Month: August 2012

By Joe Bendel. Corporal Wydra is the designated executioner in his Polish resistance unit. He is a sensitive soul, yet very good at his job. This is the contradictory nature of war and it will only get more treacherous for the soldier in Marcin Krzyształowicz’s Manhunt, which screens today and tomorrow as part of the 2012 World Film Festival of Montreal.

Captured National Socialists are lucky if Wydra is the man taking them out. He is not a sadist or a vengeance taker. He is a freedom fighter with a grim task to complete. We get a good feel for the complicated man at work as the film opens. His next assignment, though, will be considerably thornier. He is to go into town and bring back a prominent businessman turned informant, the hard way or the easy way, for trial and presumed execution. However, Wydra has some decidedly personal history with the thoroughly compromised Henryk Kondolewicz.

Meanwhile, a member of the unit has betrayed Wydra’s comrades, funneling information through the very snitch he has been dispatched to deal with. The Corporal will be too late to help his fallen brothers-in-arms, but he will be able to put together the pieces and possibly dispense some retribution.

In fact, Manhunt is a bit of a narrative jigsaw puzzle, constantly flashing backwards and forwards, providing more context with each successive time shift. Actually the crosses and double-crosses are relatively straight forward, but the existential depth of Wydra’s character really distinguishes Manhunt from thematically related WWII dramas.

While not completely dissimilar to the grizzled Home Army veteran he played in Wojtek Smarzowski’s Rose, Marcin Dorociński is riveting nonetheless as the massively brooding Wydra. Chillingly convincing when getting down to business, he also quite compellingly hints at the pain eating his Wydra’s soul. He dominates the film and that’s fine.

In the tradition of Melville’s Army of Shadows, Krzyształowicz’s screenplay explores the moral ambiguity and constant uncertainty of the resistance milieu. Like Melville, he understands and even pardons his characters’ betrayals. Aptly suiting the tense vibe, cinematographer Arkadiusz Tomiak’s dark, musty look vividly suggests the sense of trooping through a dank forest. This is definitely war cinema, gritty and unromanticized. It is also a very good film, well worth seeing when it screens twice today and once on Saturday (8/25) during the World Film Festival in Montreal.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on August 24th, 2012 at 10:36am.

By Joe Bendel. People say they love nature, but do you know who actually lives out in the wilderness? Freaks, that’s who. Nonetheless, a woman running for her life in the middle of nowhere can hardly be choosey about where she finds refuge. Proudly self-identifying as a retro grindhouse movie, Michael Biehn’s The Victim (trailer here) opens this Friday in New York.

In Victim’s world, women like Annie and her friend Mary can only be one thing: strippers. They are not bad people. They just enjoy the fast life. Unfortunately, when they start “partying” with two crooked cops, Mary is killed in a Very Bad Things-style mishap. Of course, Cooger the narc, and the super-connected Henderson, now have to shut up Annie – permanently.

Tearing through the woods, she ends up at the cabin belonging to Kyle, a smart, but seriously twitchy middle-aged anti-social loner. As you might guess, this dude seems to be hiding something. Yet, against his better judgment, he becomes Annie’s protector. At least she is nice enough to throw herself at him during quiet moments.

The truth is The Victim’s big twist is so deliberately obvious, it almost forgets to reveal it. Perhaps even more surprisingly, the film is not nearly as violent as one might expect. Kids still have no business watching it, though. Not a slasher film nor torture porn, The Victim is basically a coke and moonshine fueled cat-and-mouse thriller with a rather sinister shoe constantly poised to drop. Yet, it sort of works on its own sleazy terms.

Kyle the misanthrope is basically the kind of role writer-director Biehn now specializes in, and indeed he does his thing with plenty of grizzled attitude. He certainly looks like a cat to avoid, whereas Jennifer Blanc and Danielle Harris certainly look like strippers, for what that’s worth. However, their frequent flashback scenes ring with the thudding sound of unintentional comedy. Yet that is nothing compared to some of the cheesy, over-produced pop songs inappropriately strewn throughout the soundtrack.

The Victim openly invites bad karma by liberally quoting from Clint Eastwood’s The Unforgiven—not a comparison they should invite. To be fair, though, there are a few cleverly written bits of dialogue. Basically, this film is for everyone who wants to see Michael Biehn and two other scumbags go at it like old school hill people. Entertaining in a way, but impossible to recommend to anyone accept hardcore fans of hermitsploitation, The Victim opens today (8/24) in New York at the Quad Cinema.

LFM GRADE: C

Posted on August 24th, 2012 at 10:36am.

By Joe Bendel. If a stoner rises from the dead as a zombie, would anyone notice the difference? Two slackers try to carry on as usual when one suddenly finds himself undead and rather parched, but the constant proximity with death has serious repercussions in D. Kerry Prior’s meathead buddy horror mash-up, The Revenant (trailer here), which opens today in New York.

Bart Gregory would like to think he shipped off to Iraq for idealistic reasons, but the truth is he was trying to avoid making a commitment to his longtime girlfriend Janet. Thanks to a rather murky ambush, he won’t have to. It would seem Gregory is dead as a doornail, but he is actually undead. Staggering out of his grave and into his loser best friend Joey Leubner’s crash pad, Gregory struggles to come to terms with his new existence as a “revenant.” He can no longer keep down solid food, but it seems vast quantities of pot and booze are A-OK. For sustenance, though, he will need human blood.

No problem—this is Los Angeles. There is an unlimited supply of violent low-lifes in need of killing. Suddenly, the boys are vigilante media sensations. Unfortunately, Gregory and Leubner are really sloppy about their hunting practices, leading to all kinds of bad karma—and of course, gore.

Though it opens in Iraq, Prior largely resists the urge to pontificate on current events. These are not allegorical zombies. That’s the good news. However, The Revenant really does not have any ideas to take the place of didactic soap-boxing. Prior offers several scenes of truly inspired gross-out humor, but the in-between periods are rather slack and dreary.

Still, David Anders plugs away admirably as the nice guy walking dead, keeping viewers somewhat invested in the grisly story. On the other hand, before it is over, the audience will be ready to rise up collectively, like pitchfork wielding peasants, to put a stake through the heart of Chris Wylde’s annoying as all get-out Leubner.

The Revenant built up quite a rep with cult movie fans through a series of well received midnight festival screenings. Frankly, that is the best venue for the film, catering to lubricated crowds primed to laugh and holler. It simply will not hold up as well for comparatively staid regular theatrical audiences. The Revenant has its moments, but not nearly enough for a ringing endorsement when it opens today (8/24) in New York at the Cinema Village.

LFM GRADE: C-

Posted on August 24th, 2012 at 10:35am.

By Joe Bendel. In recent years, China’s greatest export has been the best and brightest of the next generation. They call them girls. China’s One Child Policy, cultural preferences, and dire rural poverty created a perfect storm of little orphaned girls. Over 100,000 have been adopted worldwide, out of which over 80,000 are now Americans. Four such teenaged adoptees are profiled in Linda Goldstein Knowlton’s Somewhere Between, which opens this Friday in New York.

Few adoptees really expect to find their birth parents. It is a matter of simple math: over a billion people and scant documentation. Nonetheless, many will try to trace their roots, not necessarily to reconnect with the parents that let them go, but to help come to terms with who they really are. Jenna, Haley, Ann, and Fang (or “Jenni”), the primary POV figures in Somewhere, are indeed high achievers. Some admit part of their drive stems from the lingering feeling of abandonment—that is a loaded word in the film, but it is hard to get around it. However, it may come to pass China will regret losing out on their talents and those of scores of young women just like them. While the flow of adoption has slowed, the impact on upcoming Chinese generations will be felt in years to come.

Perhaps the greatest revelation in Somewhere is the continuing engagement of not just the girls but their entire families on the issue of Chinese orphans. One Evangelical family has formed a nonprofit to deliver much needed supplies to the ill-equipped provincial orphanages. Yet, the film’s most moving subplot by far involves Fang and her family’s efforts first to fund physical therapy for a little disabled girl, and then to help facilitate her placement with an American family ready and willing to provide the care she needs.

Unlike in most documentaries, the Evangelical community is presented on balance quite positively in Somewhere. They are the adopting demographic, after all. The kids at school can still be insensitive jerks, though. Hopefully, Knowlton’s film will lead to greater understanding. Indeed, viewers should realize girls like the Somewhere quartet will be their children’s future classmates or maybe even their own daughters.

Smart and uncommonly together, each of the featured young women is worth meeting on-screen. Clearly they were comfortable opening up to Knowlton, who set out to make the film to provide her own adopted Chinese daughter some points of reference for when she is old enough to start grappling with these issues. Well intentioned, emotionally engaging, and never polemical, Somewhere Between is recommended rather strongly when it opens this Friday (8/24) in New York at the IFC Center, with Knowlton and several participants appearing at select screenings throughout the weekend.

LFM GRADE: A-

Posted on August 21st, 2012 at 10:55am.

By Joe Bendel. The holy texts of Tibetan Buddhism are not very portable. That is not necessarily a problem if you are studying peacefully in a monastery, but it is a serious drawback if your country is invaded by an imperial power. Such was indeed the fate of Tibet. Following the 1950 Communist invasion, centuries of Tibetan culture were at of risk of being lost forever. However, one American scholar successfully spearheaded a drive to digitize, translate, and disseminate thousands of sacred and secular Tibetan texts. His campaign is documented in Dafna Yachin’s Digital Dharma (trailer here), which is currently screening during DocuWeeks New York 2012.

The late E. Gene Smith was a perennial student who specialized in East Asian languages with little commercial application. Tibetan was perfect for his purposes. Yet, as he immersed himself in the culture, he became increasingly alarmed about its chances for survival. After the initial invasion and again during the Cultural Revolution, monasteries were ruthlessly razed and books were systematically burned. As a result, many critical texts were completely unavailable to the Tibetan Buddhist Diaspora.

Fortunately, most of the books still survived, hidden away to avoid the Communist rampages. In the 1960’s, as a Library of Congress field worker in non-aligned India, Smith catalogued and facilitated the publication of hundreds of volumes smuggled out of Tibet. Retiring from the Federal government, Smith eventually co-founded the Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center, which would pursue the mission of digitization and translation, insuring that the wisdom of Tibet will survive and spread across the world.

Clearly, Yachin nearly venerates the Tibetologist as if he had been a lama himself. While Smith surely did invaluable work preserving the endangered Tibet culture, he was not infallible. In fact, the 1960’s era pacifist seems to have carried some residual ideological baggage, leading to the somewhat debatable decision to leave his collection to the Southwest University for Nationalities in Chengdu, Sichuan. Smith was determined to return the ancient documents to the Tibetans, laudably considering himself only a temporary caretaker. Yet, just how trustworthy a caretaker a Chinese chartered institution will be surely remains to be seen, particularly considering earlier efforts to transfer his collection were forestalled by the 2008 riots that swept across Tibet. At least the contents of his collection are now preserved for posterity.

Often fascinating, Digital offers viewers some helpful context for understanding Tibetan Buddhism as well as the captive nation’s thorny history over the past seventy years or so. It is also one of the more polished productions seen during this year’s DocuWeeks, featuring some stylish but also informative graphics. Despite prompting some unanswered questions, Digital Dharma tells a great story. In fact, it is the rather rare film that presents both religion and technology in a positive light. Respectfully recommended for amateur Tibetologists and China watchers, Digital Dharma screens through Thursday (8/23) at the IFC Center in New York, as DocuWeeks 2012 comes to a close.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on August 21st, 2012 at 10:54am.