LFM Sundance Review: Oscar-Nominated Incendies & Violence in the Middle East

By Joe Bendel. Religious extremism is a handy prism through which to view Mid East conflicts. However, it ignores one critical contributing cause of ever-escalating violence, at least according to the recent screen adaptation of Lebanese-Canadian Wajdi Mouawad’s stage play. While religious resentments are often a primary motivation, nothing trumps human nature and the downright Biblical desire for revenge. It’s that eye-for-an-eye cycle a Middle Eastern immigrant hopes to break with her last will and testament in Denis Villeneuve’s Academy Award nominated Incendies, which screened during the recently wrapped 2011 Sundance Film Festival.

Nawal Marwan, beloved employee of attorney and notary-public Jean Lebel, had secrets her grown son and daughter never suspected. An immigrant from an unnamed Middle Eastern country bearing a strong resemblance to Lebanon (particularly given its open warfare between Christian and Muslim militias), Jeanne and Simon assumed their father died during the civil war. Much to their surprise, at the reading of Marwan’s will, Lebel produces two letters handwritten by their late mother. One they are to deliver to their father, the other to their heretofore unknown brother.

At first, Simon refuses to play his mother’s game, leaving Jeanne to wrestle with their family intrigue alone. However, as she learns the extent of her mother’s past, including involvement with a shadowy Muslim warlord and a long stint in a notorious Christian militia prison, Simon reluctantly joins her, with the faithful Lebel in tow.

From Denis Villeneuve’s "Incendies."

Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of Incendies is the slipperiness of various characters’ loyalties. Though raised a Christian, Nawal Marwan throws her lot in with the Muslim militia after witnessing a Christian atrocity. Likewise, a critical mystery man changes sides at least twice, seemingly just to facilitate various plot turns.

Indeed, Incendies has a monster of a twist that viewers probably will not recognize until Villeneuve commences the film’s big reveal. It depends on a very tight timeline though, which just barely holds up to post-screening scrutiny. Frankly, given the importance of dates, Mélissa Désormeaux Poulin and Maxim Gaudette, though otherwise convincing in the roles, look at five or ten years too old as the grown Marwan children. Yet Villeneuve pulls it off through sheer cinematic power.

While Incendies might sound like typically didactic Mid East agitprop, it really is more about the personal than the political. In fact, neither Israel nor America are ever mentioned at all. Instead, it is about the grubby, up-close-and-personal hatreds and resentments that define such skirmishes. At one point, the Marwans are advised to seek out a former militia leader for information, because warlords have long memories. Point taken.

If not exactly subtle filmmaking, Incendies delivers visceral drama. Oddly, it also serves as a tribute to the noble calling of notaries through Rémy Girard’s richly realized supporting turn as Lebel. A suitably sweeping package, cinematographer André Turpin adeptly captures the rough beauty of the landscape, while the euro-pop influenced sound track sounds somewhat out-of-place, but is evocative nonetheless. A bold, messy, and totally engrossing film, Canada’s Incendies is one of the better nominees for the best foreign language Oscar and a worthy selection of this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

Posted on February 2nd, 2011 at 9:48am.

LFM Sundance Review: Elite Squad 2

By Joe Bendel. Watch out for those left wing academics. They will steal your wife and poison your son against you. At least that’s what happened to Colonel Nascimento, the leader of Rio’s SWAT team equivalent: the Special Police Operation Battalion, or BOPE in the Portuguese acronym. However, Nascimento still finds himself working with his nemesis to bring down a crypto-fascist criminal empire run by crooked cops and politicians in José Padilha’s Elite Squad 2: The Enemy Within (trailer above), which screened during the 2011 Sundance Film Festival.

Diogo Fraga is the Brazilian Al Sharpton. Whenever the inmates riot (which is often), they send for him to act as a “mediator.” However, when the latest standoff gets tense, Fraga starts to look like a legit hostage. When Nascimento’s protgege Matias sees his shot, he takes his shot, as per his training. Unfortunately, the resulting blood-splatter all over Fraga’s peace t-shirt is too rich not to exploit in the media, even if was meant to save his behind. As the officer in charge, Nascimento bears the brunt of Fraga’s protests, but the fearful public is completely behind him. Left with only one recourse, the politicians kick him upstairs to some sort of homeland security position.

Suddenly, Nascimento is setting criminal justice policy on a state level. He gives BOPE the resources they always needed and turns them loose on the cartels. Actually, it works too well, leaving a vacuum to be filled by “The System,” a ruthless syndicate run by crooked cops and hypocritical “law & order” politicians.

Evidently, Padilha was stung by the criticism of Elite 1 as an endorsement shoot-first-and-ask-questions-later vigilantism, considering how far he swings the pendulum over in Elite 2. Now the credo is depose-first-and-ask-follow-up-questions-later-in-committee-hearings.

At least Wagner Moura is still the ever-popular Nascimento, who looks like a non-descript everyman, but is seriously hard-nosed. His no-nonsense presence helps redeem Elite 2 from its constant attempts at redemption through sociopolitical relevancy. In a standout supporting turn, André Ramiro brings a scary intensity to the tightly wound Matias. Brazilian music lovers should also keep an eye out for superstar vocalist Seu Jorge, appearing early in the film as powerful drug kingpin.

There are some tightly executed action sequences in Elite 2, but the film is ultimately undone by its didactic political subplots. After all, one doubts many favela residents would identify over-zealous policing as the greatest problem they face. While not without its moments, Elite 2 strays too far from its roots – which ironically, probably makes it more attractive to American distributors, following its high profile screenings in the Spotlight section of this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

Posted on February 1st, 2011 at 9:43am.

LFM Sundance Review: Beats, Rhymes & Life

By Joe Bendel. If not necessarily the road not taken, A Tribe Called Quest definitely represents a road less traveled for hip-hop. Influenced by jazz and African musical forms whilst largely eschewing the nihilism of gangster rap in favor of a more spiritual message, ATCQ achieved a level critical acclaim unusual for hip-hop, yet still maintained their grassroots popularity. Alas, it would not last forever. Indeed, Michael Rapaport records the band’s break-up in his up-close-and-personal documentary, Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest, which premiered at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival.

Despite sitting for many interviews and allowing backstage access to Rapaport’s crew, the very vocal Q-Tip has reportedly since turned against the project. It’s hard to understand why, though. As backstage conflict goes, ATCQ’s is pretty tame stuff. Indeed, there’s nothing Charlie Sheen-worthy to be witnessed in the film. As seen through Rapaport’s cameras, their break-up appears to be largely attributable to the stress of Phife Dog’s health issues and the inevitable resentments bred by a long period of familiarity. Frankly, as behind-the-music profiles go, BRL makes ATCQ look pretty together.

A Tribe Called Quest.

After beginning at the apparent end, Rapaport rewinds to the beginning, giving a brisk overview of the band’s history. Signed for what was then an unprecedented advance, ATCQ was under pressure to deliver from the start, but that was not a problem. The early years were glory years, both in terms of music and sales. Perhaps the group reached its artistic high-water mark when collaborating with De La Soul in the egoless super-group Native Tongue.

Throughout their tenure, ATCQ had a rep as a musician’s hip-hop group. Not surprisingly, the best moments of BRL capture a sense of the group’s grounding in jazz and soul. A committed crate-digger, Q-Tip in particular emerges as an authority on vintage soul jazz LPs, like (Dr.) Lonnie Smith’s Drive, which he famously sampled and discusses at length in the film.

While opinion amongst ATCQ seems decidedly mixed, BRL will hardly damage their legacy. It will rather more likely strengthen their reputation as the thinking man’s hip-hop group. Though a snip here or there would not have been the end of the world, the animated sequences created by James Blagden & Phillip Niemeyer and the original incidental soundtrack by Madlib tie it all together in a solid, often entertaining package. Given the band’s continuing popularity as well as Rapaport’s name recognition as an actor, it seems like a good bet there will be considerable demand for BRL following its recent Sundance premiere. Well put together and only occasionally voyeuristic, BRL was a hit at Sundance, which concluded Sunday (1/30) with special screenings of this year’s award winners.

Posted on February 1st, 2011 at 9:16am.

LFM Sundance Review: Special Grand Jury Award Winner Position Among the Stars

By Joe Bendel. The most populous Muslim nation is not in the Middle East, it is Indonesia. A Christian like Rumidjah Shamshudin can often find herself on the outside looking in, even within her own family. Still, she remains a strong matriarchal figure in Leonard Retel Helmrich’s Position Among the Stars, his third documentary chronicling the Shamshudin family, which won the Special Grand Jury Award for Documentary Film at the recently wrapped 2011 Sundance Film Festival, making Helmrich the first two-time Sundance and IDFA award winner.

As a documentarian, Helmrich comes out of the Wiseman observational school rather than the Moore-Spurlock self-aggrandizing tradition. He gives us what in this case could be termed a roach-on-the-wall view of the Shamshudin family’s daily struggles in the booming but not necessarily progressive majority-Muslim nation. The matriarch has hopes for something better—not for herself, but for her granddaughter Tari who will soon graduate from high school. She is determined to enroll Tari in college, but her son Bakti (Tari’s guardian) only sees the considerable cost involved. In fact, Rumidjah is not too pleased with her under-achieving son for a number of reasons, including his mistreatment of his wife Sri, the only reliable breadwinner in the family.

From "Position Among the Stars."

Position is a film that takes its time, letting its dramas evolve naturally while viewers patiently watch. Though it can be a bit slow at times, Helmrich captures some truly eye-opening scenes, like the aftermath of the municipal neighborhood roach spraying, which you really have to see to believe.

In a way, the Shamshudins are a microcosm of Indonesia, requiring a scorecard to track their religious affiliations. In fact, Rumidjah, A Christian convert, seems to be the only one in the family who takes faith seriously. By contrast, Muslim conversion seems like a matter of convenience for some. Still, Muslim son Dwi appears genuinely angry when she takes his son Bagus to Catholic mass.

Though billed as the third (and therefore concluding) installment of Helmrich’s trilogy, it is difficult to predict whether the future will favor the Shamshudins. Frankly, life is just too messy to end on a neatly pat note, especially in Jakarta. Instead of closure, Helmrich gives viewers a visceral sense of life in Jakarta’s slums and a fair taste of the countryside as well. He has an eye for weirdly telling interludes that help pull viewers through Position’s more workaday scenes. It is an intriguing and ultimately ambiguous look at the slum-level reality for a nation still in flux, and a film that continued to rack up festival acclaim at this year’s Sundance.

Posted on January 31st, 2011 at 10:15am.

LFM Sundance Review: The Mill and the Cross

By Joe Bendel. Pieter Bruegel the Elder was a truly subversive old master. Known for his paintings of the Dutch peasantry as well as Biblical episodes, his five hundred character masterwork The Way to Cavalry depicted the Spanish Militia then occupying Flanders as the Roman soldiers crucifying Christ. While Bruegel’s commentary on the Spanish occupation is inescapable, the painting is rife with hidden signifiers, which the painter himself explains in Lech Majewski’s unclassifiable The Mill & the Cross, a painstakingly crafted cinematic recreation of The Way to Cavalry, which had its world premiere at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival.

Employing state-of-the-art computer generation, scores of seamstresses and artisans, and an enormous 2D background recreation of Bruegel’s celebrated work painted by the director himself, Majewski brings the great tableaux to life on the big screen. Amongst those five hundred characters are Brueghel and his friend a collector, Nicholas Jonghelinck, to whom he explains his projected new painting, The Way to Cavalry.

Rutger Hauer as Pieter Bruegel the Elder.

It is impossible to hang a pat label on Mill. Though it screened as part of Sundance’s New Frontier track for more experimental work, such a rubric really does not fit Majewski’s film. It certainly is not non-narrative filmmaking, since it encompasses the greatest story ever told. However, it completely challenges linear notions of time, incorporating Christ’s Passion and the world of 1564 Flanders, in which Bruegel and Jongelinck are simultaneous observers and active participants.

Years in the making, Mill is an extraordinarily ambitious undertaking. Majewski represents the social continuum of Sixteenth Century Flanders, recreating the mean living conditions of the peasants, the clean, unadorned quarters of the relatively middle class Bruegel, and the privileged environment of the well-to-do Jongelinck. Majewski’s visuals are often arresting, like the scenes of art director Stanislaw Porczyk’s towering mill, which resembles the enormous set pieces of Terry Gilliam films. Perhaps most stunning are the wide shots of the Cavalry landscape, with the figures literally coming alive on Bruegel’s canvas. Yet, Majewski also captures moments of both tender intimacy and graphic torture, rendered with powerful immediacy.

Indeed, the wealthy collector clearly serves as the conscience of the film, decrying the capricious religious persecution that was a fact of life for Flanders under the Militia. Despite the almost overwhelming visual sweep of the film, Michael York gives a finely tuned performance as Jongelinck that really sneaks up on viewers. Rutger Hauer (worlds away from his other Sundance film Hobo with a Shotgun) also brings a forceful heft to the rather mysterious artist.

A personal triumph for Majewski, who also served as producer, co-cinematographer, co-composer, and sound designer, Mill effectively blurs the distinction between film and painting, yet it is more of a “movie” than nearly anything ever deemed “experimental film.” A unique, highly recommended viewing experience, Mill had its European premiere at the Rotterdam Film Festival yesterday (1/30) and will have its French premiere at the Louvre on Wednesday (2/2). There are worse reasons to travel to Europe on short notice. Indeed, it was one of the standouts at this year’s Sundance, which concluded yesterday (1/30) with the festival awards ceremony.

Posted on January 31st, 2011 at 9:37am.


LFM Sundance Review: Being Elmo: a Puppeteer’s Journey

By Joe Bendel. Sesame Street can essentially be divided into two eras: before and after Elmo. Actually, the red Muppet had been around for a while, but had always suffered something of an identity crisis until puppeteer Kevin Clash took him over. Reconceived as the sweetest of sweethearts, Elmo loved everyone and the love came right back at him, as Constance Marks documents in her profile of Clash and his furry alter-ego, Being Elmo: a Puppeteer’s Journey (see clip above), which was one of the hottest tickets at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival.

Kevin Clash & his alter ego, Elmo.

Growing up as a budding puppeteer in his lower middle class Baltimore neighborhood was not always easy for Clash. However, two important people recognized and encouraged his talents: his parents. Thanks to his mother’s cold call, an important figure came to share that faith in Clash—Kermit Love, the guru-designer of Henson’s Muppet studio. With love’s encouragement, Clash would be working professionally on national television soon after graduating from high school. Yet, for years, the timing just did not work out for him to join the Henson Company.

Eventually, the stars aligned. His early days with Henson were pleasant if mostly unremarkable, but an off-hand assignment to figure out something to do with the show’s red-headed stepchild proved to be a turning point. Previously rather monosyllabic and not particularly gracious, Clash’s Elmo was now outgoing, eager to express his affection for the world. Suddenly, Elmo was no longer an obscure supporting Muppet, but the marquee star of Sesame Street.

Journey is part Horatio Alger story, chronicling Clash’s rise to the pinnacle of his profession. Throughout the film, he frequently acknowledges all those who mentored him along the way, including not just Henson and Love, but also his colleagues from the local Baltimore affiliate where he first cut his teeth in children’s programming.

There is also a whole lot of Elmo in Journey as well. Yes, he is the touchy-feeliest of the Muppets, but he is also the most frequently requested by Make-a-Wish kids. Viewers who do not get a little misty-eyed during those scenes need to get their souls tuned-up.

Indeed, Journey is quite an antidote for cynicism. Wisely, Marks takes a conventional approach to her subjects, relying on the charm of Clash and Elmo. Featuring a whole lot of feel-good material – like Clash’s American success story, the strength that comes from family, the value of friendship, and the continuing legacy of Henson’s creative genius – Journey is a crowd-pleaser for audiences of all ages. A hit at Sundance, it should have a long life after the festival, which concludes this Sunday (1/30) in Park City.

[EDITOR’S NOTE: Being Elmo won the Special Jury Prize in the U.S. Documentary Competition at this year’s Sundance.]

Posted on January 30th, 2011 at 10:52am.