Sundance: Absurdities

Even though it's over and the awards have all been handed out and everyone's attention has turned to the Oscars, I still have two more films to tell you about that we saw at Sundance: Püha Tõnu Kiusamine, or The Temptation of St. Tony, directed by Veiko Õunpuu, and Four Lions, directed by Chris Morris. What links these two films is they are absurd comedies of a sort, though latter is much more direct about it.

This is the trailer for Tony:

Well, maybe it doesn't look very funny from this trailer, but by the time Tony has buried his father, gotten drunk with his boss, watched a co-worker put the move on his wife, help a young girl escape from jail, try to sleep with same girl only to be abused by her father, gets tortured in a man-thong and finally resorts to cannibalism, it does get pretty funny in an absurd way. Shot in black in white with some memorable, creepy-looking people among some bizarre landscapes, if you've seen films like this before there isn't really a lot of new ground covered here or a particularly unique vision, but it is one of those "arty" movies from Europe that are good for the soul every once in awhile. And it's a lot more fun than Eraserhead or The Seventh Seal, two films among dozens with which it shares a cinematic bloodline.

Morris' Four Lions is at once patently funny and yet disturbing. Just when you though Western Civilization had pretty much plumbed the depths of what we can make fun about, along comes this little British comedy about four completely inept English Jihadists who want to sacrifice themselves for Allah in order to rid England of its consumerism and pernicious Jewish influence.

Never mind that one of them is white and wants to blow up a mosque as a rallying cry to Muslims or that these guys make Dumb and Dumber look like characters out of a Woody Allen movie. Never mind they plan to carry out their plan dressed up as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and other ridiculous costumes during a marathon. There is something funny and disturbing about all of this. There is a bit where a wookie is confused with a bear that is as priceless and funny as anything in a Monty Python film. Still, should we be laughing at any of this? I don't know, but I did, though I still felt a bit uneasy about it afterward.

There are some great bits in this movie, which could benefit from subtitles, and I have a feeling it will get a release. If it does, form your own opinion, and watch out for the man with the box on his head. He's armed and really doesn't know what he's doing. Also, innocent animals are blown to bits- and it's really quite funny.

Sundance: Comedies of Love

It wasn't all seriousness at the festival- we did manage to see 3 1/2 comedies, two of which ended being favorites of both of ours. Though A Prophet remains my favorite from the festival, the two films below were close contenders and I strongly recommend both of them. Notably again, both films were written and directed by women.

Diane Bell's debut feature Obselidia is one of those quirky, unique films that seem to exist in a world of their own creation, like Harold and Maude or Amelie. George (Michael Piccirilli) works at a library, believes love is a protein rendered unnecessary by scientific advancement and is busily devoting his life to compiling an encyclopedia of obsolete things- the "Obselidia." He doesn't drive a car though he lives in L.A., uses a rotary phone, and his apartment is a shrine to things long discarded. Of course he's typing out his life's work on a typewriter. Piccirilli is fabulous in the role, creating a unique character, perfectly nuanced in every scene and immediately charming. It's a subtle, brilliant piece of acting.

When George meets Sophie (the completely alluring Gaynor Howe), he senses a kindred spirit though she's way more adventurous than he is. Well, he isn't really adventurous at all. They meet as George interviews her for the Obselidia- she's a projectionist at a silent movie theater. She later knocks on his door and through conversation the ground is laid for them to take a road trip to Death Valley to meet a scientist who believes global warming is irreversible.

In the desert, their romance blossoms as they contemplate the destruction of humanity. Though Bell's script goes a bit overboard on this part, becoming a heavy handed on this theme, the characters keep developing through it and the story never gets derailed by the environmental agenda. This is really a tribute to the strength of Bell's overall vision and the ability of the actors.

Obselidia works so well because its characters are people you want to spend time with. They are warm, unique, funny and flawed. If you knew them in real life they might be hard to deal with at times but they'd probably be your most interesting and devoted friends. Bell's movie is a true delight, reminding me of Before Sunset in its ability to give its audience a warm glow as the film ends on an ambiguous note that seems just right.

We decided to get tickets to one of the "Surprise Premiers" and take our chances on whatever was playing. It turned out to be Lisa Cholodenko's The Kids Are All Right. We were completely unaware that an earlier screening had led to one of those famous Sundance bidding wars for the film's distribution, but I think enough people had heard about it to make it a hot ticket. I should disclose that I know Lisa Cholodenko, so I'm predisposed to want to like her films, as I did the earlier High Art and Laurel Canyon.

So I'm going to try to be as objective as I can here, without resorting to hyperbole. Having issued that disclaimer, Lisa's film was really, really funny. In fact, it's one of the warmest comedies I've seen in a long time. The film features an outstanding cast of Annette Bening, Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Mia Wasikowska (soon to be seen as the title character in Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland) and Josh Hutcherson.

Bening and Moore play Nic and Jules, a lesbian couple who's relationship has hit a rough patch after being together for twenty years. They have two teenage kids, Joni and Laser. Joni is 18 and about to leave home for college. The kids were artificially inseminated into their mothers, who used the same sperm donor for both of them. Laser is 15 and wants to know who his biological father is and convinces Joni to make the call to the sperm bank to find out.

Ruffalo is of course the donor. I could go on at length about the plot but I won't. Let's just say the best comedies work because they come from a place that understands that people are flawed and those flaws can be the source of life's funniest (or saddest) moments. The movie has some terrific set pieces, my favorite being the dinner scene where Ruffalo meets the parents for the first time. It has some of the best laughs I can recall since Best in Show. The script, by Cholodenko and Stuart Blumberg gets some terrific laughs out of its lesbian mothers scenario, but it never feels pc or agenda-driven (thankfully) nor does it ever resort to low, obvious jokes. It's just funny and honest.

Though it took me awhile to accept Moore and Bening as an on-screen couple (at first their chemistry seemed off, but then you realize things are far from perfect for them) but by the end of the film the "moms" have won you over through great performances and a solid story. I really wouldn't be at all surprised if Bening is nominated for an Oscar. I've always been a bit indifferent to her, but in this film she's perfect. Moore, one of my favorite actresses, is always a joy to watch, but this is the first time in awhile, perhaps since Short Cuts, where she looks like she's having fun.

Waskikowska is really the center of the story and she's a memorable young actor. Cholodenko has brought some fine performances out of this ensemble. Ruffalo, who gets the film's best lines (and reactions), displays a sense of comedic timing I didn't know he had before. Okay, that's enough. When it comes out, go see Lisa's film. It's a laugh-out-loud funny movie about a family that may not be so much different than your own.

Sundance: Different Lives

When we selected the films we wanted to see, we only had one over-riding thought, which was to choose films we may not get a chance to see at our local theaters any time soon. We avoided the big Hollywood premiers because we can see those eventually at a local theater. One thing I find interesting is that without intending to, out of the eleven films we saw, four centered in the Muslim world and five were directed by women. Try to find that ratio at your local multiplex.

I've grouped the two films below, both directed by women, because they strongly evoke places and times with which I'm unfamiliar and gave us insight into lives we are unlikely to experience except through the movies.


In her directorial debut , visual artist Shirin Neshat adapts Shahrnush Parsipur's novel Women Without Men to the screen with mixed results. The story takes place in Tehran during the summer of 1953 as the Shah stages his coup. Following the lives of four women from different classes and circumstances, it weaves their stories together to illustrate how they attempt to break free of the oppressive restrictions imposed on them by the men who control their lives either directly or indirectly.

Shot with a tremendous amount of creative flair resulting in arresting visuals and set-pieces, the film is always interesting to watch and the actresses form a tight ensemble giving powerful and sympathetic portrayals. The scene where Orsi Toth, playing a young prostitute, escapes from a brothel and scrubs herself raw in a hammam in unforgettable. The story features a heavy dose of magical realism, working best as an allegory rather than as a realistic representation of the time, but Neshat succeeds in recreating many facets of the era in a wholly believable way. Shot in Morocco, the street scenes and houses look and evoke what I imagine Tehran would have looked like in the 50's. However, viewers not familiar with the book will find themselves puzzled over a particular element in the story which is never fully explained by the film's narrative and eventually works against it. This one component actually keeps the film from being as satisfying as it could have been.

Nevertheless, Women Without Men is an impressive debut from an artist whose next film should be worth keeping an eye out for. One thing that came to my mind during the Q & A which followed the film: in contemporary Iran this film stands no chance of ever being shown in a theater or sold as a dvd. Thus it will never be experienced by the audience who would likely appreciate it the most- and that's a conundrum that I find simultaneously intriguing and depressing. It raises a lot of questions for which I have no answers but is the start of an interesting conversation.

Tanya Hamilton's Night Catches Us (the title refers to a Jamaican proverb) takes place in Philadelphia, 1976. Originating in a Sundance lab, it took Hamilton ten years to get this picture made. What floored me after viewing it was learning it was shot in only eighteen days. It looks and feels like they took a lot longer to shoot. Featuring a truly stellar cast (with one odd major exception), Night Catches Us is a period piece that looks at the very personal aftermath of the Black Panther movement from those who were involved in it.

When Marcus (an outstanding performance by Anthony Mackie of The Hurt Locker) returns home to his old neighborhood from prison, he has to contend with a reputation as a snitch, a Muslim brother who wants nothing to do with him (Tariq Trotter of The Roots), and some old relationships that have never been resolved.

He ends up staying with Patty Wilson (Kerry Washington, oddly unbelievable in this role) and her daughter Iris (excellent young actress Jamara Griffin). There's something between these two, but the audience isn't let in on exactly what it is for awhile and Hamilton lets the tension stew for an appropriate amount of time. All we know is that is that Marcus and Patty's deceased husband were both Panthers. Marcus has to avoid the neighborhood's kingpin (Jamie Hector aka Marlo from "The Wire") and a cop who has something on him (Wendell Pierce, also a "Wire" alum). Patty's still living in the past and no one can pull her into the future, though many men would like to. Marcus can't gain a foothold in a society that has no place nor use for him. The drama in this small, intimate story revolves around how people deal with the past and learn how to leave it there.

For me, the only thing that kept this film from being one of my favorites of the festival was Kerry Washington's performance as the neighborhood matriarch and widow with a secret. I found her completely unbelievable in this role, as if she were in another movie entirely, though which one I can't quite think of. A shame too, because hers is really the pivotal character in this gritty morality play with a heart.

The movie also features an outstanding soundtrack by The Roots.

Sundance: Documentaries

We've seen such a wide array of films, it reminds me that cinema is an art form through which so many different worldviews, experiences and visions can be expressed that it's simultaneously exciting and mind-boggling. Possibly the best thing about Sundance, or any film festival for that matter, is the ability to take in so much in a short amount of time and it feels like we've seen very little, though in the past five days we've seen an opera and 11 films, with a day off in the middle where we didn't attend anything except the fridge and the bar.

Since I'm so behind, I'm going to use this one post to cover the three documentaries we've seen, all of which were completely different in execution and theme that it seems weird to write about them all in a single post but there you have it.

Utopia in Four Movements: San Francisco filmmakers Sam Green and Dave Cerf presented a "live documentary" of the human quest for utopia, or at least hope. Using three musicians to accompany the film, this work-in-progress has Green narrating it live in front of the audience as images and footage of a world seeking cohesion and spiritual unity unfurl across the screen. Beginning with the theory behind Esperanto and its practioners and adherents, Green and Cerf take the audience through a thoughtful and evocative tour of the human spirit. If this comes to your town, it would be well worth experiencing, though it's more of a presentation than an actual film in its current form

His and Hers: Director Ken Wardrop filmed 70 women ranging in age from toddlers to octogenarians and asked them about the men in their lives. Capturing the thoughts and moods of the women provides moments that touching, humorous and poignant. Wardrop's idea is a brilliant one, though I wished he filmed it with a more diverse group of women. By using a small geographic area in rural Ireland as his sole source of interviewees, many of these women come across as living very similar lives (indeed, their kitchens often look like they all had the same decorator) and they share variations of similar experiences. I wish he had filmed additional women in London, New York, Cairo and rural China as well as well as a hundred other places. Wardrop's film is charming and intimate, but ultimately it's a wee bit too small for a feature length film.

Bhutto: Jessica Hernández and Johnny O'Hara's portrait of the first woman to be the leader of a Muslim country is one of the slickest, best-made documentaries I've ever seen. Unfortunately it borders on hagiography, making it seem like the death of Benazir Bhutto is something that has doomed any prospect for a peaceful outcome to the "clash of civilizations." If you know little of the history of modern Pakistan or of Bhutto and her family, this film is an interesting, lively and involving primer. However, there are some noticeable skims over the reasons why Bhutto was in exile for eight years or why she stepped-down from her second term. Everyone on camera (and it's an impressive group) has an agenda in shaping the Bhutto legacy and the implications her assassination has for Pakistan's future. In the end however, it tells us nothing about what Pakistan lost the day she was killed because the one thing the film never tells you was what she wanted to do beyond "restore democracy." It's a great package, put together by people close to Bhutto and her political machine, but in the end it feels like it's selling a politician (albeit a fascinating one)- not documenting history nor making a case for why Bhutto was such a pivotal figure.

Sundance: Enter the Void

Gaspar Noe's Enter the Void was MG's pick and since she likes films with an edge I can understand why, but I did tell her it was the last thing I'd want to see. But fair is fair- we chose the films together and we each had our own selections. Having seen his previous two films, Irreversible and I Stand Alone, I had little enthusiasm to see another one and when I found out the starting time was at 8:30 in the morning I felt a vague sense of dread.

Noe seems to be working hard to create his own little cinematic niche, which I would call either "the cinema of endurance" or more pointedly, "the cinema of audience abuse." At about the forty-five minute mark I wandered into the lobby to find out how much longer it was going to last and a volunteer mistakenly told me the running time was 96 minutes. It actually lasts 156 minutes, so the final hour I sat there feeling like Linda Blair in that scene from The Exorcist when the bed is roiling underneath her, wanting to scream "make it stop! make it stop!" But it just went on. And on. And on.

Although MG liked it, I really can't recall a film I've liked less without resorting to something as old as Caligula or as reprehensible as The Girl Next Door (the only film I actually felt ashamed to have watched afterward).

Noe's first film, I Stand Alone, **SPOILER ALERT** is about a Travis Bickle-like racist who's having an incestuous relationship with his young daughter and proud of it. The final twenty minutes or so is preceded by a flashing "warning" sign telling the audience something awful is about to be revealed. His second film, Irreversible starts off with the notorious, tortuously long rape scene that must last twenty minutes and feels like an eternity and then rewinds itself showing the events leading to the rape. It's fun stuff. Though I admired the audacity of the first film, I found Irreversible a pointless, nasty exercise in gratuitousness.

With Enter the Void, Noe assaults the audience with a hallucinatory odyssey of violence, sex, drugs and death. The first half hour held some promise as we're taken through the seedy underside of Tokyo with some truly impressive camerawork and cgi effects. The characters are intriguing at first, if for no other reason than they seem to be on the verge of disaster. When Oscar, a teenage drug dealer is set up and murdered by the cops, Noe turns the volume up to ear-splitting levels. Same thing when we get to see Oscar's parents die in a horrific car crash. It's aural violence and unfortunately the images are pretty indelible. Noe's a talented filmmaker, but it's a perverse talent that only a few will probably appreciate.

Once he dies, the rest of the film follows Oscar as a ghost. Trying to keep a vow he made to his sister after their parents were killed that they would always be there for one another, Oscar haunts his sister as she deals with grief and a life in Tokyo's underworld that has few options for her. Between flashbacks to his own death and that of his parents, interludes with his sister that border on the incestuous, and a long trip to a love motel featuring some explicit sex, Enter the Void is a two and a half hour hallucinatory journey- a violent, sex-drenched phantasmagoria that leaves one drained and relieved when it's finally over. Enter at your own risk.

Sundance: A Prophet- “Un Prophète”

Our first film at the Sundance Film Festival was Jacques Audiard's brilliant gangster epic “Un Prophète” or A Prophet. Knowing this is going to sound hyperbolic, this film is on par with City of God, Goodfellas and Scarface, in that it features a main character who starts off as a relative innocent and through immersion into the world of crime (in this instance being wrongly incarcerated in a French prison), the protagonist emerges as a significant crime figure. It's really one of the best movies I've seen in a long time and writing this three days after viewing it, it still resonates strongly.

A Prophet was a winner of the Grand Prix prize at the Canne Festival and it's easy to understand why. The film straddles two worlds in conflict, that of the Arab immigrant in Europe, and their nationalist antagonists. When Malik El Djebena finds himself in prison at age 19, he is completely unequipped for what's ahead of him. Quickly enough he faces a kill-or-be-killed dilemma, and when he comes through for the prison mob boss, the path is opened for his eventual emergence as the dominant figure in the prison hierarchy. That probably gives too much away as it is, so I won't say more than that.

Featuring brilliant performances from Tahar Rahim in the lead role, Niels Arestrup doing a Brando-esque turn as the French prison boss Cesar, Hichen Yacoubi as Malik's first kill who becomes a ghostly presence through the remainder of the film, and Reta Kateb as Jordi the drug connection, these actors create memorable characters, defining the film in humanistic rather than violent/action-packed sequences- a component of the very best films of the genre.

As one of those French films whose distribution in the states remains tenuous, if you are appreciative of gangster films as a genre, or interested in cinema that explores conflicts among different societies or cultures, or if you are just a fan of great acting or plotting in movies, A Prophet is a film not to be missed- add it to your Netflix queue right now and keep an eye for it at your local theater- you won't regret seeing this searing masterpiece.


Update 02/02/10: “Un Prophète” has been nominated for an Oscar in the Best Foreign Language Film category. If there is a screening in your city, I can't recommend it strongly enough.