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.

Check it out above.

Posted on April 27th, 2012 at 1:10am.

By Joe Bendel. In 1932, the British economy was also rather depressed, but appearances had to be kept up, nonetheless. A well-to-do widowed mother is determined to see her eldest daughter married in proper style, even if it kills the rest of her family in Donald Rice’s Cheerful Weather for the Wedding, which screens during the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival.

Dolly Thatcham became re-acquainted with her rich, twittish fiancé during a grand tour of Albania. She was most definitely on the rebound, following the end of her affair with Joseph Patten, a promising young academic. He was somewhat self-centered, but there was real passion between them, as the audience sees in multiple flashbacks. Her controlling mother could make the rest of the family sufficiently miserable on her own, but when the sullen Patten shows up at the house, it puts everyone further on edge. The fact that the bride has locked herself in her dressing room with a bottle of rum hardly helps matters either.

Based on the novella by Julia Strachey, a member of the Bloomsbury Group whose work has gained popularity in recent years, Cheerful Weather could be considered a lite beer version of Downton Abbey, but Rice and Mary Henley Magill’s adaptation clearly lacks Sir Julian’s delicious wit. Of course, the presence of Elizabeth Montgomery in the rather thankless role of Thatcham’s overbearing mother further invites such comparisons.

From "Cheerful Weather for the Wedding."

Still, Cheerful Weather offers a number of memorable moments, largely courtesy of its snappy supporting cast. Indeed, Mackenzie Crook and Fenella Woolgar steal scene after scene as the bickering Dakins, who largely reconcile through their shared distaste for his family. Julian Wadham also adds a humane touch to the film as the not-as-dumb-as-he-looks bumbling Uncle Bob, while Zoe Tapper brings considerable allure and even a bit of depth to Evelyn Graham, Thatcham’s fortune hunting maid of honor.

Unfortunately, Cheerful Weather’s weak romantically-doomed leads undermine the audience’s investment in the actual wedding. Looking rather dazed, even in the flashbacks, Felicity Jones’ turn as Thatcham is a pale shadow of Michelle Dockery’s Lady Mary Grantham. More baffling is the complete lack of screen presence displayed by Luke Treadaway as the morose Mr. Patten.

Frankly, it is hard to understand why Thatcham or Patten would pine for each other, but it is easy to see how this family would annoy the Dakins. Yet viewers can enjoy elements of the picture once they have shifted their sympathies accordingly. An okay but hardly exceptional period drama, Cheerful Weather seems best suited for PBS’s Masterpiece. For diehard Anglophiles, it screens again this Saturday (4/28) as this year’s Tribeca Film Festival enters its final weekend.

LFM GRADE: C+

Posted on April 27th, 2012 at 12:14am.

By Joe Bendel. Right now, Norway’s economy is a lot like our own. There are way more job-seekers than open positions to fill. At such times, if a recruiter sends you on an interview, you go, even though you might be leaving a few stray valuable objects d’art lying about your home unguarded. That is Roger Brown’s racket, but it turns unexpectedly deadly in Morten Tyldum’s Headhunters, which opens this Friday in New York and also screened yesterday as part of the San Francisco International Film Festival.

Brown is a man slight of stature, married to his bombshell wife, Diana. Suffering from a king-sized inferiority complex, he has allowed them to live beyond their means by burglarizing the homes of his executive search clients. With his house of cards on the brink of collapse, Brown’s prayers appear to be answered in the person of Claes Greve. Not only is the former tech CEO the perfect candidate for a plum position Brown must fill, he also owns a genuine Rubens painting of rather dodgy providence. Win-win, right?

However, when Brown starts to suspect the younger man and his wife are carrying on an affair behind his back, he sabotages Greve’s campaign for the position. At this point, Greve reacts more forcefully than Brown anticipates. Mouse, meet cat.

Headhunters is quite a nifty one-darned-thing-after-another thriller. Tyldum has a good handle on the material, constantly ratcheting-up the tension, but periodically using black comedy to release some steam. In his hands, the frequent twists are entertaining rather than forced or exhausting.

Tyldum also has a nice looking cast to focus on. Especially bankable is the presence of Game of Thrones alumnus Nikolaj Coster-Wladau, now world famous for playing Lena Headey’s brother (and other things), Ser Jaime Lannister, here perfectly cast as Greve. As Diana Brown, former model Synnøve Macody Lund certainly looks the part, but she also has some nice dramatic moments as well. In the lead, Aksell Hennie’s Brown holds the film together while coming to grief quite effectively.

Based on Norwegian mystery writer Jo Nesbø’s first book outside of his bread-and-butter series, Headhunters engages in some of the same far-fetched anti-corporate humbug undermining so many recent domestic crime dramas. However, Tyldum keeps the rollercoaster loop-de-looping at such breakneck speed, it is not so distracting. Definitely a dark but thoroughly enjoyable exercise in skullduggery, Headhunters is easily recommended and opens theatrically this Friday (4/27) in New York at the Landmark Sunshine.

Posted on April 26th, 2012 at 11:38pm.

Check it out above. The film stars Dwayne Johnson as Roadblock, Bruce Willis as the original ‘Joe,’ Adrianne Palicki as Lady Jaye, Channing Tatum as Duke, Ray Park as Snake Eyes and Jonathan Pryce as the President of the United States.

It’s going to be a busy summer …

Posted on April 24th, 2012 at 12:43pm.

By Joe Bendel. For the aboriginal peoples indigenous to Taiwan, decapitating an enemy’s head in battle was an essential rite of manhood. In the early twentieth century, the occupying Japanese began the systematic suppression of aboriginal culture. It would cost them a whole lot of heads. Originally well over four hours long, Wei Te-sheng’s Warriors of the Rainbow: Sediq Bale in its more theatrical booking-friendly two and a half hour international cut opens this Friday in New York.

Mouna Rudao was one of the fiercest Seediq warriors ever. When the Japanese confiscate his collection of skulls, they are duly impressed. Unfortunately, as chief he must watch as the old ways atrophy under their oppressive rule. The tattoos of manhood are becoming scarce. However, this will change during the 1930 Wushe Uprising.

It started with a misunderstanding between Mouna’s family and the local Imperial authorities, snowballing from there. The Seediq forces strike first, ambushing the Japanese at a major sporting exhibition. Things only get bloodier thereafter. Frankly, Mouna knows their revolt is doomed to fail, but at least the young Seediq men will die as warriors, crossing over the Rainbow Bridge to their equivalent of Valhalla.

Submitted by Taiwan as their most recent official foreign language Academy Award candidate, Rainbow was released as two films in most Asian markets. However, the edited and cobbled together international version makes perfect sense from a narrative standpoint and includes plenty of Braveheart-style action. One suspects the axe fells disproportionately heavily on the female cast, including the great Vivian Hsu, who are rarely seen in the 150 minute cut until an emotionally devastating scene late in the picture.

It is too bad Mel Gibson went more or less insane, because he would have been the perfect celebrity “presenter” for Rainbow, executive-produced by John Woo, no less. There are death-scenes that will make you exclaim out loud. Yet, despite the frequent references to the Rainbow Bridge, there is little that could be deemed mystical or New Agey about the film, at least in its international configuration. It also resists the temptation to glorify Seediq traditionalism, unequivocally suggesting tribalism undermined their efforts to defeat the Imperial Japanese with a united front.

Lin Ching-Tai is all business as the steely old Mouna. He might just the best middle-aged action hero since the Eastwood of decades ago. Yet young Lin Yuan-Jie might be the most engaging member of the ensemble cast. There is absolutely nothing cute or cloying about his riveting work as Pawan Nawi. Japanese actor Sabu Kawahara also somehow manages to elevate the role of the stereotypically severe General Kamada Yahiko, while Chie Tanaka is memorably vulnerable as the wife of a relatively sympathetic Imperial officer.

Rainbow parallels the pronounced trend in current Mainland and Hong Kong films depicting Japanese characters in explicitly villainous terms. Indeed, the impulse to constantly re-fight WWII is becoming rather suspicious. Be that as it may or may not be, there is no denying Rainbow delivers the epic action goods. This is a big, bloody picture, serving as a perfect example of the bold filmmaking fostered by Fortissimo Films. Definitely recommended for fans of large scale historical action films, Rainbow opens this Friday (4/27) in New York at the AMC Empire.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on April 23rd, 2012 at 2:36pm.

By Joe Bendel. Crooked cops are as French as frog legs and escargot. But in fact, there are varying degrees of police corruption, as viewers can see in Frederic Jardin’s cops vs. cops vs. drug dealers shoot-out Sleepless Night, which screens during the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival.

Vincent and his even more corrupt partner Manu just relieved some couriers of a huge shipment of cocaine. Unfortunately, he took a stiletto wound in the process. Without time to be properly stitched up, he must quickly bundle his son off to school and then show up at the station to play innocent. Events take a turn for the worse when the kingpin Marciano abducts the lad, demanding the coke as ransom. Into the lion’s den, or in this case Marciano’s club Le Tarmac, Vincent goes. When the even more corrupt internal affairs officer swipes his hidden coke, the desperate father starts improvising. That is when things start getting good.

Poor, morally compromised Vincent bleeds in every corner of the up-scale hipster disco/restaurant/pool hall, but he always gives as good as he gets. The kitchen gets a particularly messy going-over, worrying the staff to no end. And every time Vincent returns to their domain, the film gets an invigorating jolt of energy.

Tightly helmed by Jardin and stylishly lensed by frequent Eastwood cinematographer Tom Stern, Sleepless Night is sort of like an adrenaline-charged, action-driven variation on the brooding Paris By Night, which screened at French Rendezvous earlier in the year. As Vincent, Tomer Sisley (a.k.a. Largo Winch) is not as cool as Roschdy Zem, but he is still one bad cat.

While not exactly legendary, Sleepless also has some respectable villains, including Serge Riaboukine, whose somewhat larger than life Marciano clearly enjoys the trappings of gangster life. French rapper Joey Starr also brings the appropriate ferocity as Feydek, Marciano’s impatient buyer. Also making quite the impression in a small role as a bystander helping Vincent, Dutch-Russian-Korean model Pom Klementieff should definitely have a future looking alluring in films.

Although Sleepless Night wastes some time up top, over-establishing what a disappointing father Vincent is, once it gets going it becomes a thoroughly entertaining roller-coaster. Not quite at the level of Gareth Huw Evans The Raid: Redemption, but a pretty impressive excursion into action filmmaking nonetheless, Sleepless screens tonight (4/22), Thursday (4/26), and Friday (4/27) during this year’s Tribeca Film Festival, with a theatrical release slated for May from Tribeca’s film distribution arm.

LFM GRADE: B+

Posted on April 22nd, 2012 at 9:31pm.

By Joe Bendel. One crooked Filipino congressman is used to handing out the traditional sort of bribes, but when his daughter is kidnapped, he also has to give a little financial consideration to get the cops to do their job. Unfortunately, they are determined to hassle his former driver, whose daughter was also abducted. To save her, he will have to navigate Manila’s seediest back alleys without the help of the openly antagonistic police in Ron Morales’ Graceland, which screens during the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival.

Though ostensibly a driver, one of Marlon Villar’s primary duties is to clean up after his boss Rep. Chango’s predatory indulgences with underage girls—or at least it was his job. Given the soul-deadening acts Villar witnessed, he is shocked when the congressman summarily fires him. The timing is particularly bad, considering his hospitalized wife desperately needs a transplant. That is also why suspicion immediately falls on him after the kidnapping. In what was to be his final task for his former employer, he picks up his daughter Evie and her best friend Sophia Chango from school, only to be waylaid by armed thugs.

Unfortunately, complications arise during the kidnapping that put Villar in a particularly tight spot. In a way, it is like a dark twist on the botched kidnapping in Kurosawa’s High and Low, but unlike Toshirō Mifune’s upstanding Kingo Gondo, Chango cannot be relied on to do the right thing. In fact, it quickly becomes clear the case directly involves the politician’s bad karma.

Granted, Graceland is not at Kurosawa’s level, but it is an intense dark crime drama that totally pulls off some audacious hide-in-plain-sight twists. However, it is not likely to delight the Filipino tourism bureau, depicting unhygienic slums, where shocking vice is carried on with near impunity, thanks to widespread police corruption.

Of course, for a desperation-in-the-city noir, such a setting works perfectly – as does Arnold Reyes, the terrific lead. As Villar, he broods ferociously, but is no superman. In the complex role, he keeps viewers on the edge of their seats and fully vested in his fate. In memorable support, Menggie Cobarrubias radiates sleaze as the dishonorable congressman, while Dido de La Paz brings a feral cunning to the corrupt Det. Ramos.

Tightly helmed by Morales, Graceland works every step of the way and completely holds together in retrospect. With its visceral sense of place and Reyes’ powerhouse performance, it is one of the best films so far at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival. Highly recommended, it screens again tonight (4/21) and next Saturday (4/28).

LFM GRADE: A

Posted on April 21st, 2012 at 12:57pm.

By Joe Bendel. South African trumpeter Hugh Masekela survived Apartheid and drug addiction. Though the musician was often something of an absentee father, his son Selema more-or-less had to survive them too, by proxy. Their complicated musical father-and-son story is told in Jason Bergh’s short documentary Alekesam, which screens as part of the Triptych program at the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival.

Anyone who reads Masekela’s memoir Still Grazing might easily get the sense he remains nostalgic for his hard partying days. Regardless, according to his son (often known as “Sal”) his father could not have withstood much more substance abuse. Fortunately, Masekela got clean, with the help of lifelong friend and producer Stewart Levine, who is still close to both Masekelas.

Alekesam focuses somewhat more on the son, who grew up with an unreliable father. Yet, he was able to make his own way in the world, becoming a well known surfer and extreme sports commentator. Following his father’s recovery and reconciliation, the junior Masekela has also made his way back to music, as a vocalist. In fact, he has a smooth, appealing voice. Nonetheless, most fans will want to hear more of the senior Masekela’s invigorating yet easy-going trumpet work they know so well from his soulful records.

Bergh elicits some honest reflections from both Masekelas and gets several amusing soundbites from Levine, a natural raconteur. However, he seems to give short shrift to the younger Masekela’s mother, considering the critical role she played during his formative years. Frankly, Alekesam could have been much longer than its manageable thirty-four minutes, without risk of overstaying its welcome, which is ultimately quite a compliment.

It is nice to have a documentary end on a happy note for a change. Alekesam is a rather uplifting testament to the power of family and friendship—with good music, of course. Recommended for fans of Hugh Masekela’s jazz-pop-African fusion blend and Sal Masekela’s extreme sports set, Alekesam screens again as part of the Triptych shorts block tomorrow (4/21), Wednesday (4/25), and Sunday (4/29) during this year’s Tribeca Film Festival.

Posted on April 21st, 2012 at 12:04pm.

By Joe Bendel. The Yakuza are nothing like Chili Palmer in Get Shorty. They do not care about the state of Japanese cinema. They just want a struggling indie filmmaker to pay off his brother’s debts. The would-be auteur just might do so, but in an absolutely harrowing fashion in Iranian expatriate Amir Naderi’s Cut (see clip above), which screens during the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival.

Shuji is one of the more annoying cineastes you could hope to run across. He spends much of his days decrying the commercialization of cinema through a bullhorn on busy street corners. He has made three poorly received films, financed by his gangster brother Shingo, with money unwisely borrowed from the Yakuza. Unable to clear the debt, Shingo meets a violent end. Now the Yakuza turn to Shuji, giving him a seemingly impossible deadline to pay-up.

From "Cut."

Obviously, the immature Shuji has never been good at that whole money-making thing. However, a proposal made in contempt quickly turns into a Yen-generating enterprise that carries wider significance for the filmmaker. One of the thugs in the Yakuza headquarters-boxing gym-tavern offers him five thousand Yen if Shuji allows him a free swing. Shuji accepts on the condition he do so in the lavatory where his brother was murdered, extending the same terms to any and all takers. With the clock ticking, Shuji endures a nightly beating, fortifying himself with his love of art cinema and guilt over his brother’s demise.

Cut has polarized critics in its European festival screenings, but it is one of the best films screening at Tribeca this year. Naderi (who was in Japan working on Cut at the time of the earthquake and tsunami) subverts the established Yakuza movie conventions, producing one of the most visceral in-your-face indictments of thuggish violence you will ever see on-screen. No, he does not make it easy for viewers, but that is the whole point, forcing them to endure long sequences of violence stripped of any possible romanticism. Like Yoko, the attractive bartender, who has no trouble cleaning up the bloody mess of Shingo’s murder – but is eventually sickened by the pummeling Shuji voluntarily submits to – the audience is forced to confront their own complicity as witnesses.

Naderi is clearly operating on two levels, depicting Shuji’s extreme fund-raising as an act of existential contrition, while also presenting it as a challenge to our sensibilities. Yet Cut also serves as a valentine to cinema, eventually evolving into the Devil’s own homage to Cool Hand Luke, featuring a countdown of Shuji’s top one hundred films, amid absolutely punishing circumstances.

Hidetoshi Nishijima delves into some very dark places, portraying Shuji with convincing grit. Haunted but grounded, his work never allows viewers to dismiss the frankly unbearable on-screen events as the stuff of fable or metaphor. As the reluctant facilitators, Yoko and Hioshi, an old timer Yakuza, Takako Tokiwa and veteran character actor Takashi Sasano give exquisitely subtle, finely calibrated supporting turns, expressing their mounting revulsion and ethical confusion when confronting Shuji’s spectacle.

As drama, Cut is as intimate as the Cassavetes pictures Shuji venerates, but it is definitely big idea filmmaking. There is real substance to it, but it does not spoon-feed a few politically correct bromides to the audience and then send them off to bed with a pat on the bottom, content in their raised consciousness. Naderi calls us all out, daring us to turn away from the mayhem unfolding on-screen. It is an audacious film, bolstered by some uncompromisingly honest performances. Very highly recommended, Cut screens Monday (4/23), Thursday (4/26), and Friday (4/27) during this year’s Tribeca Film Festival now underway throughout lower Manhattan.

LFM GRADE: A

Posted on April 20th, 2012 at 4:06pm.

By Joe Bendel. Drawing evil vixens and costumed crime-fighters usually is not the best way of winning over high school girls. Unfortunately, Donald Clarke does not have long to figure that out. He is dying of leukemia, but has a few obvious teenager goals he would like to accomplish first in Ian Fitzgibbon’s Death of a Superhero, which screens at the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival.

Clarke is an understandably angry young man. If he was not socially awkward before, his bald head leads him to retreat further into himself. His only satisfaction comes from his comic art and his escalating graffiti escapades. Hoping to improve his state of mind, his well meaning parents take him to Dr. Adrian King, an art therapist who specializes in helping terminally ill patients come to terms with their mortality. Shrewdly, King does not try too hard to win Clarke’s confidence, thereby establishing a level of comfort between them. About the same time, Clarke meets a rather cute and rebellious transfer student he might actually stand a chance with, if he is not distracted by stupid high school pettiness.

Periodically, interludes of Heavy Metal-style animation provide a glimpse inside Clarke’s head, depicting his alter-ego battling The Glove, a Doctor Doom-like villain symbolizing his illness, and enduring the torments of the shapely Nurse Worsey, who embodies all his pent-up angst. Frankly, they are cool enough to give Superhero a genre appeal such material would not ordinarily hold. However, the third act may seem familiar to some viewers, following almost precisely the same narrative path as Ian Barnes’ Oscar nominated 2009 short film Wish 143. Since Anthony McCarten adapted Superhero from his own 2006 novel, you can assume whatever you will.

Thomas Brodie-Sangster is convincingly bitter and troubled as Clarke, but he has some nice chemistry with Aisling Loftus as his potential girlfriend. Taking a break from the motion-capture suits, Andy Serkis also demonstrates wise restraint as Dr. King, making this movie shrink exponentially easier to take than Robin Williams in Good Will Hunting.

It is hard to imagine a dying teenager film that refrains from heart-tugging manipulation, and Superhero is certainly no exception. Yet the retro noir animation gives it a real edge. That unique look and several well tempered performances help earn its inevitable big emotional crescendo. Surprisingly effective, Death of a Superhero screens during the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival next Friday (4/27), Saturday (4/28), and Sunday (4/29), with a regular theatrical release soon to follow.

LFM GRADE: B+

Posted on April 20th, 2012 at 3:56pm.

By Patricia Ducey. Oh, Canada! Every so often, out from beneath the ice and snow of our northern neighbor, emerges a film so en pointe that it seems intended for an American audience. Like The Barbarian Invasions, another French Canadian offering, with its stinging comparison of Canada’s health system to ours, Monsieur Lazhar takes on education — and the well meaning but destructive political correctness that apparently stultifies both our systems. But beyond the concerns of the day, Monsieur Lazhar resonates in the tradition of school teacher movies from The Children’s Hour to Stand and Deliver, embracing the light and dark tones of both – and is totally affecting, earning its many Canadian awards and nomination for the Academy’s Best Foreign Film Oscar.

Algerian-born comedian and humorist Mohamed Fellag stars as Bachir Lazhar, the substitute teacher in a Montreal grade school class that recently lost its beloved teacher Martine through suicide, a death seen as even more horrific because she hanged herself in the classroom where she knew the children would find her. The story opens as Lazhar, an asylum seeker from Algeria, interviews for a substitute teacher position with the school’s principal, Mme. Vaillancourt (Danielle Proulx). He has read about the teacher’s death in the paper and presents his CV to the harried principal.

She soon hires him and he begins his work with the bereaved class. First off, he is mystified by the classroom setup, where all the desks form little semi-circles to enhance the team approach to learning (to avoid any child being shamed by giving a wrong answer). He orders the desks rearranged in orderly rows. Each child is now an individual again, on his or her own – which awkward use of the personal pronoun brings me to Lazhar’s next problem. In a grammar lesson the children school him on the “new” system of pronouns they must use – pure edu-babble – to what end, he cannot fathom but he accedes. The school psychologist arrives, and chides him to leave the handling of grief that bubbles up unbidden from the children to her, as if this human and empathetic activity could not possibly be managed by a non-professional. Finally, a boy acts up in class, and Lazhar cuffs him lightly on the cheek. This is the straw that breaks the camel’s back, and the principal brings him in for a meeting, where she informs him of modern educational rules – among them, no touching of a child, ever — not even to put sunscreen on a child, as the gym teacher recounts.

But Bachir’s students thrive in the new, structured environment. More importantly, they trust the empathy that comes from his heart and from his experience. The adults, who are “freaking out” more than the kids, apply and misapply silly nostrums that ultimately make the kids feel worse. But his story and the kids’ grief are connected, and we learn more about the troubled boy Simon and his connection to the tragic Martine, and of Bachir and the reason that he is alone in Montreal. Suffice it to say that he and his family fell victim to another system that repressed and forbade certain kinds of speech and carried that diktat to calamitous ends. He knows all too well what lies at the end of this utopian vision, and eventually he must decide where he will draw the line. As they come together, both stories echo the themes of the movie, both personal and political.

Philippe Falardeau, who won the Canadian best director for this film – and deservedly so – suppresses any tendency towards cuteness or sentimentality, with a totally naturalistic look and feel of a wintry Montreal. His actors do not appear fussed over by stylists or makeup staff, and they seem to live and work in cluttered, lived in spaces. In addition, he wisely pulls back the dialogue and direction when histrionics or sappiness would have been easy, yet this subtle and understated style makes the eventual impact even more transcendent.

Mohamed Fellag as Bachir Lazhar.

Fellag is endearing, sometimes humorous, and conveys much emotion with the lift of an eyebrow. Sophie Nélisse as Alice and Émilien Néron as Simon, the children who discover the teacher’s body, rise to equal footing with Fellag and the other adults with performances so artful and natural that Falardeau and his young actors must be commended. (Here Falardeau talks with critic Dan Persons about the film, and gives what amounts to a master class in directing children. Hollywood directors, take a listen.)

The film does indeed honor the power of the student-teacher relationship, its power to heal and to inspire, but it also calls into question the folly of the authoritarian impulse that undergirds so much of education today. In the end, Bachir stands for humanism and, paradoxically perhaps, order. They hinge one upon the other – he knows that one child is not interchangeable with another, and that each child flourishes best in an atmosphere of basic order paired with open, honest communication. The movie ends fittingly with Bachir’s final act of defiance against the regime — a small act, but one perfectly in keeping with his larger lesson to the kids that “a classroom is a place of friendship, of work, of courtesy, a place of life.”

Posted on April 17th, 2012 at 3:19pm.