By Joe Bendel. When watching a mongoose take out his hissing foe in Israel’s first nature documentary, the allegory is almost too easy to draw. Fortunately, Israel has been the scrappy mongoose, not only defending the only civilized corner of the Middle East but also preserving considerable areas of pristine nature. Moshe Alpert documents three species of mammals raising their young in the wild habitats of Israel most people never knew existed in Land of Genesis, which screens during the upcoming 2011 Israel Film Festival in New York.
Genesis will radically change how many people think of Israel, particularly the Golan Heights, where two wolves are starting their own pack. Likewise, the Sea of Galilee probably has much different associations for viewers than as the habitat for swamp cats. At least the desert might seem like a fitting environment for exotic species, like the ibexes Alpert follows. Continue reading LFM Review: Land of Genesis @ The 2011 Israel Film Festival in New York
By Joe Bendel. There are more Polish citizens recognized by the State of Israel as Righteous among the Nations than any other nationality. Irena Sendler was not just one of the Polish rescuers. She was an underground ringleader. Yet it was not until long after the fall of Communism that the Catholic Sendler was widely hailed for her heroism. Featuring Sendler’s final interview of appreciable length, Mary Skinner’s documentary profile records her words and deeds for posterity in Irena Sendler: In the Name of Their Mothers, which airs on PBS stations across the country on Holocaust Remembrance Day, this Sunday. Continue reading Holocaust Remembrance Day on PBS: Irena Sendler & Prisoner of her Past
By Joe Bendel. Mother Klitschko is no fun. She expressly prohibited her boxer sons Vitali and Wladimir from fighting each other. Of course, that is exactly what the boxing world wants to see. Sebastian Dehnhardt profiles the two well-educated Ukrainian brothers who rose to the top of the boxing ranks, got knocked down, and clawed their way back in the simply but aptly titled documentary Klitschko, which screens at the 2011 Tribeca Film Festival.
The Klitschko brothers.
Growing up military brats, the Klitschko brothers’ father was an ardent Communist. However, he would pay for his blind faith, when his unit responded to the Chernobyl crisis without adequate protective gear. Fortunately when his cancer inevitably surfaced, the Klitschkos already had sufficient means to provide their father with the best of western medicine. Coincidentally, the now cancer-free Col. Klitschko has had a complete ideological change of heart, at least according to his sons.
Though not technically twins, the Klitschko boys were always big and nearly impossible to tell apart. The older Vitali actually started out as a kick-boxer while so-called “Western martial arts” were prohibited in the Orwellian Soviet Union. Eventually the Klitschkos switched to boxing, where fighters could make serious money. Due to inopportune injuries, they lost several high profile bouts they should have won. The elder Klitschko was especially dogged by the quitter epithet. Yet, both brothers would have their Rocky moments in the ring.
Klitschko the film is definitely produced with boxing fans in mind. However, those who follow post-Soviet politics will also find Dehnhardt’s documentary engaging. A reformer, the elder Klitschko was even elected to the Kiev City Council for two stormy terms. The film is also unexpectedly (and unfortunately) topical, given the increased interest in the Chernobyl disaster following the near-repeat in Fukushima. Continue reading LFM Review: Klitschko @ Tribeca 2011
By Joe Bendel. In Terminator 2, the villain of the previous film comes back as the hero of the sequel. Such is also the case with Chris Paine’s latest film, except it is a documentary. The freshly reformed protagonist? General Motors. The times just might be changing after all in Paines’ Revenge of the Electric Car, which premiered recently at the 2011 Tribeca Film Festival.
According to Paine’s Who Killed the Electric Car, despite enthusiastic driver feedback, GM recalled their experimental EV-1, while twisting its mustache and laughing maniacally. Instead, they ramped up production on Hummers. The end, or is it? Fast-forward a few years and meet Bob Lutz, the Vice Chairman of the automotive giant. The car executive’s car executive, Lutz is no tree-hugger. Yet, like Saul on the road to Damascus, Lutz fundamentally changed his mind about the feasibility and desirability of electric cars. Only Lutz has the prestige to put GM back in the electric business and the guts to allow their old nemesis to document it.
Revenge has other protagonists, like Elon Musk, the tech-centric entrepreneur, who made his fortune with Pay Pal before starting Tesla Motors. Sleek and striking, these sports cars are probably too elite to change the world, but they ought to make electric cool. Unfortunately, Musk has trouble filling customer orders (including Paine’s). As more mass market competition, Nissan chairman Carlos Ghosn has “bet the future” of his company on electric, but that shoe has yet to drop.
It is important to note, none of these ventures are the result of government mandates. Indeed, they are highly speculative ventures that might just short circuit careers and fortunes. To his credit, Paine himself gives due credit to the captains of industry and entrepreneurs of Revenge. Though he retracts nothing from his previous film, it is clear he and pre-government takeover GM made a lasting peace.
Of course, Bob Lutz is a major reason why. Although Paine probably has a naturally affinity for the Silicon Valley-based Musk, Lutz’s curmudgeonly charm dominates the film. The camera loves the cigar chomping old school executive far more than the icy Ghosn or the cerebral Musk. (While Revenge eventually addresses the government bail-out, most of the GM segments deal with Lutz’s early championing of the hitherto underwhelming Volt.) Continue reading LFM Review: Revenge of the Electric Car @ Tribeca 2011
By Joe Bendel. Class warfare can be ugly. When allowed access to power, it might be deadly. Just ask Paco Larrañaga. A perfect storm of sensational journalism and judicial-political malfeasance combined to rob him not just of his liberty, but perhaps even his life in Michael Collins’ documentary exposé Give Up Tomorrow (trailer above), which screens during the 2011 Tribeca Film Festival.
Larrañaga is an innocent man. Thirty-five of his teachers and classmates will testify he was nowhere near the island of Cebu when the Chong sisters disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Unfortunately, they never had an adequate opportunity to testify on Larrañaga’s behalf. Though just one of the so-called “Chiong Seven,” the media focused like a laser beam on Larrañaga, the son of the working middle class branch of the Kennedyesque Osmeña family. His trial was duly hyped up in explicit class warfare terms, creating a toxic environment for the defense.
Collins (with the close collaboration of producer Marty Syjuco, a distant relative of Larrañaga) picks the resulting kangaroo court apart like a skilled prosecutor. Right from his arrest, highly relevant information was deliberately disregarded by the police and prosecution, including the Chiong father’s close ties to reputed drug kingpin Peter Lim, whom he was scheduled to testify against the day after his daughters’ disappearance.
It seems Cebu is a small world after all, when Collins reveals several of the investigating officers also had ties to Lim. Indeed, they provide some of the most obvious lying ever seen on film when Collins grills them about their initial investigation. However, the Chiong sisters’ mother, Thelma, might be the most problematic figure in this scandal – ruthlessly exploiting her personal connections to the president at the time, the thoroughly corrupt populist (a redundancy, perhaps) Joseph Estrada, to pillory Larrañaga and his codefendants in the collusive media.
On one level, Tomorrow is a simple story: Larrañaga was railroaded for a crime he did not commit. Yet the case developed a series of bizarre twists and turns that Collins follows with remarkable clarity. Ironies truly abound when Larrañaga, a dual citizen as the son of a Spanish national, turns to the former colonial power as a last resort. Yet, the film preserves a sense of suspense regarding Larrañaga’s ultimate fate. Continue reading LFM Review: Give Up Tomorrow @ Tribeca 2011
By Joe Bendel. It was a country that never really existed with an economic system that never worked. Obviously, Communist Yugoslavia needed constant distractions. Avala, the now decrepit Yugoslav state film studio responded with a constant stream of propaganda pictures, varying widely in quality. Mila Turajlic revisits the films and filmmakers who brought Tito’s version of reality to Yugoslavia’s movie-houses in Cinema Komunisto (trailer above), which screens during the 2011 Tribeca Film Festival.
It was good to be the Marshal. A lifelong film buff, Josip Broz Tito had a private screening almost every night of his reign. Unlike other Communist strongmen, he enjoyed Hollywood films as well as the Avala productions he took such an active interest in. According to his personal projectionist, one of his favorite actors was none other than John Wayne. He probably appreciated the Duke’s World War II films.
Indeed, the war was nearly ubiquitous in his state propaganda pictures. According to actor Bata Zivojinovic, many of his films simply consisted of him killing Germans from beginning to end. While not exactly ambitious, there is something to be said for the red meat approach. However, Avala also produced some legitimate prestige pictures, including the epic Battle of Neretva, featuring major stars from the West, including Yul Brynner, Orson Welles, and the Zagreb-born Sylva Koscina. A darling on the international festival circuit, Pablo Picasso was convinced to create the film’s poster.
Neretva was not an aberration. Western studios co-financed several productions with Avala and shot a number of films on location in Yugoslavia, often because of the country’s ready supply of vintage WWII era military hardware and their willingness to blow it up when required by the script. The Hollywood-Avala connection arguably reached its pinnacle when Richard Burton agreed to play Tito in the first sanctioned bio-picture of the soon to be declared President-for-Life. (With Elizabeth Taylor in tow, he looks distinctly woozy in vintage publicity footage unearthed by Turajlic.) Continue reading LFM Review: Cinema Komunisto @ Tribeca 2011
