By Joe Bendel. Marian Kołodziej’s art is not merely art, but testimony of the unimaginable. It is displayed not in a gallery, but in a labyrinth nestled beneath a small Polish church near Kołodziej’s former residence, Auschwitz. Through his darkly distinctive art, Kołodziej bears witness to the Holocaust in Jason A. Schmidt’s documentary The Labyrinth, which screens this Saturday as part of the shorts program at the 2011 John Paul II International Film Festival in Miami (as well as at the Boulder International Film Fest on the same day).
A youthful member of the Polish resistance, Kołodziej, number 432, was one of the first prisoners at Auschwitz, who were forced to build its architecture of death. Surviving the ordeal, he established a successful career as a set designer, but almost never discussed his horrific experiences. However, when Kołodziej began drawing as part of his therapy for a considerable stroke, the ominous images of the concentration camp came bursting forth.
Explaining the real life sources of his work, Kołodziej’s stories are mostly harrowing, but in rare instances also inspiring. The artist movingly pays tribute to Father Maximilian Kolbe, the Catholic priest who was canonized as a “martyr of charity” for taking the place of another man condemned to die in a starvation chamber. In drawings that are particularly powerful but just as gruesome, Kołodziej often depicts Kolbe comforting his fellow prisoners.
Almost Boschian in their nightmarish detail, Kołodziej’s work conveys the true nature of the Holocaust more compellingly and directly than any narrative feature could ever hope to. No matter how well intentioned or painstakingly produced, audiences are always conscious of a film’s artifice on some level. After two hours screen time, everyone goes back to life as usual. By contrast, each of Kołodziej’s pieces is a moment of agony frozen for all eternity. One can avert one’s eyes, but it will always be there as a silent indictment of the National Socialists’ crimes against humanity.
Respectfully crafted, Schmidt lets Kołodziej’s drawings and words (heard in translation) speak for themselves. Elegant in the simplicity of its approach, the thirty-eight minute Labyrinth is a hauntingly poetic documentary. It is also a perfectly fitting selection for the John Paul II Festival, considering that it was the Polish pontiff who canonized Kolbe and strived to improve the Catholic-Jewish relations throughout his tenure. Highly recommended, it screens this Saturday (2/19) at the FIU Marc Pavilion as part of the JP2FF’s shorts program.
By Jason Apuzzo. I’ve been trying to crystalize my thoughts on the Atlas Shrugged trailer since seeing it Friday. As a coincidence, I recently finished reading Atlas Shrugged – for reasons other than the film’s release, as it turns out, but which nonetheless put me in the mood to see the trailer and get a sense of what the filmmakers had done with the material.
On seeing the trailer, something occurred to me that I’d mentioned to director Paul Johansson when we were on the film’s set – which is that Atlas Shrugged, which was first published in 1957, takes place in a kind of alternate, indefinite future. The precise nature of that future, its look and feel, struck me as being something that a filmmaker could exploit to great advantage, particularly in so far as Rand’s novel veers strongly toward dystopia late in the story – depicting death rays, fascistic military police, optical refractor beams, and the like. Reading the novel, it seemed to me that Rand’s story was rife with possibilities to create a filmic world similar to that of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis or Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner – albeit of a different, less nightmarish cast.
From "Sky Captain and The World of Tomorrow."
What complicates matters, of course, is that our vision of ‘the future’ circa 1957 was much different from our vision of the future today. Rand’s novel deals primarily with the railroad and steel industries, for example, industries that have lost their futuristic sheen amidst the successive eras of the Jet Age, Space Race and Information Age. (In fact, trains and steel had already lost their glamor, so to speak, by the time Rand wrote her novel.) Suffice it to say that today’s Hank Rearden would not likely be pouring steel; nor would Dagny Taggart likely be operating a railroad. Indeed, I suspect Dagny would be somewhere in Silicon Valley pushing forward the boundaries of the Information Age, while Rearden might be in a clean-room designing next-generation microchips.
This, ultimately, is why I think Atlas Shrugged – in order for it to be faithful – is probably best set during the 1950s, albeit in an ‘alternate’ version of the 1950s. I’m thinking here of something like the alternate version of the 1930s presented by Kerry Conran in his flawed but interesting fantasy epic from 2004, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow.
In that similarly low-budget effort, Conran used digital technology to create a stylish, alternate 1930s of flying robots, advanced Nazi superweapons, airplane-submarines and flying air bases in order to bring to life a fanciful story of how World War II ‘might’ have been fought, had a few scientific super-geniuses had their way. This, it seems to me, might’ve been a interesting approach to take with Atlas Shrugged. Ultimately, however, Paul Johansson never really had the opportunity to contemplate such an option – in so far as he was hired to direct Atlas Shrugged just over a week before cameras rolled, an extremely challenging situation for any director, let alone someone charged with a project of this scale.
I don’t think such a retro-futuristic approach would’ve made the film more expensive to do. It is, in fact, quite possible these days to create realistic sci-fi dystopias on a budget. To show one recent example of this, I’ve embedded below the trailer for award-winning writer-director-ILM visual fx designer Grzegorz Jonkajtys’ recent film The 3rd Letter (previously titled, 36 Stairs), about which I’ve posted here at Libertas previously.
The 3rd Letter takes place in a polluted, dystopian future-metropolis in which human beings depend on bio-mechanical alterations in order to withstand the deteriorating climate. The full film is about 15 minutes long, quite lavish in its visual design, and was apparently made on a budget of around $7000. The film quietly speaks volumes about where independent filmmaking is headed, in terms of how technology is currently able to support highly expansive visions.
Contrary to what many people have been saying, I don’t believe Atlas Shrugged is a project that needed a $200 million budget or the participation of Angelina Jolie/Charlize Theron to do it properly. What the film did need, in my opinion, was an audacious cinematic vision to match Rand’s own.
We’ll soon see if that’s what it got.
[Editor’s Note: It also occurs to me since writing this post that, if one were to ‘update’ Atlas Shrugged to the world of today, it would be interesting to have Dagny working in the post-9/11 airline industry, with Rearden providing lighter, stronger metals for her airplanes. Plus: imagine the fun one could have depicting the TSA.]
By Jason Apuzzo. With the protests currently taking place in Iran, we wanted to alert Libertas readers to a short film called Interrupted Lives: Portraits of Student Repression in Iran (see the trailer above). Interrupted Lives is a 20 minute documentary that deals with the repression of free-thinking students by the Iranian government, and specifically examines documented human rights cases of student imprisonment, torture or execution since the 1979 revolution.
The film is available to be seen in full here. Interrupted Lives will be traveling to major university campuses this Spring – including Harvard, Berkeley, and Oxford. We wish the filmmakers the very best in this important effort.
By Joe Bendel. Between war, terrorism, and environmental degradation, this year’s Oscar nominated short documentaries have a nightmare scenario for just about everyone. However, the better nominees also find hope where they can. For the first year ever, the Academy Award nominated short film road show will also include documentaries, split into two program blocks, both of which open today in New York and Los Angeles.
Jed Rothstein’s Killing in the Name was born in tragedy. Co-produced by Carie Lemack, whose mother was murdered at the World Trade Center, Name profiles Ashraf Al-Khaled, her fellow terrorism survivor and co-founder of Global Survivors Network. Al-Khaled will tell you that Islam is the religion of peace, and he has earned the right to say it. On his wedding day, a suicide bomber targeted the Jordanian hotel hosting his reception, killing his father and in-laws. Since then, Al-Khaled has become an outspoken critic of Islamist terrorism, challenging other Muslims to speak out more forcefully. As he reminds them, it is their co-religionists who are most likely to be the victims of their attacks.
While outwardly unassuming, Al-Khaled will boldly confront anyone in his quest to de-radicalize Islam, even “Zaid,” an Al Qaeda recruiter. Not surprisingly, Zaid proves to be a craven coward, refusing to meet Al-Khaled, instead consenting only to answer his questions through Rothstein. Yet, it is not just Al-Qaeda that glorifies wanton killing. The attitudes of children at an Indonesian madrassa are downright chilling. Frankly, Al-Khaled sounds like he is kidding himself when he speaks of planting seeds of doubt in them, but again, he has earned the right to a little self-deception at that point. Though only thirty-nine minutes, Name is easily one of the most illuminating documentary examinations of terrorism to play the festival circuit.
Like Al-Khaled, Zhang Gongli also fights to make the world a safer place. A farmer in Central China, Zhang became a self-taught legal activist, who challenged the chemical plant poisoning his region as well as the local Communist Party authorities which protected it. Aided by an Chinese environmental NGO, Zhang’s struggles are documented in Ruby Yang’s The Warriors of Qiugang. Eventually privatized, the serial polluting began while the plant was a state enterprise. Indeed, it was the local Party that first turned a gang of thugs loose on the village in an attempt to intimidate the activists. It would be a strategy the plant would repeat, with the local authorities’ acquiescence.
Though largely compatible with the no-frills observational approach of the so-called Digital Generation of independent Chinese filmmakers, Warriors also features occasional grimly stylized animated sequences. It is a searing indictment of the Chinese government’s hypocrisy, not simply in terms of environmental protection, but even more fundamental human rights. While hardly concluding with everything happily resolved, it is definitely an encouraging David-and-Goliath story.
For inspiration, none of the nominees can compete with Karen Goodman and Kirk Simon’s Strangers No More. There is a country where immigrants fleeing war and civil strife finally feel safe enough to allow their children to enroll in school (in many cases for the first time ever): that country is Israel. Yes, the irony is not lost on the teachers of Tel Aviv’s Bialik-Rogozin school, where students from forty-eight countries find a safe harbor every day. Focusing on students from Ethiopia and Sudan, we see Bialik-Rogozin’s Hebrew immersion strategy pay dramatic dividends. Clearly, what they do at that school works. Though Goodman and Simon avoid making the obvious point, it is worth noting you will not find a comparable institution anywhere else in the region.
Inspiring and disturbing in equal measure, Name and Warriors are excellent films, highly recommended in any context. They play together as part of Program A, along with Jennifer Redfearn’s Sun Come Up. Following a group of South Pacific Islanders who must relocate due to rising sea levels, reportedly the result of global warming, Redfearn wisely does not overplay the environmental card. While it raises a few interesting anthropological-sociological issues, ultimately Sun’s POV figures simply are not as compelling as those of the other nominees.
Strangers is a totally grounded, legitimately feel-good movie, also enthusiastically recommended. Unfortunately, it plays with Sara Nesson’s Poster Girl, a film top-heavy with the director’s agenda. It profiles Sergeant Robynn Murray, who was once on the cover of ARMY magazine, thus making her the “poster girl” for the war, at least if you were a serviceman or retiree who saw the magazine and somehow still remembers it. While Nesson’s approach borders on the exploitative, it is certainly heartrending to watch as Murray learns first-hand how problematic government-run healthcare truly is. (In contrast, the Renaud Brothers’ Warrior Champions stands as example of how to sensitively address PTSD, without turning it into a political football.)
Three out of five is pretty good by Oscar standards. Indeed, Name, Warriors, and Strangers each provide real insight into the state of the world and a small measure of hope that average people can have a constructive impact on big macro-level problems. Both Oscar nominated documentary short programs open today (2/11) in New York and Los Angeles.
By Joe Bendel. It seems like every hipster filmmaker wants to make a retro-grindhouse movie these days, but the results are usually pretty lame. The truth is, real-deal grindhouse auteurs did not have time for posing. They had to get their shots before the cops shut them down. The subversive attitude of their oeuvre flowed organically from their dodgy working environment, thoroughly infusing the zero-budget cult films Elijah Drenner lovingly surveys in American Grindhouse, which opened last Friday in New York.
“Exploitation” films were independently produced movies with some grabby element to “exploit” which audiences could not otherwise find from mainstream studio fare. Though not necessarily limited to sex and violence, those were certainly the biggies. Drugs and circus freaks were also reliable hooks. Such films were typically booked into seedy, pre-Giuliani-era Times Square-style theaters, often playing continuously without formal start times (hence the grind in grindhouse).
Drenner and his battery of film scholars start with the silent era, when Universal hit pay dirt with Traffic in Souls, a rather sensationalistic story of white slavery – carrying the fig leaf of a progressive reform message. It established the template many exploitation filmmakers would profitably follow for decades, including the so-called “Forty Thieves” emerging in 1930’s.
Grindhouse surveys a number of rather self-explanatory sub-genres, like “birth of a baby” movies, beach party movies, faux nudist documentaries, “nudie cuties,” “roughies,” women-in-prison films, Nazi-exploitation (exemplified with class and distinction by Ilsa: She-Wolf of the SS), and the ageless blaxploitation picture. Amongst his many talking heads, Drenner notably scored sit-down interview time with Fred Williamson, of Black Caesar and Hell Up in Harlem fame, who looks and sounds as cool as ever.
While Grindhouse focuses squarely on the filmmakers, it is not a cheap tease. Indeed, many of the voluminous clips from the seminal classics under discussion are real eye-poppers. Still, Drenner maintains the right balance of (half-) serious cultural history and crowd pleasing naughty bits.
Well-stocked with wild stories and vintage scenes of pure lunacy, Grindhouse is a whole lot of fun, sort of like an old-school Hollywood Boulevard version of That’s Entertainment. Like the “birth of a baby” films it documents, Grindhouse is in fact educational, but its subject matter is definitely mature. Ultimately, it is a winning tribute to genuinely independent filmmakers, marginalized and even demonized though they might have been. Heartily recommended to those who already have a good idea what they will be getting into, Grindhouse opened this past Friday in New York at the Cinema Village.
By Jason Apuzzo. Here is more interesting footage from the streets of Cairo, in this case from a documentarian named Oliver Wilkins.
There are reporters and documentarians who have been doing some excellent work in Egypt as this protest unfolds, professionals trying to capture the tenor of these demonstrations and the complex undercurrents driving them. You will see many different opinions expressed by the protestors in this video – not all of which I’m happy about, incidentally. In any case, it makes for interesting viewing.
A youthful member of the Polish resistance, Kołodziej, number 432, was one of the first prisoners at Auschwitz, who were forced to build its architecture of death. Surviving the ordeal, he established a successful career as a set designer, but almost never discussed his horrific experiences. However, when Kołodziej began drawing as part of his therapy for a considerable stroke, the ominous images of the concentration camp came bursting forth.
