Day: April 30, 2014

LFM Reviews Point and Shoot @ The 2014 Tribeca Film Festival

By Joe Bendel. Matthew VanDyke’s only formal military training came while he was an embedded reporter with the American military in Iraq. There were those in the Libyan rebel army who had far less, but they were not a sheltered twenty-seven year-old living with a conspicuous case of OCD. Relying on travel and combat footage shot by VanDyke himself, Marshall Curry documents his journey from a homebody who had never even done his own laundry to a POW of Gaddafi’s notorious Abu Salim prison in Point and Shoot, which won the Best Documentary Feature Award at the 2014 Tribeca Film Festival.

Partly at the prodding of his girlfriend Lauren Fischer, the underachieving VanDyke set out to remake himself into a sort of gonzo travel journalist motorcycling through the Middle East. It worked to some extent. By virtue of proximity, he was able to cover Iraq for a local Maryland paper. Not surprisingly, he got along famously with the troops he followed, most of whom he still considers friends. The instruction they gave him on the shooting range would also serve him well.

Through his travels, VanDyke also made fast friends with hippie Libyan tourist Nuri Funas, whose home he illegally visited before the war erupted. When the Arab Spring reached Libya, VanDyke also returned, determined to fight for and alongside his new friends. Unfortunately, he was captured during an ambush shortly thereafter, but that would hardly be the last word on his warfighting experiences.

Hipper readers might recognize VanDyke as the director of the short but intense documentary, Not Anymore, which dramatically captures the boots-on-the-ground reality in Syria (now available on-line). It is safe to say recent years have been eventful for the filmmaker, considering Curry only takes viewers through VanDyke’s Libyan period.

From "Point and Shoot."

He tells the story well, framing VanDyke’s footage with a confessional interview—he is almost like the twenty-first century equivalent of a Joseph Conrad narrator, except he has the video to verify his narrative. For obvious reasons, VanDyke has no footage from his time held in solitary confinement, but Curry compensates with Joe Posner’s stark 3D animation sequences, modeled from the very walls of VanDyke’s former cell.

VanDyke’s chronicle is pretty darn dramatic (and still developing). While just about everyone with a handheld device might be recording the world around them, you have to be in a warzone to shoot a battle selfie. Indeed, the filmmaker-freedom fighter captures some powerful and illuminating images. Altogether, it celebrates freedom and human dignity for all, as well as the very American practice of self-reinvention. Highly recommended, Point and Shoot is sure to have a long festival life after winning the World Documentary Competition at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival. It is already scheduled to screen this Wednesday (4/30), Thursday (5/1), and Saturday (5/3) during Hot Docs in Toronto.

LFM GRADE: A-

Posted on April 30th, 2014 at 11:33pm.

LFM Reviews NOW: In the Wings on a World Stage @ The 2014 Tribeca Film Festival

By Joe Bendel. Like the old thesps of yore, Kevin Spacey assembled a classical theater troupe to tour like mad, performing Shakespeare’s Richard III in countries throughout the increasingly globalized world. There had to be some craziness going on backstage, but you will be hard-pressed to find any in Jeremy Wheeler’s sanitized-for-your-protection behind-the-scenes documentary, NOW: In the Wings on a World Stage, which opens this Friday at the IFC Center following its special screening at the 2014 Tribeca Film Festival.

When Kevin Spacey and Sam Mendes announced Richard III would be their first collaboration since American Beauty, the theater world sat up and took notice. Indeed, it is a good thing Mendes was on-board, because he provides some of the film’s most thoughtful commentary. Yet, it would still probably be more interesting to hear him talk about Skyfall.

By all accounts, Richard III was an artistic triumph. Many critics see a direct correlation between Spacey’s Richard and his Francis Underwood in Netflix’s cable-killing House of Cards. Unfortunately, Spacey does not have much to say about that. He would rather sing the praises of his cast members.

From "NOW: In the Wings on a World Stage."

It seems like everyone involved on the Richard III utterly adored every last one of their colleagues, which is jolly nice for them, but absolute dullsville to watch. Frankly, NOW has the depth and drama of a making-of DVD extra. Sure, the staging looks spectacularly ambitious (particularly in Greece’s Epidaurus theater, circa 400 B.C.), but the best way to appreciate it would have been by seeing the production live. For the most part, viewers must be content to watch as cast members discover the Great Wall of China is really long and the desert in Qatar is rather sandy.

In a way, NOW is the high-brow equivalent of the bloopers that ran over the closing credits of old Burt Reynolds movies, in which everyone works very hard to show us how much fun they were having. This is such a lightweight trifle, especially when compared to the other robustly entertaining documentaries that played this year’s Tribeca. Of interest only to Spacey’s hardcore stalker-fans, but certainly not recommended for everyday civilians, the awkwardly titled NOW: In the Wings on a World Stage opens this Friday (5/2) at the IFC Center.

LFM GRADE: D+

April 30th, 2014 at 11:28pm.

LFM Reviews Trap Street @ The 2014 San Francisco Film Society

Trap Street – SFIFF57 Trailer from San Francisco Film Society on Vimeo.

By Joe Bendel. It is the street where Guan Lifen works, but young Liu Qiuming’s attraction to Forest Lane is still a lot like the old Lerner & Loewe standard. However, this quiet side street is mysteriously invisible to GPS systems. Infatuation will lure him back to Forest Lane, but it will also bring him to the attention of China’s security and surveillance apparatus. That will not be a happy turn of events in Vivian Qu’s Trap Street, which screens during this year’s San Francisco International Film Festival, presented by the San Francisco Film Society.

Liu has had some bad luck, but he is chipping away at his debts through his jobs as a digital surveyor and an above-board surveillance system installer (as well as a freelance sweeper on the side). Then he saw Guan Lifen walking along Forest Lane. Much to his delight and his older partner’s displeasure, they must redo the sleepy side street the next day, because the system disallowed their data. Liu’s lingering pays off with the opportunity to give Guan a lift home. Better still, the business card holder she left in the back seat gives him an excuse to contact her again. Unfortunately, it will be her condescendingly gracious boss who comes to retrieve it.

Of course, Liu is not ready to abandon his strategy of loitering on Forest Lane. For a while, it appears his efforts might bear fruit, until things go very wrong indeed. Small fries like Liu simply are not equipped to defend themselves when the state lowers the Kafkaesque boom. Frankly, he lacks the sufficient confidence or vocabulary to even protest his situation.

From "Trap Street."

Right off the bat, Trap earns points for not indulging in clichéd as-seen-through the grainy black-and-white CCTV lens sequences. In fact, the surveillance and paranoia motifs are introduced relatively slowly and subtly. Likewise, Liu’s history of victimization extends beyond his immediate problems with the secret police, giving the film even wider significance.

Like many independent Chinese films, Trap does not exactly move at the speed of the Shanghai Stock Exchange, but there is quiet power in the scenes shared by Liu and Guan. Lü Yulai (looking maybe two thirds of his youthful thirty one years) and He Wenchao (a filmmaker in her own right) develop some genuine screen chemistry together, while the latter still maintains an alluring air of mystery.

Even if you consider them a guileless patsy and his femme fatale, nearly every viewer will get pulled into their predicaments. Previously known as an indie producer, Qu shows an impressive command of mood and tension in her feature directorial debut. Granted, the epilogue might be too ambiguous for its own good, but Trap still offers up a compelling mixture of intrigue and social criticism, over all of which cinematographers Tian Li and Matthieu Laclau give an appropriately noir luster. Highly recommended for China watchers and discerning cineastes, Trap Street screens next Sunday (5/4) and the following Tuesday (5/6) as part of this year’s SFIFF.

LFM GRADE: A-

Posted on April 30th, 2014 at 11:22pm.