Month: October 2012

By Joe Bendel. Japan is a part of Asia, an obvious but convenient fact for Abbas Kiarostami. After the elegant Tuscan setting of Certified Copy, it seemed advisable to avoid the evil “West” for his next project filmed outside his native Iran. It was probably fortuitous, considering the official Iranian film establishment is indulging in a paroxysm of insanity, withdrawing its official foreign language Academy Award submission in protest of a YouTube video only a handful of people saw, the very year after the breakout victory of Asghar Farhadi’s A Separation. Yet, like Copy, there is still plenty of narrative gamesmanship afoot in Kiarostami’s Like Someone in Love, which screens during the 50th New York Film Festival.

Akiko does not appear to be inclined towards emotional involvement, so her escorting gig is probably a reasonable option to cover her college tuition. Putting off her boyfriend and blowing off her visiting grandmother, she is about to meet a new client. However, retired professor Takashi is only interested in the sort of chaste intimacy she constantly rejects. Nonetheless, she lets her guard down with the old man, falling asleep in his flat. The next morning he drives her to class, where their paths cross that of her boyfriend – and complications ensue.

Kiarostami clearly has an affinity for Japanese cinema, having paid tribute to Japanese auteur Yasujiro Ozu with his cinematic-essay Five Dedicated to Ozu. While there is definitely a kernel of the great master’s work in the way Prof. Takashi relates to Akiko, Someone is a distinctly colder fish. In fact, it presents a rather pessimistic view of humanity, compared to Ozu’s forgiving humanism.

For an apparently simple story, Someone guards its secrets vigilantly, which gets frustrating after time. Nonetheless, Kiarostami still coaxed some excellent performances from his small ensemble, despite the language barrier. Rin Takanashi (also excellent in the disturbing Isn’t Anyone Alive) takes a star-making turn, so vulnerable yet also such a passive-aggressive presence as the brittle Akiko. Conversely, Tadashi Okuno nearly approaches the pathos of Ozu’s aging protagonists as the lonely professor.

Stylishly lensed by Katsumi Yanagijima and featuring a soundtrack of moody jazz classics (the most apt being Duke Ellington’s “In My Solitude,” rather than Ella Fitzgerald’s rendition of the song lending its title to the film), Someone looks and sounds great, almost lulling the audience into a hypnotic trance. Yet, even with the fine work from Takanashi and Okuno, Kiarostami is just too demur and elliptical in his narrative approach to fully engage viewers. Accomplished in many ways, but certainly not a masterwork, Like Someone in Love is recommended mainly for the filmmaker’s dedicated admirers when it screens again this coming Monday (10/8) as a main slate selection of the 2012 NYFF.

LFM GRADE: B-/C+

Posted on October 5th, 2012 at 12:02pm.

By Joe Bendel. The good citizens of Bundanyabba (“The Yabba,” like The Bronx or The Hague) will be happy to buy a drink for any visitor. It is a matter of civic pride. However, The Yabba seems to amplify the worst in human nature throughout Ted Kotcheff’s long lost grindhouse for the art-house Wake in Fright, which opens in all its restored glory this Friday at Film Forum.

John Grant’s heart would not be in teaching, even if he were posted to a school in Sydney. Unfortunately, he is financially bound to the outback during his term of service. With the semester break starting, he will finally be able to visit his attractive girlfriend in  the city. He just has one night to kill in the Yabba before continuing on his way. Oh, but there will be complications.

After losing his term’s pay in a glorified game of heads-or-tails, Grant falls in with a gang of lowlifes led by the town’s unapologetically boozy doctor, Tydon. A whole lot of alcohol will quickly hasten Grant’s slide into the dark side. At least he isn’t a kangaroo – because when Grant’s dubious new mates set out on a hunting trip, the carnage is famously disturbing.

Not exactly a thriller or a horror film, Wake is a brutally pessimistic morality play. In the Yabba, the veneer of civilization is rather chipped and faded. An intellectual like Grant ought to be a model of man’s progressive perfectability, but Doc Tydon and his running mates reduce him to his nasty, brutish core in a matter of days. Yet, it is never clear whether the Yabba yobs are really out to break him down or if he is just a puppet of fate.

Whether it is the blinding sun, the hallucinatory kangaroo hunt, or the stone cold humiliations meted down on Grant, Kotcheff maintains a visceral intensity throughout Wake, controlling the vibe like a master puppeteer and framing some powerful visuals. One of only two films to be twice selected for Cannes, it makes a convincing argument Kotcheff might just be the world’s most underappreciated auteur. Indeed, his oeuvre also includes Rambo: First Blood, Uncommon Valor, The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, and Weekend at Bernies, which is what we call a career in mi casa.

The late Gary Bond, who would eventually become an Andrew Lloyd Webber regular on the West End, sure looks like a tool who needs to be taken down a peg or two. Still, he takes his character to some pretty scary depths. Donald Pleasance plays his doctor-tormentor – which is so perfect, there is no need to explain further. In his last screen appearance, Chips Rafferty also adds further authentic flavor as Jock Crawford, the ostensibly welcoming local peace officer.

It is important to bear in mind no ‘roos were hurt for the sake of Wake. Kotcheff just tagged along with a regularly scheduled commercial hunting outing. The results stand in sharp contradiction to the Paul “Shrimp on the Barbie” Hogan image, assiduously crafted by the tourism bureau. Of course, for fans of Ozploitation the restored Wake is a can’t miss release. A surprisingly challenging work, Wake is recommended for all patrons of cult cinema when it opens this Friday (10/5) at New York’s Film Forum, with Kotcheff on hand to receive his overdue ovation at the 7:30 screening.

LFM GRADE: A-

Posted on October 5th, 2012 at 11:56am.

By Joe Bendel. For W.G. Sebald, Suffolk was the perfect place for the famous walk and literary digressions that became The Rings of Saturn. For two dysfunctional couples, it will become a place of supernatural menace. The hanging tree will get its due in Michael Axelgaard’s found footage shocker, Hollow, which is now available through Tribeca Films’ VOD platforms.

Emma has come to close the country cottage of her beloved late minister grandfather. For company, she has brought along her smug fiancé Scott, her torch-carrying childhood chum James, and Lynne, the girlfriend he hardly seems to know. Evidently for estate reasons, Emma wants James to document the process as her videographer. Considering we are watching footage recovered by the East Anglia constabulary, it is safe to say their weekend does not go well.

James’ camera was found in a large hollow tree that always gave Emma the creeps—and for good reason. According to legend, a monk and his illicit lover hung themselves there centuries ago. Ever since it has attracted suicidal couples like an evil magnet. Obviously, circumstances will lure the quartet back to the notorious spot, but not before they get high and indulge in a spot of strip poker. However, the power has already been shut off at the cottage, so they will rely on candles and the spotlight on James’ camera for illumination.

Frankly, the full backstory of Hollow is pretty distinctive and the sequences shot in the ruins of the nearby monastery are genuinely creepy. The James’ increasingly apparent instability further cranks up the tension. However, Axelgaard hews too closely to the Blair Witch playbook during the rather predictable third act. Still, producer-screenwriter Matthew Holt’s dialogue has a little snap to it (that’s a little, not a lot).

Whitechapel co-star Sam Stockman decently portrays James’ ambiguously off mental state without doing the full Norman Bates. As Scott, Matt Stokoe unleashes his inner cad, which is something. While Jessica Ellerby’s Lynne is not a total victim waiting to be strung-up, Emily Plumtree’s Emma sort of is, making the female characters a wash overall.

It is important to know Hollow is not exactly tactful in its treatment of religious themes. The late grandfather’s successor is definitely not portrayed in a sympathetic light. Likewise, Scott the hedonist shows a disrespect for the cross that would probably cause riots throughout the Muslim world had it been directed towards the Koran. Yet somehow, Americans will be able to shrug it off and get on to their lives (of course, there is also a strong likelihood he will pay for his excesses in proper E.C. Comics fashion).

Despite its flaws, Axelgaard shows a decent command of horror movie mechanics throughout Hollow. Flawed but watchable, it is now available for voracious genre fans via Tribeca’s on-demand services.

LFM GRADE: C-

Posted on October 5th, 2012 at 11:54am.