By Joe Bendel. It is the epic tale of a powerful ring that brings misfortune to all who seek it. Sound familiar? After technology advanced to the point that Peter Jackson could finally do justice to Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, it is not surprising that the opera world might hatch some new ideas for Wagner’s Ring cycle. However, mounting a production on stage is a totally different proposition than making a film with extensive post-production effects, as renowned director Robert Lepage demonstrates with the Metropolitan Opera’s ambitious new production of the Ring. Director Susan Froemke (with editor Bob Eisenhardt) captures the ensuing flirting-with-disaster exhilaration of live opera in Wagner’s Dream, which had its world premiere at the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival, in advance of a special-event nationwide screening this coming Tuesday.

Reportedly, Wagner was not at all satisfied with the initial 1876 staging of his Ring cycle, but he died before he could implement any of the mysterious changes he promised. As a result, the questions of what Wagner would do and what is feasible have bedeviled opera companies ever since. Charged with developing something bold, Lepage did just that.

His radical concept centers on what will be referred to as “the Machine.” A series of interlocked, swiveling planks, sort of but not really resembling a double helix, the Machine will serve as the minimalist set for all four constituent productions of the Ring cycle. When it works, it facilitates some truly epic grandeur. Unfortunately, it is decidedly buggy.

Frankly, it is quite cool and surprising that the Met is so enthusiastically behind Dream, because it documents some embarrassing moments for the storied company. Complications with the machine put a damper on more than one opening night, which is awkward for the professionals bluffing their way through on-stage – but it makes for dramatic documentary cinema.

Traversing "the Machine."

Arguably, Lepage’s Ring cycle production might be thought of as the Met’s Apocalypse Now, with Wagner’s Dream corresponding to Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse. Like screenwriter John Milius sent to retrieve Francis Ford Coppola from the jungle only to be convinced “this would be the first film to win the Nobel Prize,” every cast-member and tech-hand approaching Lepage or Met General Manager Peter Gelb with logistical concerns winds up doubling down on the Machine. Again, just like Coppola’s film, the result is a sometimes flawed, but towering work of genius.

Dream is one of the few behind-the-scenes documentaries completely warranting the big screen treatment. A sense of scale is important here. Yet, it does not ignore the human element, following the challenges faced by the featured performers and sampling the reactions of loyal patrons. Having helmed two previous docs about the Met, including the profile of Maestro James Levine relatively recently broadcast on American Masters, Froemke clearly had the trust and confidence of the opera company. By now, many probably assume she is on staff there.

Even for opera neophytes, Wagner’s Dream is a fascinating film. It is also a highly effective teaser for its special encore screenings of Lepage’s Ring cycle productions. One cannot help wondering whether audiences will see the Machine cooperate or not. Highly recommended beyond the obvious opera and theater audiences, it screens across the country via Fathom Events this coming Tuesday (5/7) and will also be shown at the BAM Cinematek the following Saturday (5/12).

LFM GRADE: B+

Posted on May 2nd, 2012 at 10:10pm.

By Joe Bendel. Is it possible to lead a normal life after witnessing the horrors of war? During the upcoming 2012 Bosnian-Herzegovinian Film Festival, at least two short films will directly grapple with that question – while one suggests that it is indeed possible, through its very example.

One of the best shorts just hitting the festival circuit, Jons Vukorep’s outstanding Short for Vernesa B. is a lamenting tribute to Bosnian actress-vocalist Vernesa Berbo, starring Vernesa Berbo. Through a complicated narrative structure, it depicts the challenges of her life after seeking asylum in Germany. It is hard to analyze the film in-depth without comprising the initial viewing experience, but it is safe to say Berbo is a very compelling screen presence.

Sadly, many viewers will have a good idea where Elvir Muminović’s Neverending Story is headed, but it is still a powerful trip. Emir was also an asylum seeker in Germany who eventually met and married Kirsten. When a miscarriage ends their hopes of having their own children, they turn to his native Bosnia with the intention of adopting. They find the perfect girl, but the revelation that she is in fact Serbian causes a deep fissure between the couple. Muminović eschews neat and tidy Oprah lessons, forcing the audience to face up to some hard facts about human nature.

In marked contrast, Al Mehičević’s English language Gold Diggers is a humorous anecdotal film in the tradition of O. Henry. As it opens, three miners trapped by a cave-in are eagerly anticipating their thirty minutes of fame as they await their imminent rescue. However, when their mistresses confront their wives at the disaster site, the media gets wind of a bigger story. Gold Diggers is amusing but rather light weight. Frankly, it is the sort of short that plays well at festivals, but its appearance here is somewhat significant. Never referencing the war (which would be out of place in this context), it has none of the terrible weight of history distinguishing many Bosnian films in recent years. Rather, it takes a potential tragedy and turns it into a vehicle for comedy.

Indeed, the paradox of the annual Bosnian-Herzegovinian Film Festival is that it is one of the friendliest and most welcoming festivals in New York, screening some of the deepest, most elegiac films. (Of course there are always notable exceptions, like last year’s drolly entertaining music documentary White Button.) A now well-established tradition coming hard on the heels of Tribeca, the BHFF is once again highly recommended, featuring many excellent short films making their American debuts. It opens tomorrow (5/3) with Danis Tanović’s sensitively rendered Cirkus Columbia, featuring the great Miki Manojlović, and ends this Saturday (5/5) with Angelina Jolie’s In the Land of Blood and Honey.

Posted on May 2nd, 2012 at 10:07pm.

By Joe Bendel. Starting out as a western writer but eventually hitting his stride with crime novels, Elmore Leonard has a reputation for his sharp dialogue and lethal characters. Notable adaptations of his work include Out of Sight, Jackie Brown, Get Shorty, and 3:10 to Yuma. Indeed, the bard of badaassery’s support for a new big screen treatment of his work factored prominently in the Tribeca Talks panel discussion following the special screening of Charles Matthau’s Freaky Deaky (trailer here) during the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival.

Originally set in the 1980’s, Matthau shifted Freaky to the groovy 1970’s at Leonard’s suggestion. About to be transferred out of the bomb squad, Det. Chris Mankowski does not exactly kill himself trying to save a booby-trapped gangster. Still, it looks rather bad. Relegated to vice as a result, Mankowski takes the call when failed starlet Greta Wyatt files a rape report against wealthy creep Woody Ricks. Talk about a discordant way to kick off a supposedly madcap romp.

Initially, Mankowski downplays the legal recourse available to Wyatt, but he decides to rattle the nutter’s cage anyway. He is not the only one with his sights on the antisocial weirdo. Demolitions expert Skip Gibbs and his friend-with-benefits Robin Abbot blame Ricks for their own scrape with the law, for reasons that are hazily glossed over. To get to him, they will use his brother Mark as the tool he so obviously is. Meanwhile, Mankowski develops a personal interest in Wyatt and a sort of-kind of professional rivalry with Ricks’ bodyguard-fixer, Donnell Lewis.

From "Freaky Deaky."

Once you get past the unseemliness of the film’s catalyst, it is a breezy enough distraction. However, despite the vintage cars and occasional file footage of Vietnam or Watergate, the film never really gets inside the 70’s mindset. This was a bizarre period of time, when millions of Americans were joining Est cults and taking Erica Jong seriously. By comparison, though not exactly a classic, the film version of Serial (released in 1980) is far more successful capturing the vocabulary and attitudes of the era. (It also offers the opportunity to see Martin Mull playing off Sir Christopher Lee). Still, there is one appealing era-appropriate in-joke. In a nod to the director’s father, every movie theater seen in Freaky is showing a Walter Matthau film, which might well have been possible in 1974.

Frankly, what distinguishes Freaky is the unusually eccentric cast it assembles, including Crispin Glover, Andy Dick, and Christian Slater. It begs two questions: how did they manage to insure this production, and where was Tom Sizemore? Perhaps he was already locked-in somewhere else. While it is nice to see blaxploitation veteran and former Bond girl Gloria Hendry, even in a small bone-thrown-to-genre-fans role, and Michael Jai “Black Dynamite” White doing his thing as Lewis, it is relative newcomer Breanne Racano who shines the brightest as femme fatale Abbot, clearly understanding villainesses should enjoy being devious.

According to the post-screening discussion, there may in fact be a Black Dynamite sequel in the works. Freaky Deaky actually compares reasonably favorably to White’s prospective franchise, but hardly so in the case of the senior Matthau’s gritty classics, like The Taking of Pelham One Two Three. Flawed but somewhat diverting, largely thanks to Racano’s head-turning work, Freaky Deaky has already had some rights announcements following its Tribeca Talks screening at the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival.

LFM GRADE: C+

Posted on May 1st, 2012 at 7:46pm.

By Joe Bendel. Over an eight day period, Nasser-Ali Khan will become the anti-Scherezade. As he wills himself to die, stories from his past, narrated by the Angel of Death, will explain how the musician reached such a state of profound melancholy. Love and death become intimately intertwined in Marjane Satrapi & Vincent Paronnaud’s Chicken with Plums (trailer here), their fantastical but sophisticated live-action follow-up to the rightly acclaimed Persepolis, which screened at the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival and also unspooled yesterday at this year’s San Francisco International Film Festival.

Khan is widely regarded as the greatest Iranian violinist of his generation, but he has stopped playing. On the surface, his silence appears to be the fault of his wife Faringuisse, who destroyed his prized violin in one of their frequent squabbles. However, his depression is rooted in an elegantly tragic tale of love denied.

Technically proficient but never impassioned, Khan’s music took on uncommon richness after he was forbidden from seeing his true love Irâne, the traditional clockmaker’s daughter. Music never has been considered a stable profession by protective fathers. As Khan’s reputation rises, he acquiesces to his controlling mother’s wishes and marries Faringuisse. For him, it is a loveless union. For her, it is a marriage based on unrequited love.

Frankly, Khan is a crummy husband and a negligent father, but it is difficult to condemn him after witnessing his compounded heartache. Mathieu Amalric, with his big sad eyes, is perfectly cast as the exquisitely sensitive jerkweed. Viewers will sympathize with him, even as they shake their heads at his casual cruelty to Faringuisse. Likewise only more so, Maria de Medeiros (Bruce Willis’s girlfriend in Pulp Fiction) explodes the harpy exterior of his nagging wife, revealing the pain and vulnerability of Faringuisse.

Set in the late 1950’s pre-Shah, Western-leaning Iran, Satrapi and Paronnaud’s fable of star-crossed love would seem to hold limited political ramifications. However, it is not an accident that Khan’s forbidden love is named Irâne (as they confirmed in a post-screening Q&A). That she is played by Golshifteh Farahani is also clearly significant. The internationally acclaimed actress was barred from returning to Iran after (tastefully) posing nude in a French magazine to protest the Islamist regime’s misogynist policies. A radiantly beautiful woman, she also invests her character (and the film) with a graceful sadness.

Visually, Plums is also quite arresting, incorporating brief animated interludes, expressionistic sets, and highly stylized design elements. The inspired technical team definitely creates a seductive atmosphere of magical realism that is a pleasure to get caught up in. Highly recommended, Chicken with Plums was enthusiastically received by audiences at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival. For those in the Bay Area, it also screens Wednesday (5/2)  as part of the 2012 San Francisco International Film Festival, concluding this week.

LFM GRADE: A

Posted on May 1st, 2012 at 6:37pm.

By Joe Bendel. Social class is a hard immutable fact of life in Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles. Plunking the classic story down in contemporary America would be highly problematic, but India is a different matter. Taking a few liberties here and there, Michael Winterbottom still captures the spirit of the original novel and its new setting in Trishna, which screened at the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival, with further screenings coming up this week as part of the San Francisco International Film Festival.

Jay will serve as both Trishna’s Angel and Alec. Touring the off-the-beaten-path attractions of Rajasthan, his head is turned by Trishna, the primary provider for her large family. The son of a British hotel mogul, Jay recruits the young woman for the resort he reluctantly manages. Things are quite pleasant for Trishna, making considerably more than she ever could in her village, while Jay harmlessly pines for her.

One night when her defenses are weakened, Trishna succumbs to Jay’s advances. Instinctively realizing a Rubicon has been crossed, Trishna retreats, but Jay pursues, whisking her off to Mumbai, where they are socially accepted as a couple. However, Trishna’s life and relationship will take a dark turn, paralleling Tess’s tragic history with men.

You never know what you’re going to get from Winterbottom, but he has emerged as the leading cinematic interpreter of Hardy’s novels, following up Jude and The Claim, very loosely based on The Mayor of Casterbridge. He is clearly comfortable navigating the film’s sexually charged power-dynamics, but Trishna also exhibits an affinity for India, even including musical montage sequences (with original songs composed by Amit Trivedi) that would not be out of place in high-end Bollywood cinema.

Winterbottom uses the subcontinent as a big canvas, covering a wide swath of geography, but his focus rarely strays from Frieda Pinto’s Trishna. While some might find her maddeningly passive, she is a product of her environment. Through Pinto’s haunted presence, viewers get a sense of the social and cultural weight crushing down on her. Thanks to Winterbottom’s streamlining, Riz Ahmed’s Jay has to turn on a dime from leading man to a cruel exploiter. Still, there are enough underlying consistencies in the impulsive, entitled persona he creates to maintain audience credibility. Pinto and Ahmed really carry the dramatic load, but veteran character actor Roshan Seth (Chattar Lal in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom) has some memorable moments as Jay’s stern but humanistic father.

Granted, everyone should have a pretty good idea where Trishna is headed. After all, Hardy is not exactly famous for his happy endings. However, Winterbottom’s treatment of Tess is boldly cinematic. (Incidentally, Polanski’s Tess will screen as a classics selection at this year’s Cannes, so cineastes might want to break out their Cliff Notes.) Literate and absorbing, Trishna is recommended for anglophiles and fans of Hindi cinema, alike. A strong selection of the recently wrapped 2012 Tribeca Film Festival, it screens Wednesday and Thursday (5/2 & 5/3) during this year’s San Francisco International Film Festival.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on May 1st, 2012 at 6:37pm.

By Joe Bendel. Michael Fassbender is fully clothed, while Liam Cunningham is really drunk. Together, they are a mismatched pair of crooks hired to pull off a very dark caper in John Maclean’s Pitch Black Heist, the winner of the 2012 BAFTA Award for best short film, which screened over the weekend as part of the Status Update programming block at the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival.

Known simply as Michael and Liam, two safecrackers are meeting each other for the first time on a very unusual job. They are to retrieve some item (it hardly matters what) from a safe with a light-sensitive alarm. To prepare, they practice navigating a dummied-up room in complete darkness. On the day in question, they meet in a quiet pub and wait for their employer to send them the all-clear. However, they find themselves cooling their heels far longer than they expected, so they start doing what you’re supposed to do in a pub, lest they attract attention.

Pitch has a nice little twist at the end that Maclean adroitly lays the groundwork for, without glaringly telegraphing it. Frankly, this concept could be relatively easily expanded into a feature, which makes the economy of Maclean’s thirteen minute storytelling all the more noteworthy. Still, the real entertainment is watching the boozy interaction between co-executive producers Fassbender and Cunningham. Both actors have genuinely intense screen presences, perfectly suited to their roles in Pitch.

It all looks quite stylish as well, thanks to Robbie Ryan’s appropriately noir black-and-white cinematography. A neat little ironic crime drama, Pitch Black Heist is one of the overlooked treats of the Tribeca line-up. As per tradition, all short film blocks screened on the concluding day of this year’s festival.

Posted on May 1st, 2012 at 5:39pm.

By Joe Bendel. In 1962, Rudolf Nureyev made his post-defection American debut at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM). However, the 1960’s would be a difficult decade for the performing arts institution. Still, it survived and eventually thrived, as James Sládek documents in BAM150, a portrait of the venue in its sesquicentennial year, which screened again today during the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival.

Originally founded to rival the concert halls of Manhattan, BAM had a difficult time establishing its own identity, notwithstanding the appearance of high profile artists such as Nureyev, Sarah Bernhardt, and even Mark Twain. It was more in the business of leasing space than producing performances when Harvey Lichtenstein took the reins of leadership in 1967.

During his tenure, Lichtenstein dramatically raised BAM’s stock through the somewhat contradictory strategies of institutionalizing the avant-garde and pursuing big name performers. Ironically, the economic growth of the 1980’s helped stabilize the venue despite the many theater pieces it staged protesting the very policies that made it all possible. However, it was nearly all undone by Lichtenstein’s disastrous attempts to establish a repertory company.

BAM150 is a perfectly respectable survey of the hall’s history. Sládek has a nice approach to the material, smoothly blending moments of quiet, Wiseman-esque observation with more conventional talking head sequences. The combined effect gives audiences a pretty good feel for the rapidly expanding institution.

After previously profiling Mark Kostabi, a somewhat dubious artist more famous than he should be, Sládek has shifted gears, shining a spotlight on an arts organization that ought to be more widely recognized. It is also a rather shrewd filmmaking decision, since his documentary is a lead pipe cinch to be screened at BAM’s Cinématek. Still, he faced a bit of a challenge, considering dance and theater performances are fleeting by nature. As a result, viewers must often settle for descriptions rather than video documentation. Fortunately, the quality of interview participants helps to compensate, including the likes of Steve Reich, Peter Brook, Alan Rickman, and Isabella Rossellini.

Clearly produced in a celebratory spirit, Sládek never pushes or prods his subjects into any news-making revelations, but he keeps it all moving along briskly. Most likely destined for an engagement at the BAM Cinématek and an eventual PBS broadcast life, BAM150 is basically pleasant and informative. Modestly recommended for proud Brooklynites and those fascinated by the performing arts world, BAM150 screened again tonight (4/28) as this year’s Tribeca Film Festival enters its concluding weekend.

LFM GRADE: B-

Posted on April 29th, 2012 at 10:40pm.

By Joe Bendel. Sex for money can be so liberating – at least, that is what some guys always say. A similar position is staked out in a rather mature new film produced and directed by women and featuring a largely female cast. Even if you adore Juliette Binoche, this is not a film to watch with your parents. However, a lot of people saw it with other people’s parents when it screened at the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival. And mere days later, Malgoska Szumowska’s Elles has opened its conventional theatrical run in New York.

Anne is a wife, a mother, and a freelance writer. Her latest story is a confidential profile of student prostitutes. The assignment came at an awkward period in her marriage, around the same time she busted her husband for a certain kind of net surfing. As she talks to these confident young women, she becomes obsessed with their explicit stories. According to Charlotte and Alicja, their approach to sex is healthier, because there is no hypocrisy. They make a comfortable living exploiting men’s weaknesses of the flesh. Maybe so, but liberation never looked so demeaning.

Films exploring the jujitsu ‘empowerment’ of prostitutes are nearly as old as the profession itself. One obvious comparison is Steven Soderbergh’s The Girlfriend Experience, which also screened at Tribeca three years ago. Yet that film, starring an actual pornstar, is far more circumspect in what it depicts. In fact, there is no on-screen sex and only a spot of nudity is to be seen here or there. It is the emotional entanglements surrounding sex that concern GFE. In contrast, Elles jumps right into some of the more explicit scenes you will see in a public theater. And it was not tagged with an NC-17 rating for no reason.

Frankly, Soderbergh had the right idea. Even if Szumowska had a razor sharp analysis of sexual politics to offer, it is hard to get past some of the things she shows the audience. However, the film’s feminist themes are pretty threadbare and the drama is more frustrating than absorbing.

Normally a bedrock of reliability, even Binoche seems a little off here as the journalist. Her reactions to everything often seem wildly disproportionate to the circumstances at hand. Still, Anaïs Demoustier and Joanna Kulig both bring smart, attractive presences to bear on this material. For the record, I briefly met Kulig on the way to a post-screening Q&A and she seems like a lovely and engaging person. I imagine the audience had a lot of questions for her, but whether they had the guts to ask them is another matter entirely. It is also worth noting that the legendary Krystyna Janda (whose credits include Andrzej Wajda’s Man of Marble and Ryszard Bugajski’s The Interrogation) also co-stars in the largely thankless role of Alicja’s mother.

Something about Elles simply does not click. It is not necessarily because of the subject matter, but it makes the lack of depth and cohesion more conspicuous. Due to the accomplished cast, cineastes should have it on their radar, but it is not recommended as a satisfying theater-going experience. After its high profile Tribeca screenings, Elles is now open in New York at the Angelika Film Center.

LFM GRADE: D+

Posted on April 28th, 2012 at 10:38pm.

By Joe Bendel. The Ragunan Zoo is a slightly run down Eden, and the city around it is jungle. One innocent young woman will learn the nature of the world outside in the singularly named Edwin’s Postcards from the Zoo (see clips here), which screened today at the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival.

Abandoned in the zoo as a young girl, Lana simply stayed there, falling in with a group of itinerant workers who do odd jobs around the park and sleep on the premises. Growing up amongst the animals, she seems to have special bond with them, particularly the giraffe. However, her sheltered existence is turned upside down when word comes of the migrant workers’ imminent eviction from the zoo.

Fascinated by a mysterious street magician dressed as a cowboy, Lana is lured out of the park, becoming his assistant and ambiguous companion. While she acclimates to their performance routines, it is not long before she is working at a massage parlor in an even more ambiguous capacity.

Like Lana, Postcards should have never left the zoo. In those early scenes Edwin and cinematographer Sidi Saleh create a breathtakingly delicate, fable-like environment. It is fascinating to watch the quietly subtle ways Lana interacts with the animals. The Ragunan Zoo is also a truly wonderful setting, looking a bit wild and over-run by forest, in a way that further heightens the fantasy atmosphere.

However, once she leaves the idyllic zoo, Postcards becomes a largely by the numbers end-of-innocence tale. While there are arresting visuals to be found throughout the film, usually involving return trips to the zoo, we have been down this road hundreds of times before. Yes, it reflects the reality of Jakarta, which is also why it clashes with everything special in the film. It is also getting emotionally exhausting to see yet another little girl abandoned or abducted in a film from the region. The filmmakers ought to start picking on someone more their size.

Even if Postcards is undermined by its second half, it is impossible to take your eyes off Ladya Cheryl’s Lana. Her earnest engagement and exquisite vulnerability gives the film an emotional center of gravity, preventing it from becoming a mere exercise in archetypal tropes. It is haunting work.

There were obviously some crack animal trainers contributing their talents to Postcards. Cheryl is also an absolutely luminous presence. However, viewers are more likely to fall in love with her or the Ragunan Zoo than Edwin’s movie. Richly crafted but somewhat disappointing, Postcards from the Zoo screened again today (4/28) as this year’s Tribeca Film Festival enters the home stretch.

LFM GRADE: C+

Posted on April 29th, 2012 at 9:31pm.

By Joe Bendel. Representing the fourth dimension in 2D is quite the daunting challenge. Fortunately, none of the filmmakers participating in a new hipster sci-fi anthology take it seriously. Nor will annoying glasses be necessary when watching The Fourth Dimension, three short films produced and assembled by Vice and Grolsch Film Works (cheers, mate), which screened again this afternoon as part of the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival.

In the opening The Lotus Community Workshop, Harmony Korine (yes, but don’t panic) takes us to a world much like our own, where Val Kilmer plays a low rent motivational speaker named Val Kilmer. Addressing church groups in roller rinks, he passes off ego-centric tripe as New Agey pearls of wisdom. Occasionally hinting at the metaphysical, Lotus seems more like a confessional piece from Kilmer, admitting to his fans: “I realize I was once Iceman in Top Gun and now I’m kind of a slob, but at least I still don’t have to work at a real job.” This is a case where brevity is definitely Korine’s ally. Given the relatively short running time, the self-referential joke maintains its novelty better than one might expect.

Making a bit of a concession to the film’s umbrella premise, Alexey Fedorchenko’s Chronoeye involves indirect time travel. Employing some analog-style technology, a misanthropic Russian scientist (is there any other kind?) is able to glimpse into the past. However, there is an attractive neighbor above him to remind viewers not to lose sight of the present. Fedorchenko (probably best known for the strikingly austere road movie Silent Souls) maintains a fable-like vibe, preventing Chronoeye from descending into the realm of romantic cliché.

Jan Kwiecinski’s Fawns might come closest to revealing the fourth dimension, since it induces Armageddon. Much like Abel Ferrara’s meandering 4:44 Last Day on Earth, doomsday vaguely involves global warmish-ing, but here it is more Biblical. A cataclysmic flood has led to worldwide evacuation, but a group of Polish slackers are too cool to pay attention. Instead, they careen about a provincial town, hinting at the sexual tensions within their group. Suddenly though, the end of the world takes a serious turn for the aimless youth. Frankly, none of the Kwiecinski’s characters are particularly well defined, but as a mood piece, it is quite eerie.

Defiantly disregarding the theme that ostensibly holds it together, The Fourth Dimension lurches all over the place, but it is not without merit. Indeed, there should be enough eccentricity in each constituent short film to satisfy some strange subset of cult film fandom out there someplace. Recommended for those in search of a bit of bemusement, it screened yesterday as part of the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival.

LFM GRADE: B-

Posted on April 28th, 2012 at 8:56pm.

By Joe Bendel. Jo Nesbø is best known for his gritty detective Harry Hole, but film adaptations of his work have largely focused on the criminal and the compromised. Just as Morten Tyldum’s Headhunters begins its American theatrical run here in New York, Magnus Martens’ even better and bloodier Jackpot (trailer here) screened last night as part of the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival.

Oscar Svendsen is not a criminal, but the artificial Christmas tree factory he works at specializes in hiring released convicts. According to the detective interrogating him, this means he is used to thinking like a crook. Be that as it may, Svendsen certainly has some explaining to do, such as how he came to be found clutching a shotgun beneath a rather large dead woman amid a bloodbath at a strip club. Let the flashback carnage begin.

Reluctantly, Svendsen agreed to enter a betting pool with three of his scariest co-workers. Against all the odds, their dubious betting system produces a twelve-game winning ticket. Everyone should be happy, but when Svendsen returns to his apartment, he finds a dead body. Supposedly their late colleague got greedy and attacked the other two, who killed him in self-defense. Or so they tell Svendsen. True or not, there is a corpse to dispose of. This will get messy. Not for nothing, Svendsen wonders if he will be next.

Based on a Nesbø story, Jackpot is a lot like early Coen Brothers, but with a greater body count. Evidently the process for fabricating fake Christmas trees is a lot like sausage-making, so you know what that means. The pieces are sent flying almost as fast and furiously as the constant double-crosses. Indeed, Martens is not exactly shy in his approach to the material, but he keeps a tight rein on the narrative, never letting the proceedings descend into absolute bedlam.

As Svendsen, the game but unassuming Kyrre Hellum resembles a rag doll being tossed about. However, that works rather well in the context of the film. In contrast, Henrik Mestad displays mucho screen presence, supplying much of the film’s mordant wit as the investigating Detective Solør. Yet even more laughs come from blood-splattered slapstick gags that would make the re-launched Stooges blanch. Still, Svendsen’s three knuckle-headed co-conspirators are all rather generic. Indeed, that lack of a flamboyant villain is the only real knock on the film.

You should probably know by now if Jackpot is your cup of tea. Frankly, the execution (so to speak) is superior to many other films in what could be considered the recent Scandinavian noir invasion, but it definitely makes the typical Tarantino-impersonating film look rather sedate by comparison. For those looking for some good chaotic fun, it definitely fits the bill. Recommended for connoisseurs of outrageous crime drama, Jackpot screens again this weekend as the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival concludes.

LFM GRADE: B+

Posted on April 27th, 2012 at 8:54pm.

Olga Kurylenko returns to the Ukraine in "Land of Oblivion."

By Joe Bendel. On April 25th, 1986, Pripyat was known as a model “Atomic City.” Two days later, it was well on its way to being a radioactive ghost town. The resulting physical and emotional damage done to the local Ukrainian populace is starkly dramatized in Michale Boganim’s Land of Oblivion (trailer here), which screens during the 2012 San Francisco International Film Festival.

It rained on that fateful April 26th, fixing the radiation in the area surrounding the nuclear power plant. That was bad news for Pripyat, the bustling Ukrainian town built accommodate Chernobyl workers – but good for the rest of the world.

Making a bad situation worse, many Ukrainians would needlessly perish because of the Soviets’ reluctance to admit the severity of the crisis. One of them will be Anya’s new husband Pyotr, a fireman pulled away from their wedding reception for lethal duty at Chernobyl. The disaster will also rob young Valery of his father Alexei, a safety engineer expressly forbidden from warning Pripyat residents of the deadly reality he understood only too well. In contradiction of Soviet policy, he sends Valery and his mother away on the first train out of town. Faced with the guilt and futility of the situation, Alexei roams the streets of Pripyat, handing out umbrellas as certain death rains from the sky.

Ten years later, Anya has not moved on with her life. She works as a guide, taking curious French tourists and grieving survivors on tours of the no man’s land that was once her home. One of her groups includes Alexei’s widow and Valery, who has become an angry teenager greatly desiring some closure.

In happier times.

Shot on-location in the forbidden zone, Oblivion looks downright spooky. It clearly suggests the upcoming Oren Peli produced Chernobyl horror movie should be scary as all get-out, even if they do an only a half-way decent job of it. Frankly, watching Anya lead her busloads of gawkers is jarring enough. Obviously this job is profoundly unhealthy for her, but she remains psychologically tethered to the ghost town.

While Oblivion abstains from graphic depictions of radiation sickness, it presents an unambiguous indictment of the Soviet authorities’ rampant CYA-ing and callous indifference to Ukrainian suffering. Like the character of Anya, it somewhat loses its way during the early scenes of the 1996 winter story arc, but when Boganim starts following the wayward Valery through Pripyat’s desolate streets and abandoned buildings, the film achieves an air of surreal high tragedy.

Admirably understated, former Bond-girl Olga Kurylenko’s work as Anya, in her native Ukrainian, is remarkably assured and shrewdly modulated. As Alexei, Polish actor Andrzej Chyra is also quite restrained, yet touching.

In her first dramatic feature, Israeli-born French documentarian Boganim balances the intimate and the ominous fairly dexterously. Oblivion also boasts a distinctive soundtrack from Polish jazz musician Leszek Możdżer. Refraining from his experimentations with “treated” pianos, his themes are surprisingly upbeat and swinging, but they help propel the audience through much of the on-screen grimness. Often visually arresting, Land of Oblivion is a well produced film, definitely recommended, particularly for those fascinated by the Chernobyl disaster and the Soviet era in general, when it screens again this Friday (4/27) and Sunday (4/29) during this year’s San Francisco International Film Festival.

LFM GRADE: B+

Posted on April 27th, 2012 at 1:12am.