New York’s New Directors/New Films 2012: LFM Reviews Goodbye

By Joe Bendel. It is not exactly a common cultural zeitgeist, but immigration has become an increasingly frequent topic of both American and Iranian films. In the case of the former, viewers are asked to identify with those trying to enter the country illegally. For the latter, audiences watch as desperate everyday people try to get out, by any means necessary. Needless to say, getting into America is much easier (and safer) then leaving Iran. One expecting mother-to-be struggles with this grim reality in Mohammad Rasoulof’s Goodbye, which screens during the 2012 New Directors/New Films, jointly presented by the Film Society of Lincoln Center and MoMA.

Noura was a human rights attorney in Tehran. Disbarred for obvious reasons, the only work now available to her is gift-wrapping. Her husband has been forced into an ambiguous exile up north, leaving her alone to deal with her pregnancy. This makes life particularly challenging, since Iran requires a man’s authorization for even the simplest medical procedures. Her baby is an important part of the immigration scheme hatched by a dodgy passport broker. However, she is having doubts whether she should keep her. But there is little to be done about it, without a husband’s permission.

Goodbye ought to be hailed as the international feminist watershed film of the decade. Yes, it directly addresses abortion, but the issues in question are far more fundamental than that single hot-button issue. As an unaccompanied woman, Noura is unable to undergo an ultrasound or check into a hotel on her own. Yet she faces more than just gender oppression, which becomes clear when the police confiscate her satellite dish.

Leyla Zareh in "Goodbye."

Facing a year in prison and the loss of his film production business, Rasoulof can clearly relate to such travails. Yet he could at least authorize his own medical treatment—a fact clearly not lost on him. While he previously employed layers of allegory to obscure his social critique in the visual arresting White Meadows (edited by his colleague Jafar Panahi, with whom he was arrested in late 2010), Goodbye is a bold exercise in street level realism. Still, from time to time he conveys Noura’s psychological state with powerfully impressionistic moments more in keeping with the tone of Meadows (an insufficiently heralded modern masterwork).

Considering Marzieh Vafamehr was sentenced to ninety lashes for her thematically similar role in Granaz Moussavi’s My Tehran for Sale (reduced on appeal to three months in prison), Leyla Zareh’s performance is courageous on multiple levels. Rather than play to audience sympathies, she portrays Noura emotionally guarded to an almost soul deadening extent, for the sake of self-preservation. It is a harrowingly convincing turn.

Of course, Goodbye ends as it must, to keep faith with those who experienced what happens to Noura. As a result there are no real surprises in the film, just tragedy compounded. In truth, this will be somewhat familiar ground for those who have seen Moussavi’s film and Panahi’s The Circle, but Rasoulof’s execution is quite compelling and sensitive, nonetheless. Important as a document of contemporary Iranian life and as an aesthetically distinctive work of cinema, Goodbye is one of the clear highlights of this year’s ND/NF. Earnestly recommended, it screens this Thursday (3/22) at the Walter Reade Theater and the following Saturday (3/24) at MoMA.

Posted on March 19th, 2012 at 2:37pm.

The New Trailer for Prometheus

If you haven’t had the chance to see the new trailer for Ridley Scott’s Prometheus, released this past weekend, here it is above. It’s quite extraordinary.

LFM’s Jason Apuzzo has been covering the new wave of alien invasion cinema in his Invasion Alerts!, and for the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Los Angeles he recently compiled a list of “The Top 10 Movies in Which Aliens Attack L.A.” for HuffPost/AOL-Moviefone.

Posted on March 19th, 2012 at 2:34pm.

New York’s New Directors/New Films 2012: LFM Reviews The Minister

By Joe Bendel. Imagine Jonathan Lynn’s Yes, Minister played deadly seriously, in French. Such is the morality tale director-screenwriter Pierre Schöller has to tell. Bertrand Saint-Jean is a dull technocrat, but he does not lack ambition. He has built up his portfolio through the help of his loyal secretary, a respected veteran of the civil service. However, a series of political crises will shine a harsh light on his flawed character in Schöller’s The Minister (trailer here), which screens during the 2012 New Directors/New Films, jointly presented by the Film Society of Lincoln Center and MoMA.

The transport minister is woken from a wildly Freudian dream with grim news. A charter bus was involved in a severe traffic accident, killing many school children returning from a class trip. Saint-Jean heads to the crash site to lead the investigation and keep the media at bay. It will be his finest hour in the film, as a politician and a human being.

Subsequently, Saint-Jean’s public standing gets a nice little bump, but it is short-lived. Soon thereafter, he is a pulled into a controversy involving the privatization of train stations. Like his secretary Gilles, he is adamantly opposed, but the finance minister is in favor. In fact, it seems to be required by the EU, but Saint-Jean would prefer to kick the can down the road for his successor to deal with. Yet, it seems he will be forced to make some difficult choices, for the sake of his political career.

It is hard to think of a more cynical depiction of “the art of compromise” than Schöller’s Minister. As a former idealist, Saint-Jean’s self-contempt is palpable. Viewers watch some rather brazen pandering, including the temporary hiring of a long-term unemployed blue collar working as a ministerial driver, purely for PR purposes. Yet, despite the central role played by the privatization plan, Schöller’s screenplay sidesteps the issues of its normative and qualitative economic merits quite nimbly. Instead, it is treated simply as the MacGuffin to test Saint-Jean’s principles and loyalties. However, the Minister’s long, drunkenly patronizing visit to his new driver’s home rings distractingly false.

From "The Minister."

For the most part though, Dardenne Brothers regular Oliver Gourmet raises blandness to levels of epic tragedy as Saint-Jean. Yet there is something downright Clintonesque about his insecure need for approval. It is a shrewdly restrained but neurotic performance. Conversely, Michel Blanc makes mousiness dignified as the old school bureaucrat, ever loyal to his boss, as the embodiment of the system he has always served.

For those who really want to follow the specific issue at hand, the film’s treatment does not always make sense. Regardless, Schöller wields it effectively to cleave divisions in Saint-Jean’s staff and party. What emerges is a sort of modern Faust, as Saint-Jean makes the same awful bargain over and over again. Rare among political films, The Minister forthrightly depicts the psychological baggage of politicians in a way that can be appreciated by audiences across a wide ideological spectrum. Recommended for intelligent, slight jaded patrons, it screens this Friday (3/23) at MoMA and Sunday (3/25) at the Walter Reade Theater.

Posted on March 19th, 2012 at 2:28pm.

New York International Children’s Film Festival 2012: LFM Reviews A Letter to Momo

By Joe Bendel. They are the supernaturally incompetent: former gods demoted to mere goblins. It is not hard to see why. They certainly do not impress a young Japanese girl mourning her father after an initial round of scares. Still, they seem to have a specific reason for hanging around in Hiroyuki Okiura’s A Letter to Momo, which screens during the 2012 New York International Children’s Film Festival.

Momo Miyaura bitterly regrets her last words to her late marine biologist father. They had a fight. To be more accurate, she really let him have it. Shortly thereafter, his ship went down. Going through his things, she finds a letter he started writing to her, but never got beyond the “Dear Momo.” For obvious reasons, this letter preoccupies her thoughts as she and her mother relocate to the remote island of Shio.

Her stiff-upper-lip mother is not around much, leaving Miyuara with time on her hands. This becomes a real problem when she discovers three bizarre entities living in the attic and mooching their food. Apparently, nobody else around her can see them, with one exception having little bearing on the overall plot. At first she is understandably alarmed, but quickly gains the upper hand over the intruders. However, they continue to loiter about, making nuisances of themselves.

Of the three, only the rather addled Mame looks anything like a traditional goblin. However, his slimy tongue and Zenned-out mannerisms make him the most original of the trio. Iwa the gentle giant is also appealing in an archetypal way, but the amphibious-looking Kawa has an unfortunate Jar Jar thing going on.

Only Okiura’s second film, following-up his breakout 1999 debut Jin-Roh: the Wolf Brigade, Letter has been compared to Studio Ghibli both in terms of style and subject matter. Indeed, it bears strong thematic similarities to The Secret World of Arrietty and Makoto Shinkai’s Miyazaki-influenced Children who Chase Lost Voices from Down Below (which also screened at this year’s NYICFF). Yet, Okiura consistently elevates the realistic family drama well above the many otherworldly creatures. That unwritten letter is not merely a metaphor. It serves a genuinely important role in the story, which is quite earnest and touching.

Almost entirely generated by hand, Okiura’s animation is quite striking. Evidently that is one reason his sophomore feature was so long in coming. Reportedly he resolved only to work with Japan’s top animators (including animation director Masashi Andô) and was willing to wait until their schedules cleared. The lush nature backdrops are definitely Ghibli-esque and their figures are unusually expressive, by any animation standard.

There is definitely something very universal to Momo’s story. Okiura tells it with grace and emotional conviction. Indeed, this is the rare animated film that might hit too close to home for youngsters and parents dealing with similar losses. For the rest of us, its unabashedly open heart is rather refreshing. Recommended particularly strongly, but not exclusively, for young girls, A Letter to Momo screens again Saturday (3/24) at the Asia Society as NYICFF continues at venues throughout New York.

Posted on March 19th, 2012 at 2:20pm.