is the last thing Natan would probably want, his docu-exoneration will make you despise the French. It will not do much for most viewers’ estimation of film historians either, particularly those that specialize in “stag films.” Frankly, as screenwriter, Cairns thoroughly persuades the audience to consider Natan a mid-Twentieth Century Job, who was done wrong by nearly all quarters.

Especially mind-blowing is the role of a rather unsavory figure named Robert Dirler, who wormed his way onto the Pathé board to undermine Natan, despite his criminal record and suspicious German connections. That last part gives one pause, does it not? To their credit, Cairns & Duane do not overplay the conspiracy card, but the shadowy Dirler clearly merits further research.

The film also uses various stylistic strategies that are likely to be divisive. Cairns & Duane often depict exaggerated re-enactments from Natan’s life, featuring the producer with a large papier-mâché head, largely modeled on National Socialist propaganda, including a famous exhibit in occupied Paris, prominently featuring Natan. It is somewhat distractingly surreal at times, but there is an underlying point to it. In fact, it makes Natan considerably more distinctive visually than most documentaries.

The eerily sensitive score by Irish Alt band Seti the First further distinguishes the production. Cairns & Duane also incorporate plenty of clips from Natan’s acknowledged classics, such as Marco de Gastyne’s La Merveilleuse Vie de Jeanne d’Arc, but aside from Serge Bromberg (admittedly quite the fitting expert commentator), the French cinema establishment is largely absent. It just makes them look all the worse. In a mere sixty-seven minutes, the film assembles a damnably convincing case that inspires rage and sorrow in equal measure. Anyone who takes cinema seriously as an artistic and commercial endeavor really should see it. Highly recommended, Natan screens twice this Wednesday (1/28) at the Walter Reade Theater (with How to Break Into Yiddish Vaudeville) as part of this year’s NYJFF.

LFM GRADE: A-

Posted on January 25th, 2015 at 2:57pm.

By Joe Bendel. Mies van der Rohe’s Seagram Building might be an exemplar of International style architecture, but its glass and steel basically are what they are. That is often the case with his American work, but the Villa Tugendhat in Brno is something else entirely. While it still reflects his modernist aesthetic, it also happens to a house that breathes and welcomes occupants. It is a surprisingly livable space, which is why it has been consistently repurposed by subsequent appropriating regimes. Dieter Reifarth chronicles the history of the home and its original [rightful] owners in The Tugendhat House, which screens during this year’s New York Jewish Film Festival.

Reifarth opens the documentary by opening up Tugendhat House, slowly panning through its restored rooms and open flowing spaces, as disembodied voices read the polarized reviews it originally garnered in the architectural press. The Tugendhats no longer reside here, thanks to the National Socialists and the Communists who followed them, but philosopher Ernst Tugendhat fondly remembers the years he lived there as a small boy. So does one Tugendhat sister, but the youngest was born while the family was in exile. However, the entire Tugendhat-Guggenhein-Hammer family takes an active interest in the restoration campaign, including one who happens to be a refurbishment expert.

Although they lost many extended family members to the Holocaust, the Tugendhat nucleus managed to get out while the getting was good, resettling in Switzerland and later Venezuela. Given their sensibilities, it is rather remarkable the Tugendhat House survived the Nazi and Soviet occupations. While the Germans simply used it as another piece of prime real estate to dole out as they deemed fit, the Communist authorities fashioned it into a long-term children’s spinal clinic. Frankly, the Tugendhat form seems completely ill-suited to such a function, but former patients found the natural light quite cheerful. Decades later, the final divorce decree between the Czech and Slovak Republics was ironed out there, permanently fixing the building in the Czech collective memory.

T House is an unusually balanced fusion of architectural appreciation and sweeping history. If you don’t know Ludwig Mies van der Rohe from Ludwig von Mises you might find many passages of the film rather archi-geeky. Nevertheless, Reifarth really gives you a vivid sense of the villa as a distinctive space and place. He also doggedly follows the twists of the Tugendhat family story, as well as the wider cultural context of their increasingly iconic home.

After watching T House, the Villa Tugendhat will almost assuredly become viewers’ favorite Mies van der Rohe building, which may or may not be thunderous bragging rights given their respective interest in the art and practice of architecture, but that still means it is rather smart and effective as a work of documentary filmmaking. Of course, for those who are well versed in Mies van der Rohe and the International School, it is like catnip. Yet everyone should find some meaning in the tragedies and resiliency of the Tugendhats’ exile experience. Highly recommended for those fascinated by the art and history under discussion, The Tugendhat House screens this coming Wednesday (1/28) at the Walter Reade Theater, as part of the 2015 NYJFF.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on January 24th, 2015 at 5:57pm.