Cinema 16 w/ Bone Conductors

My published Flavorpill post:

With only 15 surviving shorts, the name Charles Bowers doesn't exactly resonate. But from these scant pickings, this much can be ascertained: The cartoonist/comedian possessed a far-out imagination that reached the loony, lunar realms of Georges Méliès. This edition of Cinema 16 happens to set those two cinemagicians' inventive stop-action shorts — as well as avant-garde doyenne Maya Deren's Meshes of the Afternoon — to the mechanized sounds of Nick Yulman's man-and-machines outfit, the Bone Conductors. With Bowers' surrealist flourishes, be primed for anything from elaborate, do-all doodads to an iron-stomached fowl whose kooky egg yields a whole, ready-to-roll automobile.

Full Moon Night Hike

My published Flavorpill post:

If your Fridays are packing less variation — but possibly more alcohol — than you'd like, beat the numbers with this date with Mother Earth. Tonight's quick picker-upper at Harriman State Park starts with an easy hike to the campfire grounds, all under the full, luminous moon. There lies the excursion's real treasures: s'mores, hot chocolate, spook stories, and other communal amusements that fuel a refreshing change of place and pace. Meet the bus at the corner of 96th and Broadway, and let the journey begin.

The Sixties: Yanks in Britain

My published Flavorpill post:

The pop troupers of the British Invasion weren't the 1960s' only across-the-pond transplants. In fact, several famous American studio directors — Stanley Kubrick, Fred Zinnemann, Otto Preminger — found themselves paid by the pound with reasons that ranged from blacklisting to the chance of the foreign carte blanche. MoMA's made-in-the-UK series spotlights the reverse pilgrimage with a few first-class efforts, including Richard Lester's fast and furious Hard Day's Night and the Kubrick favorite, Dr. Strangelove. England being the land of letters, the featured screenwriters are superlative: Terry Southern (Strangelove), Vladimir Nabokov (Lolita), Robert Bolt (Zinnemann's A Man For All Seasons), and the late great Harold Pinter (Joseph Losey's The Servant).

The Mother Ode

My published Flavorwire post:
Since the Lumières’ first homespun projections, there have been umpteen films about, and for, mothers. The portraits have ranged from adoring to crazed to Camus-cold (”Mother died today. Or maybe yesterday; I can’t be sure.”). After the jump, peruse our categorized list — more Mamma Rosa than Mamma Mia, but by no means the maternal final word. Add your favorites in the comments.

1. The Overprotective
Wild At Heart (1990) by David Lynch
Serial Mom (1994) by John Waters
These ladies doth protest too much — even if they believe it’s on the behalf of their children. In Lynch’s gonzo road movie, Nic Cage and Laura Dern are lovers on the lam from Dern’s irrational, Southern Belle from Hell mama (real-mom Diane Ladd) who, to put it mildly, hasn’t taken kindly to their romance. Entertaining to the nth degree, this surprising Palme d’Or winner is a mosaic of pulp, Elvis Presley, euphoria, night highways, Wizard of Oz, and a lots and lots of lurid red. Waters, meanwhile, camps it up in Lynch’s usual backyard: suburbia. Kathleen Turner is just terrific as the neurotic, two-faced B’More housewife who safeguards her family’s honor with a single-minded (read: homicidal) zeal.

2. Mama’s Boys
Hail the Conquering Hero (1944) by Preston Sturges
Goodbye Lenin (2003) by Wolfgang Becker
Made with WWII at its crest, Sturges’ rapid-fire satire on patriotism follows dismissed soldier Woodrow Lafayette Pershing Truesmith (a lovable Eddie Bracken) as he returns home to his kindly, widowed-by-WWI mother (Georgia Caine). En route, six sympathetic marines (including Freddie Steele and his own amusing mother complex) help fabricate a jingo-all-the-way story that soon has poor Woodrow inadvertently running for mayor while trying not to break his mother’s heart. Becker’s charming tale takes matters even further: loving Alex (Daniel Brühl) does just about everything in his power to keep his die-hard Communist mother (Kathrin Sass) — who has just awoken from an 8-month coma and doesn’t know that the Berlin Wall has fallen — ironically and firmly entrenched in the repressive, brand-free past.

3. Oedipal Complexions
White Heat (1949) by Raoul Walsh
Psycho (1960) by Alfred Hitchcock
Murmur of the Heart (1971) by Louis Malle
Top of the world, Ma! Jimmy Cagney and Anthony Perkins are perhaps the two most famous, mama-obsessed cases in film history. While there’s also Mel Gibson’s Hamlet and Glenn Close’s Gertrude in the 1990 Hamlet, a more remarkable one is Malle’s tenderized coming-of-age story about teenage Laurent (Benoît Ferreux), whose fondness for his mère (Lea Massari) becomes troublesome during a sortie to cure his titular ailment. Rest assured, Mr. Murphy Brown approaches the proscribed subject with a supple and humorous touch, buoyed by the beboppin’ sounds of Charlie Parker and Sidney Bechet in addition to the beautifully evocative mise-en-scène.

4. Mom-uments
The Grapes of Wrath (1940) by John Ford
Rome, Open City (1945) by Roberto Rossellini
All About My Mother (1999) by Pedro Almódovar
As Ma Joad, Jane Darwell embodies maternal resolve. When the family is uprooted, for instance, she briefly ruminates over several keepsakes that she knows she shan’t keep, then tosses them in the fire. In that act, Darwell confronts every Okies’ main concern (”how can we live without our lives? How will we know it’s us without our past.”) yet forages on as the family’s Joad of Arc in her unshakable faith. In performances that are equally heroic and resonant, Anna Magnani can’t escape Nazi-occupied Rome while Cecilia Roth heads for Barcelona after a flash of kismet in one of Almódovar’s loveliest tributes to the opposite sex.

5. Momma Non Grata
Tokyo Story (1953) by Yasujiro Ozu
Throw Momma From the Train (1987) by Danny DeVito
In Ozu’s beloved, fine-drawn masterwork, aging Chieko Higashiyama and pa call on their children in Tokyo. Son and daughter treat them like strangers, both too busy to be bothered until that reverberating bell tolls for the old lady. Sound familiar? Human nature in an understated key, the film’s effect is ineffable. For a darker, harsher, and decidedly more hilarious illustration of the unwanted mother, stick with DeVito’s directorial debut in which he and Billy Crystal do Hitchcock’s quid pro quo thriller Strangers on a Train to comedic effect. Anne Ramsay is a hoot as the harridan mother; suffice it to say, faces don’t get any more distinctive.

6. Disney’s Materfamilias
Snow White (1937)
Dumbo (1941)
Bambi (1942)
Cinderella (1950)
Mothers are strangely if not suspiciously absent from Disney’s animation vault. When they do appear, they don’t fare too well: Mrs. Jumbo, hearing the jibes hurled at her precious Dumbo, loses her cool and gets caged; Bambi’s mother meets her demise in the first reel; and both Snow White and Cinderella are raised by cruel, gorgon mother figures.

7. Independent Women
Mildred Pierce (1945) by Michael Curtiz
Imitation of Life (1959) by Douglas Sirk
Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975) by Chantal Akerman
Akerman’s 200-minute feminist opus on the “problem of being” immerses you in the rinse-and-repeat life of the eponymous widow (exceptionally played by Delphine Seyrig). Her domestic errands, like cooking and cleaning for her son, become real-time events. Lord, even her prostituting is precise. But after syncing you to a routine that’s as predictable as a metronome, each minor blip that Akerman introduces becomes seismic. More melodramatic are Curtiz’s classic single-mother vehicle for a selfless Joan Crawford and Sirk’s deeply ironic version of Life, which explores mother-daughter relationships through race and the bitter trade-off of professional success (John M. Stahl also crafted a fine one in 1934).

8. The Motherland
Mother (1926) by Vsevold Pudovkin
Mirror (1975) by Andrei Tarkovsky
Mother and Son (1997) by Alexander Sokurov
Milky skies, windswept fields, and mothers: three Russian specialties in three tours de force. Based on a story by the social realist Gorky, Pudovkin’s film typifies the Soviet Mother as Martyr trope as salt-of-the-earth Vera Baranovkskaya continues to fight the anti-czarist fight begun by her slain son. Both Sokurov and Tarkovsky’s odes, meanwhile, are meditative, difficult, yet out-and-out sublime. Basked in amber light, Sokurov’s intimate and painterly portrait matches the restful pace of the old mother’s (Gudrun Geyer) last few hours with her affectionate son, which is spent simply with walks and bedside chats. Mirror unfolds more obscurely, as memory would. Drifting between black-and-white and color, diary and dream, Tarkovsky rhythmically textures reminiscences of his mother with poems from his famed father, exquisite pastoral landscapes and newsreel footage.

9. Ma-Ladies of the Mind
Gypsy (1962) by Mervyn LeRoy
Manchurian Candidate (1962) by John Frankenheimer
Mommie Dearest (1981) by Frank Perry
In Frankenheimer’s conspiracy-theory thriller, Angela Lansbury is frightfully convincing as the ambitious bitch (a role played by Meryl Streep in the 2004 redo). She’s the type of mother that uses her brainwashed son (done during the Korean War) as a political assassin to promote a second puppet — her second husband and McCarthyist congressman. While Rosalind Russell’s domineering, exploitative mother in Gypsy doesn’t hold a candle to Lansbury’s degree of parental abuse, Joan Crawford’s second appearance on this list (but played by a cranked-to-11 crazy Faye Dunaway) merits consideration. Regardless, these are mothers to be thankful for not having on Sunday.

Summer Hours

My published Flavorwire post:
At the outset of Olivier Assayas’ pensive and wonderfully impressionistic Summer Hours, grandchildren traipse around a restful, sun-dappled estate just outside the hectic reaches of Paris. The mood here is warm, conversational, and inviting. The villa belongs to 75-year-old Hélène (Edith Scob of Eyes Without a Face fame), a widow so aware of her dwindling days that she pulls eldest son Frédéric (an exemplary Charles Berling) aside during her birthday fete to go over the home’s litany of valuable objets d’art that have been present since the time of the past resident, Paul Berthier, an illustrious painter and Hélène’s uncle (a relationship perhaps a tad more amorous than avuncular). Included in the priceless inventory are two Corot landscapes, decorative Odilon Redon panels, an orchid desk by Louis Majorelle, and a few Félix Bracquemond vases — all paragons of 19th century French art.

Like Assayas’ recent, internationalist trilogy (Boarding Gate, Clean, and Demonlover), Summer Hours looks at the minuses of rootless globalization, this time through the melancholic lens of loss and inheritance. Globalization may flatten the world, Assayas tells, but it also “flux” it up with everyone on the move, no one seeing eye to eye, let alone family. So after the inevitable — delicately introduced through Frédéric’s selection of a plot of land — the three siblings decide to settle estate matters as musketeers would: all for one.

Frédéric — whose final gift to his mother was a telephone with three sets — obviously wishes to maintain familial continuity and thus expresses his desire (one he expects reciprocated) to retain the estate intact as a sort of outsized keepsake. He is the undisputed champion of the left-behind, the only one who hasn’t bid adieu to France for the high seas. On the other side, entrepreneurial and thoroughly modern younger brother Jérémie (Jérémie Renier) offers a simple bottom line: his career as a sneaker factory supervisor has made Beijing his new postal code for the next five, quota-dictated years and he simply needs the cash to uproot and resettle. As the deciding vote, flighty Manhattan-based designer Adrienne (Juliette Binoche, unbelievable per usual) first voices her upcoming marriage to her long-time boyfriend (Clint’s son Kyle Eastwood) before selling on Frédéric’s hope for posterity. Frédéric is broken up over the unsentimental, yet rational verdict; for Jérémie and, to a lesser extent, Adrienne (she retains a yen for a few pieces), these artworks only hold future economic security, and although the past may be mourned and shared, it’s also just that: past. Assayas presents these younger siblings now as rootless, but never ruthless in their new-world values.

Still “a lot goes unspoken in a family,” Adrienne airs, and Assayas potently lets that mystery linger like a gentle fog, with the three leads’ naturalistic give-and-take—criticisms are only broadcasted once the sibling is out of ear-wave — in perfectly believable support of that all-too-common notion. Instead, the ensuing vignettes (of which the film consists, each separated by lovely fades) detail the appraisal, preparation, and sale of the house and its historic parts — particular concern is expressed over a severe estate tax. Soon enough, Jérémie and Adrienne disappear into cars heading away and never reappear, their narrative utility exhausted like the old French one-offs they’ve rejected for future, country-less, mass-made objects such as Puma sneakers and the mod dishware that Adrienne designs. In an especially revelatory sequence, we see the behind-the-cordon operations of the Musée d’Orsay, such as priceless paintings and sculptures being stored, maintained, and restored, as well as the folks whose lives are rooted in the upkeep of the past. To be brief: it has the feel of a well-run laboratory.

Indeed, Assayas is most interested in the subjective ability of objects to move. Late in the film, a Bracquemond vase appears encased at the museum for spectators to behold, so to speak, but it pales in recalled comparison to an earlier one filled with wildflowers. Then there’s a broken Degas statue (from a childhood run-in), whose true value lies not in the what-if — though we see it reassembled later, its talismanic aura diminished as its artistic merit rises — but the laughs it elicits at the memory of the incident. Even the unopened telephone bears value with a simple post-it note in unpolished handwriting: “Call Frédéric to set up phone.” Throughout, Assayas astutely deploys these objects as he would a cast, such as when Hélène holds up Berthier’s sketch of a room while in the actual room to almost stereoscopically compare between past and present. Intricate, telltale little events like that lend the picture its loveliness and its elegant depth.

Hélène’s early lament that her children “have lives of their own” is echoed in the bittersweet final stanza, in which Frédéric’s teenage daughter Sylvie (Alice de Lencquesaing) throws one last, raging shindig at the estate. Throughout, the same yawning chasm between mother and son has haunted father and daughter, but here Assayas grants Sylvie a heartfelt moment of reflection, even as booming French rap unceremoniously announces the arrival of a new order. It’s a direct, yet quiet response to her brother’s unconcerned, knee-jerk reaction to the Corots — “they’re OK, but it’s another era” — and ties together the lost past and the uncertain après on a note that shades both regret and resolution.

Poliwood

My published Flavorwire post:
Statesmen of note, like celebrities, elicit heartfelt responses — after all, both happen to be chosen representatives of the common folk, endorsed through ballot and ticket. So it came as no surprise that Rudy Giuliani’s brief appearance in Barry Levinson’s epistemological film essay, PoliWood, drew an auditorium’s worth of gusty whistling and hissing, as if his actual person was present. Indeed, the tony world premiere at Tribeca of Levinson’s wry labor of love proved to be a festive and surprisingly participatory occasion, especially when the satiric director joined cast members Ellen Burstyn, Josh Lucas, Matthew Modine, Tim Daly, Wendie Malick, and Frank Luntz for a post-screening panel that produced a dicey comment: “Opinions are like belly buttons, everybody’s got one. Except Rush Limbaugh.”

As the simple portmanteau title would indicate, PoliWood casually probes the broadening, brow-furrowing intersection (or cross-pollination) of politics and Hollywood through the prism of our recent, uber-theatrical presidential campaign — remember Obama the megawatt celebrity? Levinson addresses the cause célèbre by tracking the nonpartisan, arts-advocating Creative Coalition — membered by Anne Hathaway, Spike Lee, Susan Sarandon, and the aforementioned panelists, among others — as they maneuver through the media circuses of the DNC and the RNC, an in-their-face journey that culminates at the Inauguration (a scene which still quickens the pulse).

After the film, Burstyn expressed the euphoria she felt while on the trail: “at the Democratic Convention in 1968, where Mayor Daly was sending the mounted police out into the street to beat [Vietnam War] protesters, there was a feeling of being at a historic event that was terrifying, like what I read about Nazi Germany. This time, I had the feeling that I was in the midst of a historic event that was a transformation of the national psyche. We were witnessing and taking part of something that none of us had really expected to happen in our lifetime — it was one of the most moving experiences of my life.”

As the group zigs to Denver and zags to Minneapolis, Levinson sits down with the pull-quote celebs and discovers various degrees of political expertise, including Hathaway’s commendable admission that she only feels comfortable answering issues she’s studied. Other in-the-know figures are also queried and conservative news correspondent Tucker Carlson comes off as the most amusing — if also bluntly honest — interview, in which he cracks that “most people should not be involved” in the political process and that it should be a “government of the informed by the informed.” Even Joe the Plumber receives the Levinson treatment: adroitly comparing him to Gary Cooper’s fish-out-of-water nobody in Frank Capra’s Meet John Doe, the director ponders — for perhaps fifteen seconds — the utter ridiculousness of a deluded-by-attention Joe masquerading as a war correspondent in Israel.

The raison d’etre for this absurdist shift, according to Levinson? Television. Starting with a pre-credit overture that reenacts the arrival of his first television, he dissects the monolithic effect of the boob tube, which has blotted and manipulated the lines between “truth, reality, and mythology” to such a degree that news dragnets like CNN and MSNBC no longer present “just the facts,” but spotlight whatever sells. And in this big business, politicians have become celebrities and, in turn, celebrities have become politicized — if not actual politicians (Al Gore remains Al Gore).

Not exactly breaking news, yes, but Levinson (who intermittently splices in fascinating, face-the-camera musings) keeps you rapt by hopscotching between thoughts and collating talking points: the dwindling efficacy of talk (i.e. infrastructure) when there’s visual shorthand (bridges falling down); news shows populated by as many celebrities as politicians and the unspoken rule that no one crosses party lines on air (they ironically agree to disagree); and, of course, how a politician’s public image has been boss since the advent of TV and how such intense scrutiny would spit out past presidents like Lincoln (too melancholic), Taft (too big for his britches), and even FDR (his polio an obvious bulls-eye). The film reflects a curious and omnivorous mind.

As a whole, the film aims to be, like the Creative Coalition, nonpartisan. Malick thought it tilted: “I still question whether this was slightly biased to the left. There were times at the Republican Convention where I thought a couple of people were portrayed in a very bad light.” Indeed, the descriptions of RNC attendees “clap[ping] like seals” for Sarah Palin (left-toned boos cascaded upon her too) and other remarks prove to be, well, the elephant in the room. But the rich and famous don’t get away scot-free either, disparaged as “limousine liberals” who “exist in a 2-D world” in a tense independent-study session at the RNC.

Levinson summed up PoliWood’s mishmash focus best: “These are the times we’re in, this is the world we live in in terms of media, politics and celebrity and the crashing together of all three…It’s really just a posing of questions.” His early reference to John Kennedy’s prescient 1959 essay on television then becomes especially savvy, as the soon-to-be President opines that “whether TV improves or worsens our political system, whether it serves the purpose of political education or deception, whether it gives us better or poorer candidates, more intelligent or more prejudiced campaigns — the answers to all this are up to you, the viewing public.”

Kobe Doin' Work

My published Flavorwire post:
Whether by beefy forename, the purple-and-gold heraldry, or a playing style considered MJ 2.0 (or, 0.5 for disparagers), Los Angeles Lakers shooting guard and city-designated demigod Kobe Bryant is easy to distinguish, a 6′6” figure of front-page prominence and untold fascination. Over his wigwagging career, every credit Bryant has earned has been matched by a caveat or — over and over — a told-you-so takedown. As such, one’s feelings for the enigmatic “Black Mamba” are in play every passing minute of Spike Lee’s irresistible day-on-the-court documentary Kobe Doin’ Work, a 83-minute inside job which could be called All Camera-Eyez On Me.

Lee trains 30 lenses (scattered around the Staples Center) on a miked-up employee number 24 à la Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait, Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno’s lyrical single-game study of French soccer messiah. Besides being a mammoth MVP showcase for Bryant the aspirant, the film’s April 13th, 2008 showdown against the hated San Antonio Spurs will have a hand in crowning first place in the West (and its reward, home-court advantage through the Western Conference playoffs). Dramatic irony aside, the first-person observation absorbs thanks to novel camera angles, the urgent real-time pace, and Bryant’s spirited off-screen commentary: see Kobe run and dribble; hear Kobe josh and swear; gasp as Kobe passes for a score or shoots (Lee still-frames each second during these drives in black-and-white and offers multiple replays to highlight the hit-or-miss tension); listen as Kobe pays respect to the opposition (i.e. injured Spurs’ slasher Manu Ginobli) and exchanges Serbian, Italian, and Spanish prods with his ESL teammates. “I didn’t realize I talked that damn much,” confesses the off-screen Bryant at one juncture. Indeed, it’s Kobevision through and through, punctuated with a free-flow, jazz-inflected score.

In his booing review, The LA Times’ esteemed Scott Feinberg suggests that Lee should have abracadabra-ed his way into Bryant’s no-entry private life (particularly barred after the hoopster’s infamous 2003 case), but he misses the more modest — if commercial — aim of this ESPN production, one stated in it’s very title. Even in sportswriter Rick Reilly’s recent piece on Bryant’s 49-mile commute to work (he lives in Newport Beach), few home details were surrendered. It’s more relevant to view the film as spending time with an articulate, virtuosic, yet ultimately inscrutable artist in the thrall of his métier, sharing — as if beside you — expert knowledge of each of his strokes and set-ups in addition to his competitive mindset (even if the comments often feel a bit streamlined). Indeed, Lee’s near-clinical focus on Bryant’s hawk-like awareness simulates both the run-and-gun game as it presents itself to the in-his-prime player as well as his post-game practice of dissecting both his opponents and his own troupe via tape.

To be blunt, Kobe Doin’ Work will appeal mostly to the obsessed, as the casual who-wins concern is eschewed for the in-depth how-so. There has been a public snafu between Bryant and Lee over who ultimately had creative sway over the project. Suffice it to say, this version reflects well on Bryant as a teammate and a leader — one scene even features him strategizing with coach Phil Jackson out of sight. His effusive tone (he recorded the commentary after scoring 61 points against Lee’s beloved Knicks at the mecca of sports, Madison Square Garden) may strike some as having the authenticity quotient of chinoiserie, but he manages to keep things light, harping like a kid on the game’s intricacies and backyard “fun” factor, and, thanks to his eloquence, generally strikes you as a team-first talent — a phrase that no one would have dared to mouth 2 years ago. In other words, he composes himself more as an ambassador than an asshole. Despite lapses here and there, Kobe Doin’ Work is a simple, yet enjoyable magnification of a world-class athlete and his nonpareil physical and mental skills.

One last note: a fellow viewer opined that the film felt like “a DVD commentary for a Nike ad.” Had Mars Blackmon returned after a decade-plus hiatus, this time behind the camera? Perhaps there is a touch too much product spotlight, but it’s a moot point; it would be the equivalent of issuing a complaint about Siemens’ omniscience in the aforementioned Zidane. Advertising is, fortunately and unfortunately, a subsumed part of modern-day sports.

The Exploding Girl

My published Flavorwire post:
The pains of being pure at heart are many in Bradley Rust Gray’s The Exploding Girl, a moody, osmotic character study that thoroughly stresses the “awk” in youthful awkwardness. The American accompaniment to wife and co-director So Yong Kim’s In Between Days (both winking allusions to the same Cure single), Girl mirrors the former in its observational focus on best friends whose relationship lies in between platonic and romantic. The contemplative long takes, extended silences, and artless conversations also define the film as a well-done translation of the exquisite Taiwanese art of is-this-it patience (Hou Hsaio-Hsien’s Café Lumière is Gray’s cited inspiration).

With her perfectly expressive, cherubic features, a winsome Zoe Kazan (she claimed Tribeca’s best actress prize) stars as Ivy, a collegiate gal who returns to Brooklyn’s Prospect Heights for a between-semester spell. Her shyness and self-restraint are immediately attributed (and, thus, activates a countdown) to her epilepsy, which surfaces with any sort of excess activity, be it alcoholic, emotional, and so on. Tesla-loving (read: love of magnetic attraction) and emotionally clumsy Al (Mark Rendall) also happens to be back in the city and, because his get-rich parents rented out his room, he has no one to turn to except her. The couch, of course, is all his.

Gray captures the characters’ uncertain yet burgeoning sense of being-in-the-world at a keen, knowing remove. While Ivy tries time and time again to literally connect via cellphone with her never-seen, monosyllabic boyfriend (one obviously looking for an exit strategy), she and Al while away the time by picnicking and playing cards at the park, strolling through streets bottlenecked with traffic and construction, and attending fétes where Ivy looks absolutely farouche. As Al ever-so-slowly musters his courage to make a move, Ivy retreats further inward.

With Ivy’s self-consciousness matched by Al’s Mister Milquetoast personality, the atmospheric sounds — whether the cacophony of car horns, the routine take offs and landings of nearby JFK, or a coop of birds gone aflutter — become immutable elements that not only accent the silences, but inhibit communication, a fact made painfully clear when Ivy receives a pivotal call on the go. Throughout these directionless and repeated public scenes, cinematographer Eric Lin’s HD camera expertly spies Ivy from a distance — often snared or isolated in the concrete bustle — as trucks, trees, and other objects impressionistically blur and obscure the line of vision.

In more intimate settings, Kazan’s musing face is caught in close-up, each silent movement registering more emotion than all the confused how-do-you-say sentences combined. If anything, the film never suffers for visual splendor, particularly the sublime, color-coalescing opening shot. With its all-out title and accumulating tension, The Exploding Girl hints at some resonant and final bang, but ultimately builds up to a near-bathetic whimper — one concluding scene, although beautiful, feels as symbol-leaden as Marlon Brando and Eva Marie-Saint’s rooftop antecedent in grandfather Kazan’s On the Waterfront.

Blank City

My published Flavorwire post:
Back in 1977, New York was a city in twain, with equal amounts of kvelling (Downtowners: The drugs and poverty!) and kvetching (Uptowners: The drugs and poverty!). For those of us born after those heady and heterodox times, cultural historian Luc Sante describes the scene in his phenomenal essay, “My Lost City”:

“Aside from the high-intensity blocks of Midtown and the financial district, the place seemed to be inhabited principally by slouchers and loungers, loose-joints vendors and teenage hustlers, panhandlers and site-specific drunks, persons whose fleabags put them out on the street at eight and only permitted reentry at six.”

Alongside this less-than-desired demographic and the ashes from downtown’s rampant arson (”By 1980 Avenue C was a lunar landscape of vacant blocks and hollow tenement shells”) bloomed the No Wave cinema (and its famed, same-named sonic analog), a fiercely independent movement that was Beat-ific in a dual sense — its swashbuckling bliss and its Kerouacian belief that “everything belongs to me because I am poor.”

These anarchic, down-and-out conditions were as key in cultivating the do-you-dare-what-I-dare movement as they are to any art renaissance (later, its less appealing, more extreme offspring, the Cinema of Transgression, rebelled against uptight, Reaganomics America. With Blank City, newcomer Céline Danhier expertly weaves documentary staples — talking heads, archival and obscure Super 8 and 16mm clips (c. 1977-1987; it’s truly encyclopedic in its scope), and a rollicking score (names like Patti Smith, DNA, James Chance and the Contortions, and even Grand Wizard Theodore, with his impossibly catchy “Subway Theme,” thrust the textured montage) — into a rich, absorbing throwback to the era’s l’amour fou with drugs, arty storytelling, outré provocations, and the unbearable hipness of being, well, ____. The title itself nods to Amos Poe’s formative punk showcase Blank Generation, which, in turn, derives from Richard Hell’s number one stunner. But there’s also a link to Naked City: the stories and back stories within have been surprisingly unexamined among the eight million others.

Back then, pooling resources was the loose collective’s m.o. Equipped with black-market Super 8 cameras, everyone collaborated with each other in a demimonde that John Lurie describes, more or less, as an amateur hour (often, the avocation would turn to vocation): “No one was doing what they knew how to do. Painters were in bands; musicians were making art or films.” Indeed, Danhier assembles a crackerjack brigade of eyewitnesses, proving that the Hollywood maxim holds true: if you build them up, they will come. While there’s Debbie Harry, Fab Five Freddy, Thurston Moore, Steve Buscemi, and Lydia Lunch, the interviewed talent remains, by and large, behind-the-camera, figures like bigwig Jim Jarmusch, John Waters, Amos Poe, an especially reflective James Nares, feminist Lizzie Borden, B-boy heavy Charlie Ahearn, enfant terrible Nick Zedd, Richard Kern, and Casandra Stark, among many others.

Candidness is the struck keynote: platinum-beauty Harry confesses her erstwhile hankering for movie fame; good ol’ Poe reveals that he edited Blank Generation at the Maysles Brothers’ space over a 24-hour period with the aid of the best assistant in the biz: speed; and Lurie retains his contempt for Basquiat, who basically single-handedly imploded the scene with his infectious cupidity.

Blank City’s editor Vanessa Roworth especially deserves a shout from the LES rooftops for the sheer amount of material to dice. Throughout, Danhier enlivens the cast’s verbal exposition of the hustling, fend-for-yourself ethos with numerous excerpts of films both seminal and not-so-much: Poe’s Unmade Beds (a no-budget remake of Godard’s Breathless); Ahearn’s exuberant Wild Style, Glenn O’Brien-scripted Downtown 81 (especially notable for trailing Basquiat across the city as he becomes a political sloganeer with a spray can); and several of Nick Zedd’s leftfield shockers with telltale titles like They Eat Scum and Police State. Of course, Jarmusch’s Permanent Vacation and Stranger Than Paradise also came out of this all-for-one scrum.

Whether they premiered in one-room apartments or public access or even the now-extant New Cinema on St. Mark’s Place, many of these culled bits strike one as the visual equivalents of basement tracks: resourceful, yes, but highly personal, brimming with manic energy, at times kitschy, and always with a no-philistines-allowed stamp. Above all, they documented themselves if only to project themselves to the world — even if that flattened world seemed bounded by the Bowery. You’ll glimpse Lurie in his bed-sheet toga for Nares’ uproarious, Manhattan-imagined period piece, Rome ‘78; Buscemi busting a move in another clip; and even a young Vincent Gallo in bed (the more things change, the more the stay the same).

The lament of the inevitable fade — due to the usual ’80s suspects: infighting, drugs, AIDS, money and attendant commercialization, and that beloved, teflon-coated President — becomes a refrain towards the end, although Jarmusch bullishly justifies that “New York was always about hustling, thievery.” Danhier’s scope happens to catch the nascent hip-hop movement descending from Harlem, but it seems hasty; she tries to be too comprehensive. Not that one can fault her effort, as the unhinged energy is contagious even 30 years after the fact, and Danhier’s vital achievement is to revisit (and reintroduce) it with such same-minded verve.

The Eclipse

My published Flavorwire post:
Between grief and nothing, widower and father-of-two Michael Farr (Ciarán Hinds) chooses grief — a perfectly Gothic response in Irish dramatist Conor McPherson’s excellent and often breathtaking new film, The Eclipse. In this atmospheric and spectral portrait — apparitions and startling hues expertly double to ROUSE you from the beautifully lulling gloom — Michael gets psychologically and physically beaten out of his Edgar Allan Woe phase (his middle-aged, ecclesiastic face initially spells “nevermore” to the opposite sex) over a cathartic weekend spent volunteering at the local Cobh Literary Festival. He chauffeurs two writers caught in an internecine relationship themselves.

For the taut, act-divided narrative, McPherson partnered with fellow Irishman of letters Billy Roche to adapt and expand upon Roche’s short story “Table Manners” (from Tales From Rainwater Pond). A literary festival is the pair’s bailiwick so the two duly infuse the underexposed event with a few knowing, behind-the-book-sleeve flourishes, enveloping us in readings, forced hobnobbing, and elaborate soirées in which the buttoned-up turn into the soused (in-joke: Roche also stars as the convivial festival head). Among the gathered literary talent is the best-selling author Nicholas Holden (Aidan Quinn), who’s revealed — in two scenes flat — to be a bumptious asshole.

Lo and behold though: the smug madman claims to have become an Eliotian hollow man when he sees fetching supernatural-fiction writer Lena Morelle (Iben Hjejle), who’s been lured to this schmoozapalooza by his bait-and-switch. ”I’m a miserable fake,” he immediately belts to her with possessed, welled-up eyes, harping on about last year’s one-night fling as if the two had consummated their affair at Marienbad. She responds to this leave-my-wife thrust with leave-me-be parry, yet he’s as obsessive about claiming his literal prize as any egomaniacal scribe.

Throughout The Eclipse, Nicholas comes to represent the moon-faced, bellicose obstacle standing in between Michael and his new romantic “charge” — the tense, and only, occasion where Michael has to be alone and verbally spar with Nicholas sets up the climactic contretemps. Michael’s attraction to Lena stems, in part, from her expertise on a subject that’s not exactly meet-cute material: ghosts. ”Terrified of forgetting” his wife (he, and we, won’t) and tasked with raising a teenage daughter (Hannah Lynch) and adolescent son (Eanna Hardwicke) by his clueless lonesome, he begins to envision that terrorizing Gothic staple, each “apparition” popping up at the most inopportune times (i.e. middle of the night or while driving in the dark). These brusque bursts of the uncanny not only mangle his nerves and psyche, but his actual body. And while they might be unnecessarily sudden — an assault aided by superb, pin-drop sound design — and ultimately inexplicable, these shock-and-ahh appearances jar us and put us in his vulnerable stead as he slowly moves towards self-resolution. Through these expected pathetic fallacies, we too “feel harassed by life.”

Michael and Lena’s relationship unfurls across a travelogue of Cobh’s grayed, aged structures and its evergreen purlieus, all lushly shot through with unexpected flecks of color — an azure door, a tricolor windowpane that recalls Mondrian. The cityscape’s magnificent Cathedral of Saint Colman (the tale’s Dakota Building) looms especially portentous, a dispassionate witness to a century’s-old narrative played out below. This eerie yet scenic setting formidably buttresses McPherson’s assured handling of that omnipresent feeling of dread — this may not be Haggis, but we know an impending collision awaits when we see the intersecting lives. A mood-setting, repeating blend of crescendos, dirgeful piano, and tried-and-true choral arrangements that denote the spiritual, the film’s music (composed by Fionnuala Ni Chiosain, McPherson’s wife) works beautifully in spurts, and when it does, it soars.

While McPherson bluntly visualizes a boatload of his character’s psychological states, the excellent performances retain a mystery. The comely Hjejle ably shapes Lena as not only an object of desire, but a creature of impulse, apt to dash to an ailing Nicholas’ side or to risk a little tenderness. Meanwhile, Quinn’s charismatic and monstrous performance screams all-eyes-on-me, while brilliantly adding a dash of feasible if fleeting weakness to a whack job during a disorienting, mask-on-mask-off search for Lena at a gathering. In short, he’s the perfect expressive foil for the reserved Hinds. Solid and natural as an oak, Hinds is indeed capital as the absorbing lead who feels more comfortable in the background. With a hint of humor here and there and a sense of loss everywhere (he’s also a would-be writer), his unassuming presence moors McPherson’s lyrical and satisfying effort in a modesty that’s altogether becoming.

Departures

My published Flavorwire post:
The cellist has become prestige cinema’s musician du jour. For one, there’s The Soloist, Joe Wright’s latest tearjerker about the schizophrenic skid row genius Nathaniel Anthony Ayers. But more anticipated (at least away from the left coast) is Yojiro Takita’s surprisingly absorbing Departures, or that once-obscure Japanese film that spoiled your perfect Oscar-pool entry by yoinking Best Foreign Film from the outstretched hands of Waltz For Bashir and The Class.

A pleasing if plainly sentimental weave of the humorous and the morbid, this rhapsodically-scored film tracks the “Self”-discovery (hint: it’s shuffled off in his fatherless past) of winsome Everyman Daigo (Masahiro Motoki), whose hope for cellist fame goes pfft when his Tokyo orchestra disbands following another half-packed performance — after all, who has cash money for symphonies? Fortunately, folks still shell out for “Nokanshi,” or specialists in the esoteric field of “encoffining” (the eerie-to-us, but serenely Japanese ritual of washing, dressing, and dolling up the deceased before cremation, all without exposing a flicker of skin to the observing family mourners); despite their meticulous craft, these professionals are themselves treated like Untouchables, due to some societal taboo with their gatekeeping role. Packing up his belongings — including his doting spouse Mika (Ryoko Hirosue, a simpering, pretty prop used, by and large, for plot advancement like her “me or the métier” ultimatum) — and heading north to the picturesque, cherry-blossomed outpost he once called home, Daigo stumbles into what becomes his life calling after accepting a well-paid position that’s simply advertised as “working with departures.” You can imagine the mortifying hilarity that ensues when he sees his first ever corpse.

The detailed acts of actual “encoffinment” spellbind (Motoki trained for what amounts to pinpoint performance art): here, Takita masterfully inserts slapstick and laughter, which help ballast (if not effectively bolster) the outsized issues at hand, viz., Death, Memory, Guilt, Compassion. \Back in his childhood haunts, these uppercase concerns also reemerge from their dormant state within Daigo; but, the delicate theatre of this white-collar death rite actually becomes his conduit to reconciling the personal. By the credits, his “own identity fad[es] out into a grey impalpable world: the solid world itself, which these dead had one time reared and lived in, dissolv[es] and dwindl[es],” as Joyce once fathomed.

Besides the revelatory sweep of the parental/filial responses toward bereavement — for instance, the trademark Japanese politesse make each session all the more understated and poignant — is an especially boffo scene that involves the screwball creation of a how-to DVD. It would be remiss to not mention Tsutomu Yamazaki’s wonderfully deadpan incarnation of Sasaki, the kahuna who mentors Daigo on living while literally facing death everyday — this sometimes involves noshing on fried chicken, or, as the sagely elder says, the cruel fact that “the living eat the dead.” Their nuanced bonding has father-son scribbled large in the widescreen margins, but Yamazaki’s impassive presence keeps it from getting weepy.

What weighs down the film from being entirely beguiling is the Oscar (or Obvious) motif: look for the returned-to-its-habitat octopus or the homeward-bound salmon. Most egregious is a stone, which is modestly introduced as an olden way to express one’s feelings to a loved one (smooth=happy, rough=worried), but soon grows boulder-big in its schmaltzy symbolism. \And let’s not talk about the field-of-dreams cello solo. Yet, as one patron intones about the onscreen work: everything is done peacefully and beautifully. Sumptuously-shot and heartening in its own ways, Departures teems with life in all its strange permutations, oscillating between expected and eloquent statements on passing from one existential phase to the next.

Still Walking

My published Flavorwire post:
Let it be said with certitude: once the dust and plaudits settle from this Tribeca Circus, Hirokazu Kore-eda’s modest home drama Still Walking will be its enduring memento. Or, owing to Kore-eda’s honest, subtly-bruising touch, a memento mori whose tidal affect can be traced directly to its sublime, understated blend of the tender, uncomfortable, humorous, and wistful moments that reckon to be endemic to many a family gathering.

In this microcosmic case, Kore-eda marshals the Yokoyama family for their annual remembrance of Junpei, the eldest and favorite son who died fifteen years back while saving a drowning boy. His passing may presently band them together, but it’s also what drove them toward that common divide: the elderly parents dwell in the ossified past, their offspring live with one foot towards tomorrow (especially when visiting their begetters). Thus, even if the saintly Junpei is never seen — save in inanimate objects scattered about, such as a found elementary-grade sketch by his unfit-to-fill-zōris brother and central character Ryo (Hiroshi Abe) — his larger-than-when-alive spirit nonetheless informs the family’s fraught interactions with (or detachment from) one another, just as a dead woman shaped the dread in Hitchcock’s Rebecca and Alain Resnais’ Muriel.

Set over 24 hours at the parents’ seaside residence, Still Walking begins in media res as mother (Kirin Kiki) and raspy-voiced daughter Chinami (You) swap secrets and recipes while fixing up an economy-be-damned feast — with its familial bric-a-brac and well-used, middle-class fittings, the home strikes one as perfectly lived-in, which props up the immediate sense of recognition. We then trail the withdrawn father (Yoshio Harada) — a retired doctor who still prefers to be addressed as such and who often sits alone in his examining-room annex (the home doubled as a clinic before a larger hospital opened nearby) — on his stroll through the lovely, verdant surrounding area. The patriarch’s telltale first words? “Oh, you’re here,” which he grumbles upon seeing Ryo, whose own unease towards returning to unmet parental expectations is succinctly aired when he entreats his new wife Yukari (Yui Natsukawa) to make up “an emergency PTA meeting.” Love is a many splintered thing in this family.

An unemployed art restorer, Ryo has never been able to supplant his parent’s WWJD (What Would Junpei Do) standard — one based solely on that fathomless what-if — nor has he endeared himself to their utilitarian ways with his impractical profession (again, Junpei would have basically inherited his father’s life). An American production might have Ryo stamping his feet and shouting “JUNPEI, JUNPEI, JUNPEI!” at this point, but not Kore-eda; instead, he stresses the testy relationship further with the parent’s disapproval of the recent marriage to a widow with a 10-year-old son (Shohei Tanaka) in tow (”A divorcee is better than a widow; at least it’s voluntary” to paraphrase the still-mourning mother’s logical yet oblivious opinion). Later, when Chagall is mentioned as a chimeric restoration project, it becomes more than a laughable placeholder: Ryo’s careworn face spells out his desire to fly this provincial coop like some Chagallian figure, bride and child in hand.

The actual day and “plot” unfold at a leisurely, listen-and-glean pace; a weighty sidelong glance often substitutes for a verbal confrontation. What we discover over the simple progression of meals, an open-air sojourn to the cemetery, a prayer session (in which the less-than-impressive boy that Junpei saved makes a revelatory visit), and miscellaneous small talk only underscores Chinami’s early belief: “Children don’t grow up the way you want them to.” And neither do the parents. Indeed, secrets and buried disappointments bubble to the surface like tar, momentarily blackening and weighing down the film’s light, serene, extempore mood. Yet, these hidden agendas and nettling slips in tact also color the characters with real, slow-to-show emotion to the same degree that an observed habit does, such as the mother retelling the same stories either out of comfort or senility or the father’s reflex to blame others. In other words, their fallibility rounds them into recognizable, sympathetic figures.

In Japanese cinema’s echo chamber, Still Walking is the natural, humanistic response to a full-throated bellow of Ozzzuuuuuu. Like the low-key Japanese master, Kore-eda’s perennial concern with mono no aware (a Japanese term that describes an “awareness of the transience of things”) lines his sensitive script, whether with its the stock phrase “brings back memories,” which nearly becomes an incantation in its sighing repetition, or that Ryo’s trade is specifically devoted to age and the erosive effects of time. That Ryo realizes the precious need to restore his filial affection only once he’s down the road (literally and figuratively) ends the film on a bittersweet note, one treated with a delicate, drifting tone that recalls e.e. cummings’ “if there are heavens my mother.” Kore-eda mints a wonderful idiom: there’s no placation at home.

Rudo y Cursi

My published Flavorwire post:
If Roberto Bolaño’s heartbreaking work of staggering genius, The Savage Detectives, is ever lensed, casting would be a cinch: no amigo duo could top Gael Garcia Bernal y Diego Luna for sheer dynamism and flock-to-fawn audience draw. Until that fated day, we’re stuck with Carlos Cuarón’s (Alfonso’s younger brother) mediocre if occasionally amusing rags-to-riches-to-rags feature debut, Rudo y Cursi.

Working side by side for the first time since Cuarón the Elder’s sensational Y Tu Mama Tambien, Luna and Bernal star as soccer-loving stepbrothers Beto (alias Rudo) and Tato (Cursi) whose opposing playing styles (Rudo the irascible, roughhousing goalie; Cursi the smooth, “romantic” striker) also reflect their diametric personalities — the title’s “Tough and Corny.” Their hardscrabble, banana-farming lives take a turn towards Mexico City a.k.a. Mecca de Fútbol when narrator/talent scout Baton (jocularly douch-y Guillermo Francella, flanked at all times by buxom models) discovers them competing on their off-day. He, in the first of a series of bottom-line manipulations, dangles only one spot in front of the tantalized “hicks”; the ensuing shootout to decide who goes professional first (and who’s relegated to second banana, so to speak) is signed all over as the front bookend in a schematic story line, which can be summed up with a few choice words: fame; attendant temptation; self-destruction; inadvertent betrayal.

The problem within the traced, parabolic arch isn’t atmosphere or gusto, though: there’s an ample amount engendered by the handheld camera trolling through the dirty-as-shit backwoods and glitzy metropolis, as well as from the all-in performances of the leads. Take the matchless Bernal: his Curious Cursi not only falls for a social-climbing beauty nicknamed “pajamas” (”because everyone wears her to bed”), but he pursues a singing career with more conviction than he ever commits to a soccer ball. Yet there’s an easy-to-see sincerity in Bernal’s misdirected spunk, even when he belts out notes for a Spanish cover of Cheap Trick’s “I Want You To Want Me” with less tone than a blackout (the best sequence of the film happens to be his hilariously kitschy music video). His and Luna’s oh-those-boys bonhomie buoy the enterprise for a spell, as they bicker and compete like true siblings over every little thing, especially the noble task of building a beach house for their long-suffering mother. But even their vigor can’t overcome the expected outcome, as each character steps into a footprint from characters past, pressing towards its hermano-a-hermano showdown with a determination reminiscent of a player who spies only the endgame.

Perhaps its the intruding narration that’s most bothersome, containing more exasperating aphorisms — samples include “football is fickle” , “the poorest places are where you’ll find a diamond in the rough” — than a poor-house Horace; basically, it’s like a director’s commentary track that unnecessarily materializes the scene’s meaning in the subtitles. While the tragedy-tinged end saves a few points, the film remains middling entertainment. There’s a reason this has been hyped as Luna and Bernal’s reunion first and foremost: their near-paranormal interplay is far and away the freshest element.

Il Divo & Paolo Sorrentino Interview

My published Flavorwire post:
Since 1946, Giulio Andreotti — variously called “The Sphinx,” “The First Letter of the Alphabet,” and, last but most relevant, “Il Divo,” a nickname that descends from Rome’s most notorious statesman, Julius Caesar — has found himself to be the most celebrated and polemical figure in Italy’s byzantine (read: corrupt) political scene, whether as 7-time Prime Minister, 8-time Minister of Defense, or, presently, Senator for life. “Apart from the Punic Wars, I’ve been blamed for everything that’s happened in Italy,” the enigmatic Andreotti once wisecracked. He’s stood accused of collusion and murder (he was convicted, but, as expected given his crafty reputation, was eventually acquitted of all charges).

In his operatic, rabble-rousing portrait of this long-standing Public Envoy/Enemy Number One, Il Divo, Paolo Sorrentino fleshes out — with panache and wit to spare — the late-career allegations of Don Giulio’s illicit links to the Vatican, the sub-rosa Masonic lodge P2 (Propaganda Due), and, obviously, the Mafia. “It was impossible to make a biography about his entire life,” Sorrentino told us. “There are two particularly interesting periods in his life: the ’70s, but that period is often recounted in Italian cinema, and the ’90s, which is not as well known. So I chose to look at his decay — it’s always fascinating when you see how the man slowly goes down.”

Spoken like a true classicist. Yet, while Sorrentino’s fascination with the fall of the High and Mighty is as textbook as Aristotle, his hypnotically outré depiction of the descent is hands-down modern — particularly his madcap choice and use of music (Sorrentino’s “rock opera” features Vivaldi beside Beth Orton, Sibelius followed by Trio, all working to a generally compelling degree, specifically a devastating projection of Renato Zero’s “Best Year’s Of Our Lives,” a ballad he chanced upon while in London). Il Divo commences its history-collapsing investigation of a citizen above suspicion inside a shadowy room, where a reflective Andreotti, his face covered in acupuncture needles to alleviate a perennial migraine (an image that recalls Hellraiser’s Pinhead), muses on those who thought they’d bury him but ended up buried themselves. Past and present then elide into a kinetic, rock-scored spree of wham-bam assassinations during Andreotti’s different administrations, including journalist Mino Pecorelli (1979), fugitive banker Roberto Calvi (1982), and Christian Democrat rival Aldo Moro, who the Red Brigades kidnapped in 1978, quarantined for 55 days, and executed when Andreotti suspiciously refused to deal — his guilt over the affair makes an appearance as “a second migraine, but even more agonizing.”

Later, during the Bribesville inquiries, a rash of suicides unspool with only 3-D captions to differentiate the deceased. Be prepared, dear reader: if the polysyllabic names seem specific to the point of esotericism on the page, Sorrentino makes matters denser by going Mach 5 between the onscreen bigwigs, shuffling between his various Italians with the bravado of an ace dealer. In the end, what’s more essential than recognizing x, y, and z is recognizing their telegraphic connection to Andreotti: it’s accusation by visual association. A journalist (Sorrentino’s obvious avatar) further cements the case when he recites an epic rap sheet in front of a parrying Andreotti, each bullet-point recalling the ghosts of scenes past.

Sorrentino disinters the inner workings predominantly through visual means, fettering psychology to method; for instance, the night before his trial, Andreotti paces his hallway for hours, the camera swivels back and forth like a pendulum, nervously ticking off the time with each pivot. Despite his impenetrable facade, the detailed film nonetheless succeeds in establishing this reserved mandarin as a Machiavellian chieftain, a perception abetted by the tony, go-for-baroque mise-en-scène with its pervasive “symbols of power” (i.e. a brigade of machine-gun-armed guards) as well as the Coppola-style montages that breathlessly fuse the ordinary with the cutthroat. Sorrentino’s go-to actor Toni Servillo (who starred in the director’s slick 2004 breakthrough, Consequences of Love) does his best impression of a stoic Roman bust, portraying the politico as a stooped, shambling prince whose ears curl forward like two magnificent antennas. The director’s two meetings with the man himself provided the somatic template: in brief, his mannerisms were reminiscent of a robot. “But when he does move,” Sorrentino emphasizes, “it has a [heightened] meaning.”

Especially meaningful then is a late non sequitur in which Andreotti delivers a fabricated, face-the-camera mea culpa: he justifies his base actions as a “monstrous, unavowable contradiction: perpetrating evil to guarantee good.” How Moloch the Mystic. Surreal and disorienting, it’s the most plain-spoken moment from a character who, to quote Godfather II, often has “a lot of buffers” — both physical and psychological — in between him and his unseemly bidding. It’s also a marked shift from the earlier biographic quips (”I don’t succumb to lesser vices”) and obviously measured responses; here, Sorrentino’s analogy that compares penning lines to “when the pianist plays by ear” makes sense: he’s tuned out everything except for what resonates. After this surprising confession, there’s a procession of scenes where the press and paparazzi snap up umpteen pictures of the out-of-his-time Delphic figure as he goes before the investigative committees. But rather than delve headlong into legalese, Sorrentino sharply opts for one last stylized indictment as the film fades, not to black, but to a vivid blood-red.

Treeless Mountain & So Yong Kim Interview

My published Flavorwire post:
“Stick to your sister.” If that line of parental counsel is as consistently ignored as the Maginot forts, So Yong Kim’s aching coming-of-age story, Treeless Mountain, lends it a deeper, more heartrending resonance. As it happens, the four-word order is spoken by the single mother of 6-year-old Jin (Hee Yeon Kim) and 4-year-old Bin (Song Hee Kim) as she leaves her adorable ones with their provincial aunt and buses off to find their estranged father.

Moving from hustle-bustle Seoul to its sleepy outskirts, the now-inseparable sisters busy themselves with household chores and the occasional social call to the boy next door, whose mother spoils them with platefuls of sweets. Their Big Aunt (Mi Hyang Kim), as she’s addressed, is revealed to be a neglectful alcoholic — a bad habit that manifests itself in missed meals for the two youths. Fortunately, the pair proves to be self-reliant and entrepreneurial, as only hardknock kids manage to be. Yet this resourcefulness also emerges as the side-effect of a diversion: their humdrum days are measured in relation to the coin level in a plastic piggy bank, which, once filled, promises their mother’s return — or so they steadfastly believe. To expedite the process, they begin peddling grilled grasshoppers to other children. Later, in a scene of simple, unsentimental desperation, they exchange their larger denominations for smaller, space-filling ones — in their elementary logic, the clattering coins no longer register as monetary units, but as moments to be counted off before the longed-for homecoming.

Throughout these quotidian routines, Kim’s clear-eyed, Super 16 camera remains affixed to the tyke’s expressive faces, as artless reactions — blinking disbelief, unbridled joy, embarrassment — flicker and pass across them. This intimate, in-their-face persistence — the film opens with Jin’s wide-eye visage obstructing the view of the background, her teacher’s voice and person reduced to an alien, offscreen presence — also exquisitely captures their limited perspective, which slowly expands to rival Jin’s involuntary maturation. Punctuating these patiently-observed verité sequences is a battery of painterly, nature-based interludes, which furnishes the film’s elemental beauty and allows it to formally breathe between the all-in episodes.

Above all else, Treeless Mountain is a testament to the children’s resolve to endure, come what may in this soulful story. Near the film’s end at Jin and Bin’s grandparents farm in Hunghae (which is close to the director’s own childhood home), Kim stages a transcendent moment where the girls turn their heartache and loss into a simple gesture of sacrifice and unadulterated compassion. After the feature-length onslaught of unfortunate news, it’s a perfect life-marches-on restorative, on par with the best instances in the realist oeuvre.

But Kim’s virtuosity with minor-key portraits should come as no surprise; she circled her name as a talent to tab back in 2006 with her autobiographic, penetrative and exceedingly poignant coming-to-America debut, In Between Days. More recently, New York Times film critic A.O. Scott lassoed her into his “neo-neorealist” collective along with filmmakers like Ramin Bahrani and Kelly Reichardt. We sat down with the animated, in-demand director last week to delve deeper into her acclaimed follow-up.

Flavorwire: The story for Treeless Mountain originated as a short story. Describe that original version and how you developed it into this remarkably spare, near-wordless narrative?

So Yong Kim: I was taking this creative writing class because I wanted to improve my writing. The first story I wrote was about these two sisters who are catching grasshoppers and selling them to the town kids. Then, I did a sketch for the story: this treeless mountain with two girls on top. That has always stayed as the title. After the class, I kept writing these moments from my childhood that I remembered from growing up with my grandmother. Or just moments with my sister when we were arguing on bus trips. I collected these short stories and put them together into a script. I think I got the first draft done by the end of 2005, but it wasn’t until 2006, or so, that I thought, “Maybe I could make it into a film.”

FW: So, before In Between Days?

SYK: Kind of, yeah. But In Between Days was a lot more manageable — there were no expectations for that film. I just wanted to experiment with shooting on video. I mean, I went through the writing process for In Between Days, all those things associated with narrative films. But after we shot the film, I still felt there was no pressure for it to be a narrative film — it could have been anything.

FW: Because you were new to the film world?

SYK: Yeah! It was so great, in that sense. It could have been a ten-minute short film if I didn’t have good enough stuff.

FW: Well, things certainly worked out for the best. How long did Treeless Mountain actually take to shoot and edit?

SYK: The casting took the longest — we were at elementary schools and kindergartens until the last two weeks before shooting — and that made the shooting schedule pretty tight. We shot for 29 days, then I edited for 4 months straight. That includes sound editing, because my voice was all over the audio track [she talked to the girls during each take]. Since it was shot on Super 16, I also had to sync all the material and subtitle all the footage. It wasn’t that fun for awhile.

FW: It is what it is.

SYK: It is what it is. I’m done and I’m happy.

FW: Autobiography obviously shades your films, but the personal context of each situation is shrouded by the universal, empathetic nature of their plight. Still, I’m interested in your return to Korea, a land that you left during your formative years. Can you describe that experience and its effect on your filmmaking?

SYK: Knowing what I know now, I think I would have tried a little bit harder to talk myself out of it. [laughs] Not that it wasn’t an amazing experience. When I first started to collect these stories, it was always set in Korea. So I had to back to Korea to shoot this film. It was non-negotiable. Whereas In Between Days was set in L.A. when I first wrote the script, but changed to Toronto because I felt, when we were location scouting, that Toronto was a better fit for the story and made for a better film. With Treeless, the setting was always in my hometown because I knew that location so well and felt really connected to it. So we went back in September to start production and spent a lot of time in Seoul, which I don’t know very well. Just the amount of culture shock I had to go through was tough. Not only that, our crew was 50 percent Korean, 50 percent American. There’s a huge cultural gap. Not gap, necessarily, but….

FW: Language barrier? Speaking of which, how good is your Korean?

SYK: My Korean is like a 7-year-old Korean’s language level. I could totally get by though. Until we found an assistant who was bilingual, I actually had to do a lot of the translation between our producers and the Korean crew. But, the shooting of the film was very smooth, considering all the things that could have happened. I think it was because we had a fantastic line producer in Korea — he was so detailed and meticulous. I’m so thankful for him. But shooting in my hometown, it was great. [laughs] We were in Seoul the first five days of the shoot, then everybody took the bus over to the countryside. Once we were in that location, everyone just relaxed because all the people from Seoul didn’t know that place, all the Americans didn’t know that place. The air was beautiful, non-polluted. People woke up in the morning and walked to work. We were there for like 22 days or something and everyone got kind of fat. [laughs] Not fat, but it was just a completely different pace of life, completely different than Seoul.

FW: What was the local response?

SYK: Wonderful. There was a restaurant that fed all of us lunch, sometimes breakfast. They were really open. We even cast local people for the film.

FW: Like the grandmother?

SYK: Yes, the grandmother and the grandfather. The restaurant owner was also local.

FW: Like In Between Days, the interludes in the film are breathtaking and wondrous. Were they storyboarded or stumbled upon?

SYK: I didn’t write those into Treeless because I felt like I was repeating myself stylistically from In Between Days. But when I got to Seoul, I knew that I should collect these images because I might need to use them.

FW: Your camera is as intimate as any in cinema, reaching an uncomfortable familiarity with the characters through its constant focus. Why do you opt for this personalized style?

SYK: For these two particular stories, it was important to be present with them. You want to be in their space. So I really wanted the camera to be at the same eye-level as the kids. And also, I always wanted to get their coverage on close-ups first. If we had time, then we went to wider shots. In In Between Days, Jiseon’s face is amazing. She’s got this wide, moon face. It’s expressive, innocent, but also really mature — she has this range. For these two girls, they’re so young and they have no filter. As you get older, I think you build these society mannerisms or filters to shut down what you are really feeling. But with these kids, they’re so innocent and pure, everything they feel comes straight to their face. I felt like it was important to be with them so that you’re not passing judgment.

FW: It’s a very interactive style, because, while you know what they’re thinking through their particular circumstances, you also project your own thoughts and feelings onto this onscreen avatar.

SYK: Exactly! I think the interpretation of the story has a lot to do with what kind of person you are and how much you can fill in those missing blanks.

FW: Hee-Yeon Kim’s performance as Jin is as powerful as Ana Torrent’s turn in another classic about childhood and unexpected maturation, Spirit of the Beehive. How was it working with the two non-professional children and how did you coax such heartrending performances? Did being a new mother help shape your relationship?

SYK: It really did — it made me very protective and also sensitive to what they needed. If I wasn’t a mom, I don’t think I would have that understanding of what they might be feeling. Because I was so attuned to what my daughter was lacking, the different senses that open up once you become a mother. It also really grounded me, gave me a sense that I have to make this film now or it might not happen later. It just seemed like all the stars were aligning for this film to happen at that moment.

FW: The great South Korean director Lee Chang Dong endorsed the two actresses (Soo Ah Lee ad Mi Hyang Kim) who play mother and Big Aunt. How’d that happen?

SYK: Yeah!!! He’s so great. We were really fortunate to have access to his office because we know Hannah Lee, who produced Secret Sunshine. They were so generous. They allowed us to use part of their office during our pre-production and, one night, we were having a meeting there late when director Lee came by. And he was like, “Come over here, let’s have a talk.” Okay. Then he was like, “What do you need?” And I was, [her voice warps into a tremulous affectation], “I have to cast these two actresses…I don’t know.” And he was like, “What kind of people are they?” And I explained to the best of my ability, as a 7-year-old Korean, “Well, the aunt is an alcoholic and she needs to have this accent and…” So he pulled out his address book [mock browsing]. Then he took out his cell phone [mock dialing]. He made the phone calls right in front of me, just like that. He’s like the Godfather.

FW: Where did you discover that wonderful ballad that Jin and Bin belt at the end?

SYK: It’s a Grandaddy song! “Nature’s Anthem.” I used that song when I was writing the script to give me a boost whenever I felt down. It was like a cheerleading song, you know. Every time I listened to it, I thought, “You can do it, you can do it…”

Eran Riklis Interview

My published Flavorwire post:
Eran Riklis continues to fight the noble fight. One of Israel’s most prominent filmmakers, he zeroes in on Middle East frictions with an eye that’s keen on engendering discussion and tolerance. Cup Final (1991), for instance, centered around the mutual love for soccer between an Israeli soldier and his PLO captors. More recently, The Syrian Bride (2004) dealt with a Druze wedding and the absurd bureaucratic straits that accompany the ceremony. Earlier this week, the director sat down to discuss his latest Israeli-Palestinian parable Lemon Tree, borders, the splendor of leading lady Hiam Abbass, and his many upcoming projects, which include a film about a Jewish basketball coach recruited by the German national team in the ’70s.

Flavorwire: Lemon Tree was inspired by an actual court case. How did you develop the fictional tale from a factual tidbit?

Eran Riklis: I’m always looking for stories, whether on the Internet or, in previous years, in newspapers. Even stories that you hear, whether here or there. Basically, I like to be connected to reality, then take off in whatever direction I want. After The Syrian Bride, I was really looking for another project to do with Hiam Abbass. And I came across these two lines on the web. I researched it a bit more, but there wasn’t much information. So I said to myself, “Okay, I don’t need much more than that one-liner: A Palestinian woman goes to court against the Minister of Defense.” It’s big, yet it’s also a very small story. You always have to keep that in mind: you are telling a story, first of all. You want to capture your audience; then you can put in all the other vaguer elements. I would also say [the film's] inspired by another 100,000 stories. These stories happen all the time, unfortunately.

FW: Why did you opt for the lemon tree over the region’s more common olive tree? Is it because the idea of “extending an olive branch” would be too easy?

ER: Too easy and almost contrived in a way. “Oh my god, no olive trees again!” It’s too much. When I first sat down and wrote the synopsis, I wrote lemon tree and then quoted the famous song, “Lemon Tree” [by Peter, Paul and Mary]. [The film] has all the elements of lemon: It’s fresh, a little bit sweet, a little bit tart. It has everything in it. In that sense, I felt very comfortable. Also, it’s funny to say this, but I like the title Lemon Tree. It’s catchy.

FW: There’s that young solider in the guard tower who constantly listens, often listlessly, to a test-prep tape. Besides acting as a sort of jester in this tragicomedy, he is also another instance of loneliness. In fact, his isolation seems endemic, as each of the main characters — Salma, Mira, and, later, Israel — are islands unto themselves. Why this common strand of loneliness?

ER: It’s a very good question because my co-writer Suha [Arraf] and I — once we sat down and thought about what the film is really about beyond the plot — said it’s about loneliness. And I think that is what we were aiming at. That’s why all the characters are isolated from each other. Whether it’s the minister and his wife, whether it’s between them and their kids, whether it’s the young solider — everyone is lonely in this film. It’s part of the reality of the region, which has so much conflict. I mean, you work in packs and try to struggle against the conflict, whether politically, violently or whatever. But, in the end, a lot of people find themselves on their own. Look at Salma: she creates this huge struggle against a system to protect her trees. But she’s on her own, nobody helps her. Her lawyer? He’s charming, of course, but I’m not sure you can trust him. Beyond the plot, beyond the politics, beyond almost every element, it’s about loneliness and isolation. The film is saying — again, I don’t want to sound corny about it — get together. People should help each other, people should come across borders to change things. Because if you’re isolated, and on your own, not much will happen.

FW: Like The Syrian Bride, Lemon Tree focuses on the notion of borders, whether societal, emotional, or, of course, physical. What interests you about borders, which often become walls erected in the name of self-preservation?

ER: The emotional side of borders is what interests me, but obviously I come from a country where physical borders are very much present — travel twenty minutes and you’re at the border. It’s out of fear, I guess. Cultural, racial, whatever. But I guess they were meant to come down, like Berlin; I think that’s the optimistic part of the story. It’s all about the decision you make nearly every morning about what borders or boundaries you’re going to cross today, whether you’re going to remain static or you’re going to take a risk and bear the consequences.

FW: This is yet another collaboration with Palestinian-Israeli screenwriter Suha Arraf. What is it like working with her? Is she the one who gives the women with their grace?

ER: When I was initially writing The Syrian Bride on my own, I needed someone who knew the culture better than I did — even though I did a lot of research and everything — and who was a woman, which would balance me. I came across her in an interview she gave when she finished scriptwriting school in Tel Aviv. There was something interesting about her, an Arab woman in her ’30s, single. Big mouth. [laughs] So I figured she wass someone I should meet. For me, she was perfect, fresh. I always tend to ignore the fact that, of course, it looks good: Israeli director working with Palestinian writer. It sounds too perfect for this kind of film.

FW: Speaking of which, your cast and crew represent an United Nations-worth of multicultural collaboration — there’s your Swiss cinematographer, French and German producers, and so on. What result does this have on the actual production?

ER: I think it brings a good tension and energy because you have different schools of thought at work. And yet, it all begins and ends with love for the project. There’s no way I could’ve work with a Swiss cameraman [Rainer Kluasmann] if he hadn’t come to me and said, “Listen, I love this project, I want to do it. I feel it in my bones, like you do, even though I live in Zurich and I open the window and everything is perfect outside. [laughs] It’s really about connecting with people and, you know, sucking ideas out of each other to serve the film. It doesn’t matter what you believe in politically, it’s not about right or left. There’s a certain wave across the world which connects these people.

FW: How did you communicate on set?

ER: It was an English-speaking environment because, in Israel, most people speak English.

FW: Communication actually plays a central role in in the film. There’s this near-constitutional inability for the sides to sit down and reason it out. So, the media becomes the mouthpiece for Salma. Yet it’s also guilty of exasperating the situation beyond its simple origin. What role do you think media has in choosing which issues are spotlighted and thus fought?

ER: Media plays a crucial role, but here’s the problem: a story like the real-life case of Salma makes the headlines for a day, the second page the next day, and then it’s gone. I think follow-up is the main issue. As a filmmaker, I’m not trying to replace that part of the media, but a film can touch the central issue in a deeper way in that story’s there forever. Whenever people see the film, they’re reminded of the people at the core of the conflict. If it plays its role correctly, the media can do that; but it needs fresh cases almost every day. You need the blood and you don’t always have the blood. In Lemon Tree, the media is crucial on every level: part of the reason Salma can go all the way to the Supreme Court — beyond the legal system — is the fact that she enjoys the media hype.

FW: You mentioned that you wrote this role for Hiam. Is she the Dietrich to your Von Sternberg, or whichever actress-director collaboration you prefer? Can you describe your working relationship as well as what facet of her performance struck you most?

ER: [laughs] I’m actually developing another project for her called Safe House, which is a thriller and will be a little different. I think I was trying to observe the complexity of the Middle Eastern chaos, which meant I needed to evenhandedly deal with both the Israeli and Palestinian sides. I found that it’s interesting to use a mature woman because she brings another angle in terms of her role in society, her experience in life. When I met Hiam, I realized that even though she grew up in Israel in an Arab village — so she had all the basic ingredients — she had also spent 20 years or more in Paris. So she’s a totally sophisticated kind of European woman. I think that combination brings a lot of sensitivity and, yet, it’s a kind of up-to-date sensitivity. Because I’m wary of having these stereotypes of the poor Palestinian woman struggling for her trees and you say, “God”…

FW: Her face just has so much dignity etched on it.

ER: That’s precisely the word. You can’t take your eyes off her — she’s a woman in the full sense of the word. And even though you know that second chances for Arab widows in life is slim, you still wish it for her.

FW: While your tale directly addresses the region’s age-old struggle over soil, there’s also a universal appeal to it — perhaps because, as characters constantly iterate, “trees are people.” What has the response been thus far, in Israel and beyond?

ER: I’ll start with the good news: the film was a huge success in Europe, especially in Italy, France, Spain, Germany, etc. And in Brazil, it was a huge hit and ran in cinemas for 7 months. The bad news is that it was a flop in Israel. The people that did come to the cinema, generally loved it. But I think people at home read the one-liner, which we were trying to avoid, “Palestinian woman goes to court against the Minister of Defense.” It sounds too political, pro-Palestinian, “we don’t want to see it” But films have a long life: now it’s on television and it’s doing very well. Although I live in Israel and home court is always important, I work for the world, for everybody. To enjoy the reaction of the audience anywhere is probably more important than just my own country.

FW: One of your next projects is about a Jewish basketball coach who is asked to manage the German national team during the ’70s. That sounds irresistible.

ER: It is. It’s a true-life story about a man who claims he has no past because he threw it away when he came to Israel from Germany. Survived the Holocaust, lost his father there. Yet, 30-something years later, he’s requested to go back to Germany as the #1 coach in Europe. He accepts. So obviously you see the drama there. Plus, we built a very nice story which connects it to the Middle East. He meets a Turkish woman who’ s part of the first wave of Turkish immigration to Germany, which started in the late 70s. She’s there to look for her husband who went to work in Germany and disappeared and she happens to live in the apartment where the coach grew up when he was a kid in the 30s/40s. So they have this connection there.