September 2012 – LFM: Libertas Film Magazine

LFM Reviews The Satin Slipper @ The New York Film Festival

Satin Slipper 1 — From "The Satin Slipper."

By Joe Bendel. It is the late Sixteenth Century or perhaps the early Seventeenth. For Spain, America represents the land of opportunity, while North Africa remains a very real danger. French playwright Paul Claudel might have taken a few liberties with his historical timeline, but that is almost to be expected of an epic spanning three continents and bridging Heaven and Earth. Adapting Claudel’s Satin Slipper is a daunting proposition, but Portuguese centenarian auteur Manoel de Oliveira took up the challenge at the youthful age of 77. Originally a selection of the 1985 New York Film Festival (in a drastically edited form), Oliveira’s full 410 minute Slipper makes a return appearance tomorrow as part of the Masterworks section of the 50th New York Film Festival, now officially underway.

The Old World has discovered the New World and Spain rules the seas. However, her grip might be loosening somewhat. For Don Pelagio, it is a dubious honor to have the King’s confidence at such a time. He is being dispatched to shore up Spain’s African holdings at a time when his marriage is being sorely tested. The much younger Doña Prouheze has attracted the unwelcomed attention of Don Camillo as well as the reciprocated affection of Don Rodrigo.

Due to the political maneuvering of the King and her husband, Prouheze reluctantly accepts command of the Spanish outpost at Mogador, forcing her into the clutches of Camillo and forever separating her from Rodrigo. However, she eventually entrusts her daughter to the thwarted lover who could never have conceived her, yet to whom she bears an eerie resemblance.

Slipper is talky, rangy, and top heavy with exposition. It is also a masterpiece of world drama, but an absolute beast to stage. While full productions generally clock in around the seven hour mark, the Dominican Black Friars Repertory mounted a svelte but worthy three hour abridged Slipper as part of their Claudel Project in early 2010. Oliveira deliberately emphasizes the dramatic source material, using an apparent proscenium stage production as a framing device and using highly stylized theatrical sets throughout the film.

This is a strategy that becomes considerably more efficacious as the film progresses. In fact, the scenes involving the celestial angels are far better served by his contra-realist visuals than they could have been rendered with mid 1980’s special effects. Unfortunately, Oliveira’s transition away from the ostensive stage undercuts the powerful opening, in which a Jesuit Father lashed to the mast of sinking ship prays directly to God for the redemption of his impetuous younger brother, Don Rodrigo. It is a rather profound scene that essentially encapsulates the themes of redemption and sacrifice Claudel will explore in the hours to come, in mere minutes.

Satin Slipper 2 — From "The Satin Slipper."

Despite its lack of verisimilitude and Oliveira’s occasional postmodern flourishes, his cast connects with the deep yearning of Claudel’s characters. Luís Miguel Cintra conveys both Rodrigo’s recklessness dash and his severe brooding quite well. As Prouheze, Patricia Barzyk (Miss France 1980) has to be one of the fiercest tragic screen heroines ever. Probably the most recognizable face in Oliveira’s Slipper is French actress Anne Consigny, who also has some fine moments with Cintra, serving as her adoptive father’s conscience.

Most viewers will need time to acclimate to Slipper’s look and language, just as the ensemble visibly seems to get their sea legs as the film picks up steam. While periodic scenes of Shakespearean bumpkins offering their rustic commentary could have been excised without causing any grievous bodily harm, the totality of Oliveira’s production is undeniably impressive.

NYFF deserves all kinds of credit for programming Satin Slipper. At a whisker under seven hours, it presents certain scheduling challenges (note: there will be a half hour intermission). Yet it dovetails rather nicely with other selections at this year’s fest. Oliveira admirers can also watch the master at work helming The Strange Case of Angelica in Luis Miñarro’s documentary short 101 (Oliveira’s age at the time), which proceeds Francesco Patierno’s War of the Volcanoes tonight (9/29) and this coming Wednesday (10/3).

Although it is predominantly about Spanish characters, written by a French playwright, Slipper also incorporates a fair bit of Portuguese historical geopolitics, making it an interesting companion film to see in dialogue with Valeria Sarmiento’s Lines of Wellington (originally developed by the late Raul Ruiz), screening October 9th and 10th. Regardless, Oliveira’s Slipper is an ambitious attraction in its own right—one festival patrons will not have many other opportunities to see on the big screen in all its seven hour glory. Recommended for the literate and adventurous, Satin Slipper screens this Sunday afternoon (9/30) at the Walter Reade Theater.

LFM GRADE: A-

Posted on September 29th, 2012 at 2:36pm.

Escaping East Germany: LFM Reviews Barbara @ The New York Film Festival

By Joe Bendel. Intimacy is based on trust, so is it ever really possible in police state like Soviet-era East Germany? Obviously, that is not the Stasi’s problem. They are out to do everything possible to isolate and demoralize a dissident doctor. Yet, in spite of her better judgment, she will develop ambiguously complicated feelings for her minder in Christian Petzold’s Barbara, Germany’s official best foreign language Academy Award submission, which screens during the 50th New York Film Festival.

As soon as Dr. Barbara Wolff applied for an exit visa, her brilliant career was effectively over. Transferred from a prestigious East Berlin hospital to a provincial backwater, Dr. Wolff is all too aware of the eyes on her. The most obvious set belongs to Andre, Barbara’s ostensive supervisor, whose role as the designated Stasi snitch is an open secret. He has a surprisingly convincing good guy act, though, and he definitely seems to care about their patients – particularly Mario, a young man suffering from a mysterious head trauma that defies diagnosis. Yet, the case that resonates deepest with Dr. Wolff is that of Stella, a recaptured prison camp escapee suffering from meningitis.

Wolff is not inclined to meekly submit to the Stasi’s mounting harassment. Having hatched an escape plan with her West German lover, she believes her time in East Germany is limited, which is why she is so surprised by her growing attraction to Andre and her emotional investment in their patients.

Barbara has been described as Petzold’s response to Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s brilliant The Lives of Others. That is true to an extent, but not in a polemical sense. There is no nostalgia here for the Honecker regime, let alone a defense. Petzold’s parents made the flight to freedom Dr. Wolff is anticipating, so he is understandably sensitive to the everyday tribulations endured by East Germans. Indeed, the film is best at conveying the guarded nature required for even the most prosaic of conversations and the jarring sound of that dreaded knock in the night.

Barbara Wolff easily represents Nina Hoss’s best performance to reach our shores. Outwardly diffident but profoundly uneasy beneath her facade, the good doctor might be the best woman’s lead role of the year (and most years prior). It is a tricky proposition to convey her character’s roiling inner turmoil as well as her concerted efforts masking it from the world, but Hoss pulls it off remarkably. Former East German Ronald Zehrfield also helps complicate audiences’ emotional responses as the flawed but perhaps still idealistic Andre, who might also be a victim himself, in that manner unique to captive citizens of police states.

Exercising a masterful control of mood and ambient sound, Petzold vividly recreates a sense of life in the GDR, in all its oppressive austerity. It is a lean, tense narrative, yet Petzold derives much of the suspense from within his characters rather than through external cloak-and-daggering. A very accomplished film featuring Oscar-worthy work from Hoss, Barbara is very highly recommended when it screens this coming Monday (10/1), next Saturday (10/6), and the following Tuesday (10/9) as a main slate selection of the 2012 New York Film Festival.

LFM GRADE: A

Posted on September 28th, 2012 at 1:22pm.

LFM Reviews Liv & Ingmar @ The New York Film Festival

By Joe Bendel. They collaborated on some of the least romantic films ever (see Hour of the Wolf, for instance). Yet Ingmar Bergman and Liv Ullmann became the first couple of international art cinema. The Swedish auteur’s romance with his Norwegian muse would not last, but their relationship continued to evolve and endure. Ullmann reflects on each stage of her career-defining association with Bergman in Dheeraj Akolkar’s Liv & Ingmar, which screens as part of the 50th New York Film Festival’s Cinema Reflected sidebar.

What a difference a few years and a more northern latitude make. Whereas Ingrid Bergman was pilloried for leaving her husband to take up with Roberto Rossellini, Ullmann essentially did the same thing with Bergman, but with no attendant outrage from the world press. As she tells it, she was widely encouraged by friends to do so. Indeed, the film is entirely presented from Ullmann’s perspective, relying almost entirely on her narration and extended interview sequences to tell their story.

Nevertheless, there is no score settling in L&I. Even after the dissolution of their intimate cohabitation, the legends of Scandinavian cinema remained on good terms, eventually becoming the closest of friends. There is definitely a lesson in that, especially if you think documentary crews will one day be interviewing your former lovers. However, it might not make the most compelling viewing.

Ullmann still offers some insight into the dark places manifested in Bergman’s films, but that is about as far as the film goes. As a result, L&I is permeated with a fatal sense of respectability. Granted, nobody wants or needs to see a great filmmaker like Bergman trashed by an ex. The fact that he and Ullmann continued to mean so much to each other is quite touching and nearly the extent of the film’s takeaway.

Scenes of Ullmann revisiting Bergman’s Fårö Island home give the documentary a vivid sense of place and there are plenty of tellingly illustrative clips from their films. L&I is quite a heartfelt tribute, but as a work of cinema in its own right it is hardly essential (though it is an interesting film to see in conjunction with Francesco Patierno’s thematically related War of the Volcanoes, also screening during this year’s NYFF). Mostly recommended for dedicated Bergman and Ullmann admirers, Liv & Ingmar screens this coming Monday (10/1) and Tuesday the 10th during the 2012 New York Film Festival.

LFM GRADE: C+

Posted on September 28th, 2012 at 1:21pm.

LFM Reviews The War of the Volcanoes @ The New York Film Festival

By Joe Bendel. Before Pitt, Jolie, and Aniston dragged their relationships through the tabloids, Ingrid Bergman, Roberto Rossellini, and Anna Magnani thoroughly outraged the filmmaking world. However, they did it with exponentially more talent. Francesco Patierno documents their headline-making scandal and the competing film sets on which it played out in The War of the Volcanoes (trailer here), a selection of the Cinema Reflected sidebar at the 50th New York Film Festival.

Rome, Open City was an international triumph for both Magnani and her director, Rossellini. They quickly became close collaborators and lovers, despite their differences in temperament. Magnani was the passionate, ever faithful diva. Rossellini was the charmed smooth talker. It probably would not have lasted, even without Rossellini’s mutual admiration for the unhappily married Ingrid Bergman.

Looking for a break from the Hollywood system, Rossellini’s Stromboli appeared to be the perfect project. A morality play set against the exotic backdrop of the volcanic Aeolian Islands, Stromboli was largely lifted from a proposal developed by Rossellini’s cousins—or at least that is how they saw it. Slightly put out by the appropriation, the budding filmmakers produced their film anyway, with Hollywood director William Dieterle at the helm and none other than the spurned Magnani herself as the star. Guess which director brought their film in on-time and within budget.

As production began on the isolated Stromboli Island, thanks to Howard Hughes, the relationship between Rossellini and Bergman intensified. With rumors swirling and pictures of PDA’s splashed across the newspapers, she became radioactive for her former Hollywood colleagues, leading to no end of stress for the Swedish movie star. The narrative elements of both competing films, featuring disgraced women shunned by narrow-minded islanders, did not exactly help either, but it certainly represents fertile soil for film critics and historians to analyze.

The-War-of-the-Volcanoes — Bergman and Rossellini.

Most movie fans will know the broad strokes of this infamous story, but the details are fascinating. Patierno completely eschews talking heads, telling the tale through anonymous voiceover narration, archival publicity footage, and shrewdly selected clips from the principles’ films that thematically fit the events under discussion (like for instance, Hitchcock’s Notorious). Almost entirely black-and-white as a result, Volcanoes captures a vivid sense of the era’s sophistication.

While rather a shorty at fifty-two minutes (preceded by a ten minute short following the eternal Manoel de Oliveira during the filming of The Strange Case of Angelica), War of the Volcanoes is nonetheless quite informative and entertaining, like a gossip show for upscale cineastes. Recommended for fans of Italian cinema and Hollywood’s golden age, War of the Volcanoes screens this Saturday (9/29) and the following Wednesday (10/3) as part of the 2012 NYFF.

LFM GRADE: B+

Posted on September 27th, 2012 at 12:21pm.

LFM Reviews Final Cut @ The New York Film Festival

By Joe Bendel. It is the classic Hollywood story. Everyman meets everywoman, with everycomplication ensuing. One-upping Chuck Workman, György Pálfi aggregates clips from some of the greatest milestones of international cinema, as well as two of his own previous films, into the loose narrative form that is Final Cut—Ladies & Gentleman (trailer here), which screens as part of the Cinema Reflected sidebar at the 50th New York Film Festival.

As Charlie Chaplin, the protagonist wakes up and stretches. As Gene Hackman he shaves and knots his tie – as Leonardo DiCaprio, amongst others. A chance encounter on the street will lead him to pursue a mystery woman, who turns out to be a nightclub singer, played by the likes of Liza Minelli and Jessica Rabbit. Despite the efforts of a jealous ex-boyfriend(s), they fall in love and marry. Yet, domestic life presents its own challenges.

Final Cut is light years removed from the somewhat unpleasant Taxidermia, Pálfi’s last film to have an American theatrical release—and it’s a good thing that it is. What started as a creative response to the Hungarian film industry’s economic doldrums became the 2012 Cannes Classic’s closer. However, his love letter to cinema is not likely to ink a distribution deal anytime soon, since Pálfi was never bourgeoisie enough to actually seek permission to use his constituent snippets. Considering that Walt Disney and George Lucas films are well represented in the mix, one would not be shocked if there are a few cease & desist letters in its future.

Make no mistake, we all recognize intellectual property rights here, but it is sort of shame a home DVD release is not likely for Final Cut. It could be quite the party game for movie buffs, looking for bragging rights for how many more films they can recognize than their friends. While many of us will recognize the Kurosawa and Godard excerpts, some of the Eastern European selections might be a little tricky. The idiosyncrasies of Pálfi’s editorial sensibility are also sometimes surprising (Angel Heart, again?). For those wondering, Hitchcock’s Vertigo did indeed make the cut, at the risk of drawing another eyebrow-raising statement from Kim Novak, a la The Artist.

Granted, Final Cut is hardly groundbreaking. There are several short films floating around the internet based around similar concepts, but Pálfi takes it further, even tossing in the occasional full frontal for comedic effect. If nothing else, it brings back a flood of movie memories and should spur wide ranging post-screening did-you-ever-see discussions. Not particularly deep or perhaps even legally defensible, Final Cut—Ladies & Gentleman is still a fair amount of film geek fun. It screens this coming Monday (10/1) at the Francesca Beale Theater during the 2012 NYFF.

LFM GRADE: B-

Posted on September 27th, 2012 at 12:20pm.

The Man Behind the Russ Meyer Myth: LFM Reviews Up the Valley and Beyond @ The New York Film Festival

By Joe Bendel. He has been called the most successful independent filmmaker of his era. Yet there was no secret formula to his films. The hallmarks, so to speak, of Meyer’s oeuvre are impossible to miss. Todd Rosken dramatizes the sexploitation pioneer’s creation story in Up the Valley and Beyond (trailer here), which screens as part of Shorts Program 1 at the 50th New York Film Festival.

Meyer was a war hero, as he is happy to explain to anyone who asks. During the post-war/pre-Mad Men era, he sets out to reinvent himself as a pin-up photographer. However, he has difficulty finding a subject that truly excites his artistic sensibility, if you will. Then a colleague refers him to Eve Turner, a diva model whose qualities are unmistakable—both of them.

Meyer fans will be surprised the grindhouse auteur never even picks up a movie camera in Valley, so there will be no behind-the-scenes treatment of Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! Still, Rosken and co-screenwriter “Bobby D. Lux” cleverly hint at the roots of frequent Meyer motifs. As Meyer, Jim Parrack’s performance is somewhat akin to Johnny Depp’s Ed Wood, portraying his earnest gusto with almost guileless naiveté. In contrast to Wood, though, Meyer’s cinematic vision is easy to “get,” continuing to reverberate with fans decades after his glory years.

Although it is part of the shorts program, Valley would also be a good fit for NYFF’s Cinema Reflected sidebar. It certainly captures the enthusiasm of a particularly idiosyncratic filmmaker. Quite a presentable period production with a number of affectionate laughs, Up the Valley and Beyond is recommended for all cult movie fans when it screens this coming Monday (10/1) and Sunday, October 14th, as part of the first short film programming block at the 2012 NYFF.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on September 27th, 2012 at 12:10pm.