MSPIFF 2010: Day 9

Bluebeard (2009) Catherine Breillat - Recommended
I am eternally grateful that Catherine Breillat's films are becoming less and less painful. And by painful, I certainly don't mean 'bad' (Breillat's films don't exactly insight such simplistic judgements), but painful because of their unflinching, brutal honesty. The provocation that Breillat was content to hand out has given way to something a little more playful but no less thought provoking with The Last Mistress and her most recent film Bluebeard. The thing that is most striking about Bluebeard is its simplicity. The story of Bluebeard is told from duel perspectives: the first is a literal depiction of the 17th century fairytale in period regalia, and the second is a contemporary reaction to the macabre story as two young sisters read it from a book. The set up is nothing short of brilliant, balancing the then and the now. The then: the sexual allure and curiosity of a rebellious girl who volunteers to marry a 'monster.' The now: the cautionary and moral lessons in the form of fiction to a puritanical society. The period portion is enchanting and is every much the folk tale it should be. Bluebeard is a gruff but gentle man whose physical grotesqueness and murdering tendencies are covert. His young bride is dwarfed by his size, but not by his personality. In many ways, she is more bold than the notorious Bluebeard, foreshadowing a fate that he has yet to realize. The lasting image of the young bride stoking the hair on Bluebeard's decapitated head is haunting. But so is the odd and abrupt ending for the two young girls innocently reading the story. There was a woman on hand at the beginning of the screening who was reading passages from a forthcoming book from U of M professor Jack Zipes entitled The Enchanted Screen: A History of Fairy Tales on Film. Breillat's Bluebeard is included in the book.

Videocracy (2009) Erik Gandini - Highly Recommended
From the standpoint of the material it dissects, Videocracy was the best documentary I saw during the fest. An absorbing look at Italy's celebrity culture, Videocracy starts at the top with Silvio Berlusconi's media empire and works its way down the spiraling staircase of a fame mongering society. Berlusconi laid the groundwork for his future when he bought a television station in the 70s that was made famous by a quiz show in which an ordinary housewife would take off a piece of clothing with each correct answer from the audience. Sowing the seeds for trash television, Italy now has a population of young women obsessed with become a veline, or a host who dances and generally acts like a slutty Vanna White to the numerous Pat Sejack's of news and entertainment on Italian television. Somehow director Erik Gandini was able to immerse himself inside the thinly veiled Berlusconi machine. From the fame-controlling paparazzi to the mousy mega-producer who idolizes Benito Mussolini, Gandini draws out a fascinating and insidious cycle of the beautiful and rich steering both the demand and the consumption of celebrity drivel. Our moral center is a man who is a mechanic but who desperately wants in on his 15 seconds of Italian fame. American culture as it is, you would think that this type of mania is nothing new, but what is revealed in Videocracy is a creature of another kind, hopelessly intertwined with politics. I've spent the last year associating everything I see or hear about Italy with Matteo Garrone's film and Roberto Saviano's book Gamorrah. Now I will be combining that with what I have seen in Videocracy, including the bizarre campaign song for Berlusconi where the refrain is "Thank God Silvio exists."

Night Catches Us (2010) Tanya Hamilton - Recommended
Receiving ample buzz at Sundance, Night Catches Us is a highly anticipated entry in American independent film, and rightly so. Tanya Hamilton's feature debut is a powerful yet low-key drama that smolders with subtlety in the hands of the two leads, Anthony Mackie and Kerry Washington. The fact that Night Catches Us is skirting the margins of festival screenings with no wide release date in sight is a crime. Set in Philadelphia 1976, Marcus (Mackie) returns home for his father's funeral after an extended exile. Tensions are high between Marcus and his brother, who believes he abandoned his family, and between Marcus and his former Black Panther brothers who believe Marcus betrayed them. The only kind face Marcus finds is his friend Patty (Washington), now an up-and-coming lawyer trying to make a difference in the courts and the community. In the mix is a secret about why Marcus left town and why most of his former friends feel betrayed. Although Jimmy Carter's voice in present in the background and the struggle for racial equality simmers on the periphery, Hamilton's film focuses on the characters and the inner anguish of trying to move on. Night Catches Us is handsome in its period depiction of 1970s Philly. Everything seems cast with a golden light of a tarnished bygone era meticulously recreated. And it certainly doesn't hurt that the Roots turns in most of the music for the soundtrack (with Tariq Trotter playing the role of Marcus's brother.) Night Catches Us is not flawless however. The girl who plays Patty's young daughter is handed some lines she can't really pull off, and some of the various narrative off-shoots feel halfhearted. That being said, Night Catches Us is far better than average and feels like it should be enjoying a larger stage than it currently has.

The Revenant (2009) D. Kerry Prior - Not Recommended
The Revenant was the best film I saw out of the late night series MSPIFF programed, which isn't saying much. Although I didn't see Red White & Blue, the other three in the series (The Forbidden Door, The Wild Hunt, and this one) barely tripped the entertainment meter and were all too self-conscious in their attempts to be edgy. In the case of The Revenant, a so-called zombie buddy movie, it is trying too hard to be ironic. Bart comes back from the dead, not as a zombie, not as a vampire, but as a revenant. His friend Joey attempts to help him navigate his undead lifestyle in the most harmless way possible. Vomiting and blood sucking hijinks ensue with a little partying in between. The Revenant is good for some laughs, but most of the jokes get pretty stale by the end of the movie and you really just want all the characters to be dead and stay dead. Give any horror film enough time and it becomes satirical all by itself. Shaun of the Dead was a unique film at the time, but is ultimately a one trick pony. Parodies, like The Revenant, now feel self-reflexive simply for the sake of being self-reflexive.

MSPIFF 2010: Day 5

I'm a little behind on my film festival intake, but it has been so fruitful, I am going to do my best to catch up.

Harlan: In the Shadow of Jew Suess (2008) Felix Moeller - Recommended
Director Felix Moeller tackles the lesser known, but more successful, film director of Goebbels' propaganda machine. Veit Harlan was the director of the anti-Semitic film used to propagate the Nazi's agenda, Jew Süss (1940). Unlike Riefenstahl's Triumph of Will, it is obvious that the vicious nature of Jew Süss has kept it in the closet regardless of any artistic merits. Although notorious, especially in Europe, Jew Süss hardly gets mentioned outside academic and historical circles. Instead of doing a straightforward historical narrative of Harlan's life, Moeller spends his time interviewing the living members of Harlan's family. The children, grandchildren and nieces and nephews all give a very personal take on Veit, his film and the after effects on the family. It's a very colorful mix of philosophy, bitterness, and distanced rational. In an irony of irony, it turns out that Stanley Kubrick's last wife, Christiane, was Veit Harlan's niece. The fact is tossed out so quickly and quietly, that I had to do a double take to confirm what I just heard. Christiane noted a meeting between Veit and Stanley with humor, and mentioned that he always wanted to do a film about the era. Some of the relatives feel criminalized by their notorious relative and the film almost feels like an act of catharsis. Veit's first son, who was his most ardent critic while Veit was alive, comes off as the family member most at peace. Veit Harlan died in 1964, and although he was acquitted of war crimes, his career languished under the burden of the War and Jew Süss.
(You have another chance to see Harlan: In the Shadow of Jew Suess on Wednesday, April 28 at 4:15pm. It will probably not return theatrically to the Twin Cities.)


Mid August Lunch (2008) Gianni Di Gregorio - Recommended
When I first saw the trailer for Mid August Lunch, it offered the tag "Ffrom the creator of Gamorrah." It was pretty obvious that this was no Gamorrah, but I'm not marketer. The relation between the films is that the writer, Gianni Di Gregorio, responsible for the masterful adaptation of Roberto Saviano's book is the director and lead actor in Mid August Lunch. I would see Mid August Lunch as a film meant to wash the bad taste of the Camorra from his palate. In his directorial debut, Di Gregorio creates a charming romp that is more entertaining than it is slight. An aging bachelor, Gianni, acting as a caretaker for his mother, finds himself saddled with three other older women during Ferrogosto, one of the most important holidays in Italy where everything closes down. He takes in the the troublesome trio under coercion: the mother and aunt of the condo administrator to whom his mother is indebted, and the mother of a doctor willing to do a house visit on short notice. Under the dread of obligation to make these three women happy, along with his very opinionated mother, he must prepare a lunch appropriate for Ferrogosto. Di Gregorio does a fantastic job of taking the reigns of the lead character contending with responsibility with resignation that we can all relate to. There is a hilarious moment when a man comes to the door to visit Gianni and they go into his bedroom and shut the door. As the visiting man puts his hand down Gianni's pants, I heard a woman behind me indignantly say "Oh my goodness." The next second, however, the visiting man says, "Cough." He is, of course, a doctor, but that is not revealed until after the film confronts the audience's notions that a single man living with his mother must be gay. At 75 minutes, Mid August Lunch is short but very sweet.
(Mid August Lunch is currently in limited release and is scheduled to open at the Edina Cinema on May 7.)

Parlate italiano?

Translation: Do you speak Italian? Answer from my side of the room is an ashamed no. My brain has balked at more than two languages, and my attempts at romance languages have been pathetic. But maybe its time to pick up that "Italian for Idiots" once again.

Surprisingly, my Italian friends visit my blog more than any other non-English speaking country. Dan over at Barren Illusions won me over not only by the title of his blog (an obscure Kiyoshi Kurosawa film that some friends and I had fan-subbed eight years ago) but also his friendly and active participation here on these pages. His eclectic blog is accentuated by beautiful photos that need little translation. I nonetheless send the text through an online translator to make sure I get the general gist.

The biggest surprise however was when Alessio Galbiati and Roberto Rippa contacted me from the online magazine Rapporto Confidenziale with an interest in translating my review for Limits of Control. The possibility that I would write anything worth translating never even crossed my mind, let alone someone actually doing it! And so it is, and let me tell you, I have never had a review look so good or sound so smart! A big thanks to Alessio and Roberto, and Paola Catò for translating. More collaborations are in the works, and I hope I able to continue to come up with things of interest.

Check out the translated Limits of Control review in Issue 15. (Scroll down and use full page reader - better than a glossy magazine!)