Day: February 16, 2012

A Neo-Communist Youth Movement: LFM Reviews Putin’s Kiss

By Joe Bendel. Perhaps nothing signified the all-encompassing totalitarianism of National Socialism better than the Hitler Youth. Likewise, the Komsomol, or Communist Union of Youth, was emblematic of Soviet oppression. According to independent observers, the names are different, but the Komsomol has risen again in the guise of Nashi, a Kremlin-backed youth group fiercely loyal to the current Russian Prime Minister. Though once a prominent spokesperson for the group, one young woman began to understand the realities of the regime she served. Lise Birk Pedersen documents her fascinating story in Putin’s Kiss, which opens this Friday in New York.

Masha Drokova was an ambitious student who believed the government’s propaganda. She joined Nashi, rocketing up the ranks after she famously kissed the titular Russian strongman on state television. She became a national media figure and dogged foe of Putin’s democratic critics. However, her interest in journalism brought her into contact with independent reporters, like Oleg Khasin.

While remaining committed to Nashi, she found she enjoyed the open and robust debates with her new friends. Unfortunately, this did not bode well for her standing within the Putin Youth. When Khasin is brutally beaten thugs considered by everyone except the most willfully blind Nashi loyalists to be acting at the behest of the Kremlin or its allies, Drokova reaches a crossroads.

Only in her early twenties, Drokova is still at an age when peer pressure has very real consequences. To her credit, she stood by her injured friend, joining those demanding a proper inquiry, at no little risk to her well being. Yet she does not repudiate her time serving Putin’s interests. As real journalists say, this story is still developing. Shrewdly, Pedersen never tries to impose a preset narrative, scrupulously recording the messy ambiguities of Drokova’s circumstances instead. Indeed, that is what makes the film so fascinating. Rather than a neat and tidy epiphany, we watch her reservations and doubts begin to stir.

Frankly, Drokova is not yet a fully mature adult, which can lead to viewer frustration with her as their POV protagonist. However, it is important to remember this is exactly why Nashi recruited Drokova and those like her. Indeed, Pedersen conveys a frighteningly vivid sense of Nashi’s reach and influence. After watching Kiss, it is impossible to accept claims that the group is a nonpartisan service movement.

Kiss is an important film that shines an international spotlight on Putin’s youthful enforcers. Pedersen rakes a fair amount of muck, while capturing a very personal story with wider political implications. Mostly scary and only occasionally encouraging, it is highly recommended for viewers concerned and interested in the state of the world. It opens this Friday (2/17) in New York at the Cinema Village.

Posted on February 15th, 2012 at 10:35am.

Oscar Gets Juiced: LFM Reviews Bullhead

By Joe Bendel. It is hard to believe Belgium has any comparative advantage in the beef packing industry. Regardless, watching the Flemish bovine mafia ply their cattle with hormones will not inspire global consumer confidence. One angry breeder takes massive doses himself. Regrettably, he has a very good reason for such treatments, which viewers see in painful detail early in Michaël Roskam’s Bullhead, Belgium’s surprise best foreign language Oscar nominee, opening this Friday in New York.

Jacky Vanmarsenille resembles the bulls he sullenly tends (hence the title). He looks all man, but an incident in his childhood left him somewhat less so. To compensate, he has built up his body, but the constant cocktails of testosterone and steroids have exacerbated his anger issues. Poorly socialized, Vanmarsenille’s resentment metastasizes over time. When figures from his past suddenly reappear, his behavior becomes more erratic. Unfortunately, this leads his family to discount his warnings not to get involved with Marc De Kuyper, the duplicitous Godfather of growth hormones.

Bullhead is quite an unlikely Oscar contender. Indeed, Belgium raised many eyebrows when it submitted Roskam’s film instead of the Dardenne Brothers’ French language The Kid with a Bike, but they seem to have known what they were doing. This is a tough picture that is difficult to pigeon hole. As a character study, it broods in a class by itself. Indeed, there may be no protagonist that is as equally sympathetic and scary as Jacky Vanmarsenille. Yet, its gangster movie elements are not mere window dressing for the naturalistic morality play. Roksam’s screenplay also reflects Belgium’s Flemish-French divide in ways not especially flattering to the latter, adding a further layer of context for those who can pick up on it.

Without question though, the key to the film is Matthias Schoenaerts, who really is quite extraordinary as Vanmarsenille. His physical transformation into the hulking protagonist has been compared to De Niro’s bulking up for Raging Bull, but that is really the least of it. With little dialogue, he conveys volumes, keeping the audience fully invested in his character, even when he commits terrible deeds. This is ferociously intense work. Jeroen Percival provides an effective counterpoint as the nervous Diederik Maes, Vanmarsenille’s oily childhood friend and polar opposite physically, sexually, and temperamentally.

Bullhead’s deliberate pacing and wince-inducing plot developments might discomfort less adventurous viewers, but under Roksam’s sure hand they become high tragedy. In truth, few films so directly address what it means to be both a man and a monster. On Oscar night, it will be the longest of long shots, but Bullhead can go toe to toe with any of its fellow nominees, including Asghar Farhadi’s A Separation, considered the frontrunner amid a very strong foreign language field this year. Highly recommended, Bullhead opens tomorrow (2/17) in New York at the Angelika Film Center and AMC Empire and next Friday (2/24) in San Francisco at the Bridge Theatre.

Posted on February 16th, 2012 at 10:33am.

From Taipei to Beijing: LFM Reviews Love

By Joe Bendel. They are two cities so alike, but so far apart. Can a man from Taipei find love in Beijing? There are even greater obstacles facing eight interconnected individuals, but somehow love finds a way in Doze Niu Chen-Zer’s Love (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York, following a special Valentine’s sneak earlier this week.

Father of Ni and sugar daddy to the professional celebrity, Zoe Fang, “Uncle” Lu lives well in Taipei. Having just broken off an affair with the beautiful but needy Fang before it could really start, Lu’s business associate Mark leaves for Beijing hoping to buy property. Instead, he meets disastrously/meet-cutes the attractive but disorganized realtor Jin Xiao-ye.

Although Uncle Lu offers stability, Fang is drawn in spite of herself to Kuan, the stammering busboy older brother of Yi-jia, Ni’s best friend who is pregnant by Ni’s boyfriend, Kai. Feeling understandably betrayed, Ni breaks with both, leaving Kuan to look after his sister while his Notting Hill relationship with Fang slowly percolates.

Love clearly sounds like another Chinese-Taiwanese variation on multi-character rom-coms typified by Valentine’s Day and (Heaven forbid) New Year’s Eve. However, Doze Nui’s film and its thematic predecessors such as Wing Shya and Tony Chan’s Love in Space work so much better, perhaps because they are never afraid of a little emotion or melodrama. Unlike Gary Marshall schmaltz, one never gets the sense the cast-members are rolling their eyes off camera. On the contrary, everyone involved with Love seems to understand when you have deep feelings for someone that may not be reciprocal, it is a very serious matter.

Love also has the benefit of legitimate chemistry within its ridiculously attractive ensemble. Perhaps past familiarity helped. After pining for (Ivy) Chen Yi-han in Cheng Fen-fen’s Hear Me, (Eddie) Peng Yu-yan becomes the object of her unrequited affections this time around, as Kai. He makes a credible knucklehead again, while her turn as Yi-jia is just as sweet and vulnerable. Likewise, Amber Kuo is equally sympathetic and engaging as Ni.

However, the (somewhat) senior cast members really provide the romantic seasoning. Superstar Shu Qi is absolutely radiant, putting Julia Roberts to shame as Fang. She also convincingly expresses her character’s desire to find self worth through productive work, an appealing theme largely foreign to Hollywood and American indie productions (“Work? Huh, wha?”). As in his previous film Monga, Doze Niu provides himself a key assist in a supporting role. Although the comparative old timer, he brings far more charisma to Uncle Lu than can be dismissed as Woody Allen-style vanity casting. One could well imagine a single middle aged woman would be very interested in meeting him.

Aptly titled, Love is/was perfect Valentine’s Day fare, but not unrealistically so. It is pretty clear not every character will have a spot on a loveseat when the music stops. Yet, it is an impossible movie not to like. Recommended for all the secret sentimentalists out there who can safely go to foreign films without losing their cineaste street cred, Love officially opens this Friday (2/17) in New York at the AMC Empire and in San Francisco at the AMC Metreon, from China Lion Entertainment.

Posted on February 16th, 2012 at 10:29am.