Category: Watch Movies!

Voices from the Killing Fields: Enemies of the People

By Joe Bendel. Euphemisms can be terrible instruments of evil.  For instance, when former Khmer Rouge cadres speak of “solving problems” what they really refer to is the systematic torture and execution of roughly two million Cambodians, whose only crime was to be deemed insufficiently Communist.  Thet Sambath understands this all too well.  After losing his parents and brother to the Khmer Rouge reign of terror, he spent years interviewing former cadres to understand why they killed their countrymen.  His self-funded investigation ultimately resulted in Enemies of the People (trailer above), a truly newsworthy documentary co-directed by Rob Lemkin, which opens in New York this Friday and in Los Angeles next week.

A newspaper journalist in Phnom Penh, Sambath’s quiet, unassuming demeanor is perfectly suited to winning the confidences of his interview subjects.  However, he does not advertize his tragic family history, especially not with the big fish, Nuon Chea, a.k.a. Brother Number Two, the Khmer Rouge’s chief theoretician – second only to Pol Pot (Brother Number One).  For years, the largely silent Chea has maintained his ignorance of the Killing Fields, but Sambath wore down his reticence.  With Chea facing charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, what he says on Sambath’s tapes is extraordinarily timely.

Depicts the ideologically-driven crimes of the Khmer Rouge.

Beyond its potential relevance in the Cambodian Tribunal, Enemies is highly significant as a pioneering Cambodian documentary inquiry into the Khmer Rouge’s crimes.  Providing historical context that will likely be instructive for western audiences as well, Sambath explains that the Khmer Rouge directly looked to China as their revolutionary inspiration.  Indeed, one can argue the Killing Fields were an indirect product of the Cultural Revolution.

The former low level cadres interviewed on camera also confirm their victims were brutalized and murdered out of ideological zeal.  They were capitalist or counter-revolutionary “problems” to “fix.”  The matter-of-factness of their videotaped statements is quite chilling, lending credence to Hannah Arendt’s concept of the banality of evil.  While some express remorse, decades after the fact, for the most part, it seems like Sambath is not tapping into feelings of guilt so much as a Dostoevskian compulsion to confess.  Obviously suffering from his own survivor’s guilt, Sambath also has his own stories to tell.  However, he appears to attain a measure of closure through his ambitious undercover research project.

In Enemies, Sambath puts to shame most western journalists who simply preen in front of cameras and regurgitate talking points.  At no small risk to himself, he set out to get the truth, succeeding rather spectacularly given his modest resources.  Frankly, the ignorance and misunderstanding of the Khmer Rouge borders on the criminal in the west, but Sambath and Lemkin bring their genocidal crimes into sharp focus.  Yes, the American bombings are mentioned in Enemies, but only briefly – never suggesting they excuse or rationalize the crimes of the Khmer Rouge in any way.  Truly, Sambath understands who the killers really are, and he got them on tape.  Thoughtful and legitimately bold, it opens this Friday (7/30) in New York at the Quad and next Friday (8/6) in Los Angeles at Laemmle’s Music Hall, Beverly Hills.

Posted on July 30th, 2010 at 10:36am.

Rockin’ The Wall Premieres Sept. 9th at National March on D.C.

By Jason Apuzzo. Filmmaker, best-selling author and former rock drummer Larry Schweikart recently sent me the trailer (see above) for his forthcoming documentary, Rockin’ The Wall.  Rockin’ The Wall is about the liberating force of rock music for young people living behind the Iron Curtain during the Cold War.  The film is based in part on a segment of Larry’s book, Seven Events That Made America America.  Many of you also may remember Larry as the co-author of the #1 New York Times best seller A Patriot’s History of the United States.  [Both of these books are available in the LFM Store below.]

Rockin’ The Wall deals with how rock music served as a source of hope for young kids growing up in the communist world, and how the music subverted the grip that totalitarian regimes held over societies within the Eastern Bloc. Larry and his team interview rockers from the Cold War era, including the band Mother’s Finest – a black funk-rock band out of Atlanta who played East Berlin two weeks before the Wall came crashing down.  Also interviewed are young eastern Europeans from that era whose lives were changed irrevocably by rock music and the cracks that music opened up – literally and figuratively – in their otherwise repressive world.

One of the great details that Rockin’ The Wall apparently goes into is how the communist regimes – seeing what a powerful force rock music was among the youth – tried to co-opt the music for their own purposes.  In the Soviet Union this lead to the Russians actually creating a ‘Ministry of Rock'(!).  I’m hoping Larry has some samples from that Ministry’s music – it must be hilarious.

Rockin’ The Wall reminds me of a marvelous film from the Los Angeles Film Festival that we recently reviewed here at LFM, called Disco & Atomic War.  Disco & Atomic War is an extraordinary new Estonian documentary about the so-called ’soft power’ influence of American and Western culture on the minds of Soviet citizens living in Estonia during the Cold War, who were able through clever means to watch Finnish television broadcasts emanating from just over the border.  As Disco informs us (in amusing detail), American popular culture – especially in the form of glamorous TV shows like “Dallas,” or movies like Star Wars and even Emmanuelle – was deeply feared by Soviet authorities due to the ideas and expectations such programming planted in the minds of Soviet citizens.  This led to amusing co-optings, such as the Soviets creating their own officially sanctioned disco instruction course for TV (shades of the ‘Ministry of Rock’?).

You can read the LFM review of Disco and Atomic War from the LA Film Festival, and also read LFM Contributor Joe Bendel’s review of the film from yesterday.

Rockin’ the Wall premieres in Washington, D.C. on September 9, at the national Tea Party “March on D.C.” event. You can also pre-order the DVD here, and follow the film on Facebook here.  We wish Larry and his creative team the best with this project.

Posted on July 27th, 2010 at 11:49am.

LFM Reviews: Kisses

Kelly O'Neill & Shane Curry from "Kisses."

By Patricia Ducey. Kisses, a 2008 Irish film and favorite at many important festivals, is now in wider release throughout the US this summer.  [See the trailer below.]  Writer/director Lance Daly spins a tale of two abused Irish kids from the unfashionable outskirts of Dublin who run away from home to find freedom from family strife. No leprechauns or legends in this Ireland – the film takes place in a modern, industrialized Ireland, chockablock with rusting warehouses, traffic jams, and pop culture references. Daly, after a few preview screenings in the US, has wisely provided subtitles to aid the American ear in decoding the Irish patois. [I implore other filmmakers whose films are not in spoken American English to do the same. I’m talking to you, Sarah Gavron.]

The Irish Film Board, Bord Scannán na hÉireann, which has been financing and promoting the national cinema of Ireland since the 1990s, helped finance Kisses. What is the “national” cinema of Ireland, though, in actuality? Films written or produced by Irish persons, or films about Ireland? Or some permutation of both? Irish filmmakers have borrowed from early American films, like the docudrama Man of Aran or the romanticized The Quiet Man, and vice versa.  I spent some time in Ireland in the ’90s, when the Board first starting supporting these films – I was researching my thesis on this subject – and came to the conclusion that there is no such thing as a purely national cinema. But times were good in Ireland then, and the Board plowed ahead. Irish moviegoers, though, voted with their feet and many of these board-supported films ended up, oddly, being shown in art houses in Ireland – while the likes of Mrs. Doubtfire drew the crowds near Grafton Street.  Whether it is smart for any government to support the arts is debatable – just look at the bidding war over tax incentives for movie production here in the US – but such a debate has begun in Ireland due to the now faltering Irish economy.

Young Shane Curry in "Kisses."

The truth is that film and narrative have always been ‘globalized’ and Kisses is no exception. The two runaways, Kylie and Dylan, live in a neighborhood Antoine Doinel would feel at home in. The runaways cadge a ride down the canal ala Huck Finn, courtesy of a Russian émigré boatman who introduces the kids to Dylan’s namesake – Jewish/Christian American folk rocker Bob Dylan – with his impromptu rendition of “Shelter From the Storm.”  And later Dylan learns a lesson about the give and take of love from a Jamaican prostitute eking out a living in Dublin.

Dylan and Kylie’s world, though, is a drab working class Ireland. The two families live in comfortable enough homes, but Dylan’s father, a handsome guy, drinks and bullies, while Kylie’s uncle fools everyone in the family except her – she knows from bitter experience what he really is.  Both Dylan and Kylie reach the end of their respective ropes on Christmas Day; one battle royale, one unwanted advance too many, and they are off, with Kylie egging Dylan on to make a run for it. They hop a river barge to the city, and the adventure begins – for good and ill.

The cinematography is lovely. Daly shoots the opening scenes of the housing development in bleak black and white, and lets the color slowly seep into the frame as the kids and the boatman get farther and farther away from home (a nod to The Wizard of Oz? Again, the cross-pollination of film). The two child stars, real Dublin kids Kelly O’Neill as Kylie (a Drew Barrymore look-alike) and Shane Curry as Dylan, shine as newcomers. Daly draws joyous and heartbreaking performances from both of them, without the wise-assery or precociousness we see in so many preteen stories. I wished that perhaps Kylie was a little less heroic a heroine, but that’s a minor quibble.

If you liked a recent Irish film Once, you will like Kisses. Kisses is the anti-Inception. It is small and slight but you won’t forget it – just like your first kiss.


Posted on July 26th, 2010 at 12:45pm.

Winning the Cold War in L’Affaire Farewell

David Soul (left) with Fred Ward as Ronald Reagan in "Farewell."

By Joe Bendel. Instead of the man who knew too much, he was the spy who knew everything.  Codenamed “Farewell” by the French, Colonel Vladimir Vetrov was charged with reviewing the intelligence the KGB gathered on the free world—every speck of it, including the extent to which each western intelligence agency had been compromised.  He also knew the Soviet government had failed to live up to its promises.  President Ronald Reagan called the resulting L’Affaire Farewell: “one of the most important espionage cases of the 20th century.”  It also inspired Christian Carion’s espionage drama Farewell (trailer below), which opens in Los Angeles and New York this Friday night.

Like the real-life Vetrov on whom he is based, Colonel Grigoriev was once stationed in Paris, where he rebuffed the advances of the French and American intelligence services.  However, by 1981, the Colonel had come to the conclusion the Soviet Union needed drastic reform – so he approached the DST, the French equivalent of the FBI (the only western intelligence agency the KGB had not bothered to infiltrate) through Pierre, a French businessman with no formal involvement in the world of espionage.

Out of his element, Pierre wants to extricate himself from the affair as soon as possible, but Grigoriev insists on dealing only with him, considering the professionals untrustworthy.  Partly in recognition of the value of Grigoriev’s intel and partly out of a sense of budding friendship, Pierre becomes the Colonel’s amateur handler, passing a wealth of information on to the DST.

While Pierre and Grigoriev meet in parks and train stations, another alliance in being forged between President Reagan and Mitterrand, France’s newly elected socialist prime minister.  The President is less than thrilled at the prospect of Communist ministers in the new French cabinet, but Mitterrand has an olive branch to offer: “Farewell.”

Farewell’s portrayal of these influential world leaders is quite fascinating and surprisingly even-handed.  Philippe Magnan’s Mitterrand is intelligent but aloof, coming across like more than a bit of a cold fish.  Refreshingly, Pres. Reagan is not depicted as a doddering bumbler, but as an engaged and commanding leader.  Yes, there are scenes of Reagan using classic film as a metaphor with his National Security Advisor (played by an almost unrecognizable David Soul), but never in way that calls his judgment into question.

Yet, there is something about Reagan’s distinct mannerisms that are hard to emulate without lapsing into caricature.  American actor Fred Ward takes a good shot, but he still sounds more like a Saturday Night Live impersonation than a real flesh and blood individual.  Frankly, Ronald Reagan remains such a commanding presence in the national consciousness it makes any dramatic representation problematic.

Not too friendly: Vselovod Shilovsky as Gorbachev in "Farewell."

Fortunately, Farewell’s primary leads are uniformly excellent.  Though he looks appropriately rumpled, Emir Kusturica plays Grigoriev sharp as a tack, keenly aware of his own personal contradictions.  As Pierre, Guillaume Canet’s performance is also smart and understated, avoiding the headshaking “what-did-I-get-myself-into” histrionics.  As a result, viewers believe the unqualified trust Grigoriev places in him.

Technically well produced, cinematographer Walther Vanden Ende and designer Jean-Michel Simonet effectively capture the oppressive drabness of the Brezhnev era.  Yet ideologically, Farewell resists easy classification.  While it certainly conveys the repressive and corrupt nature of Soviet Communism, the film sometimes suggests a John Le Carre-like equivalency, at least between the rival spy masters.  However, the shrewd conclusion again challenges the audience’s conceptions of faith and loyalty, within the context of the preceding “L’Affaire Farewell.”

Considering how long it has been since a brainy spy film sneaked into theaters, Farewell is quite welcome indeed.  Featuring two compelling lead performances and a meaty story that intrigues on several levels, it is an engrossing film.  It also might be the fairest shake Pres. Reagan has gotten on screen since his inauguration in 1981, ironically coming by way of France.  Definitely recommended, Farewell opens Friday (7/23) in both Los Angeles and New York, expanding to other cities the following week.

Posted on July 20th, 2010 at 9:13am.

Pakistan Bans Bollywood Terrorism Satire Tere bin Laden

By Jason Apuzzo. Some unfortunate news coming out today: Variety is reporting that Pakistan has decided to ban the new Bollywood satire about terrorists, Tere bin Laden. [We’ve posted previously about this film here.] This is bad news, because if there is any country in which terrorists need to be belittled and satirized, it’s in Pakistan.

Pakistani pop singer Ali Zafar at the film's premiere.

According to the BBC, the film’s Indian distributor will be appealing the decision by Pakistan’s film censor board.

Tere Bin Laden is a comedy/satire about a struggling Pakistani journalist who tries to pawn off a fake interview with Osama bin Laden in order to fulfill his dream of becoming an American TV news star.

As regular LFM readers know, we’ve been covering very closely the new wave of satires aimed at terrorists: Four Lions, The Infidel, and the Living with the Infidels web series.  [I myself directed such a satire, entitled Kalifornistan.]

We’ll be keeping an eye on how this story develops.  It’s worth noting that the film will likely still be seen by a lot of Pakistanis, in so far as DVDs – many of which are pirated – remain the preferred way of seeing films there.

[UPDATE: The New York Times covers this story today here.]

Posted on July 15th, 2010 at 1:18pm.

Mao’s Last Dancer + Asian-American Film Fest

By Joe Bendel. The Chinese government is very protective of its international image.  That is why it is so remarkable Bruce Beresford’s Mao’s Last Dancer was allowed to film there.  [LFM Co-Editor Govindini Murty has covered Mao’s Last Dancer previously in-depth here.]  Evidently, the government “suggested” some revisions to the script once shooting was underway, but according to the press notes, the Australian director categorically disregarded them, even though it jeopardized the entire production.  The centerpiece film of the upcoming Asian American International Film Festival, Dancer is one of several selections that will interest China watchers when the fest kicks off tomorrow night in New York.

Full reviews of Dancer are embargoed until the week of its theatrical release, but expect to hear terms like “crowd pleasing” after its festival screening this Saturday.  The story of ballet dancer Cunxin Li’s defection to America, Dancer depicts the Cultural Revolution as a period when art was debased by ideology.  Madame Mao herself makes an appearance, despite “requests” to the contrary from the Chinese government.  Offering plenty to discuss, look forward to a proper review of Beresford’s film here at Libertas in the near future.

From "Mao's Last Dancer."

Ballet also figures tangentially in Taipei 24H, an anthology film commissioned by Taiwanese Public Television that captures vignettes of life throughout the capitol city during one average but eventful day.  Appropriately, 24H saves its deepest and most accomplished film for last—4:00 AM to be exact.

Featuring renowned Taiwanese auteur Tsai Ming-liang, directed – in a reversal of roles – by his cinematic alter-ego, actor Kang-sheng Lee, Remembrance is deceptively simple. Having sold her business, the proprietress of a late night coffee shop is joined by a regular customer for a final cup of java and to watch a documentary on Luo Man-fei, a Taiwanese ballerina who died of lung cancer – but whose celebrated performance of choreography, shaped by the experiences of Tiananmen Square survivors, still has the power to move the night owls decades later.  Brief but elegant, Remembrance celebrates quiet moments of beauty, and those who inspire them.

Once, rural peasants represented an ideologically privileged class in China.  Today, they mostly lead hardscrabble lives of strife and want, particularly when compared to urban professionals.  It is an iniquity frequently captured by the Digital-Generation of independent Chinese directors, as well as two American-based filmmakers whose stylistically compatible shorts set in China will also screen during AAIFF ‘10.

D-Generation documentaries represent with scrupulous accuracy the living conditions of the unfortunates who exist on the margins of Chinese society.  However, their length and studiously languid aesthetics can try the patience of some audiences.  In contrast, Tani Ikeda’s documentary short Turn of the Harvest is a manageable twelve minutes, but still gives viewers an honest, tactile sense of its subjects’ lives.

A late middle-aged couple works their wheat field, quietly joking between themselves.  The man has a broken finger he has not treated for three weeks.  Yet, outwardly they seem happy.  However, as Ikeda interviews his wife, it becomes clear their relationship is not all it might appear.  Especially painful for her was a decision to relinquish one of the twins she gave birth to, out of economic necessity.  Surprisingly, they choose to give up their son, because boys cost more to raise.

Luo Qian in Chloe Zhao's "Daughters."

Of course, boys tend to be preferred over girls, which accounts for the looming shortage of marriageable women under China’s restrictive family planning.  Take for instance the family of fourteen year year-old Maple in Chloé Zhao’s narrative short Daughters. With a coveted baby boy on the way, her parents suddenly have one daughter too many.  Coldly pragmatic, they see only two options.  Either they foist off her sweet tempered young sister on a distant family member, or they arrange her marriage to a disturbingly old man.  Not surprisingly, such news causes confusion and resentment for the preteen.

Daughters is nine minutes of focused heartbreak, featuring a devastating performance from young Luo Qian as Maple.  Though brief, it is undeniably assured filmmaking, all the more impressive considering it was the NYU alumnus’ second year film.

AAIFF’s centerpiece, Dancer, screens this Saturday (7/17), in advance of its late August opening.  Well worth seeing for Remembrance alone, Taipei 23H screens on Sunday (7/18).  Daughters screens as part of AAIFF’s Oh Family, Where Art Thou? block of shorts this Sunday, while Harvest screens the next day as part of the Untold Stories shorts program.

Posted on July 15th, 2010 at 11:16am.