Category: Narrative

By Joe Bendel. Forget about secret society rituals. These elite prep school kids are too busy keeping their classmates down. They are the top ten in their class and they will kill to keep it that way throughout Shin Su-won’s Pluto, which screens during the 2013 Korean American Film Festival in New York.

Kim June was the top student in his public high school, but that does not impress anyone in his new school, particularly not his American roommate, Yu-jin Taylor, the top man in their class. Supposedly, this is his big opportunity. He was only admitted because a suicide opened up space for him. That was Yung Su-jin’s roommate. Now the slacker computer major is out to settle the score with the ruling elite. Kim sort of likes her, but the working class transfer student opts to curry favor with the privileged ten instead.

As part of their “rabbit hunting” initiations, Kim does their dirty work in exchange for inside information on approaching exams. Naturally, Taylor and his cronies clearly have no intention of letting him into the club. However, as viewers can readily glean from the film’s complicated flashback structure, it is a very bad idea to play mind games with someone as tightly wound as Kim.

While Pluto’s class warfare themes are obvious and inescapable, Shin’s uncompromising screenplay surpasses mere polemics, portraying the sociopathic will-to-power at its rawest. This is not the sort of film that will have anyone saying “so there” when it ends. Kim might be our protagonist, but he is not an exactly a downtrodden POV character audiences would like to identify with. Surprisingly, his nemesis Taylor turns out to be the most nuanced of the lot. Of course, his cronies do not much care for his sudden subtle dimensions of character.

Pluto boasts some considerable star-power, thanks to Kim Kkobbi appearing as Yung, a relatively modest but intriguing supporting role. Lee Da-wit is eerily soulless and desperate as the hollow-looking Kim. Yet, it is June Sung who really keeps viewers off-balance as the not exactly remorseful Taylor.

Many of the sins of prep school dramas past repeat again in Pluto. As if required by an unwritten law, all the adults are ridiculously dense and the cops are problematically passive. Still, Shin raises the stakes for all future prep students behaving badly, making a film like Tanner Hall look tame and pale in comparison. Despite some clumsy excesses, it is mesmerizing, in-your-face filmmaking. Recommended for the reasonably jaded, Pluto screens this Friday (10/25) at the Village East as part of this year’s KAFFNY.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on October 23rd, 2013 at 1:09pm.

By Joe Bendel. It is not precisely finished, but it makes a cogent and compelling statement. Mania Akbari started shooting an intensely personal Cassavetes-style examination of a disintegrating marriage, but halted the production mid-way through when the Iranian government started arresting many of her prominent filmmaking colleagues. Relocating perhaps indefinitely to the UK, Akbari reshaped her footage into a more experimental-feeling long short film or short feature. There are rough edges to the resulting From Tehran to London, but they were both a choice and a necessity. A fascinating work on multiple levels, Akbari’s film screens during the 2013 Noor Iranian Film Festival in Los Angeles.

Ava is a poet and an artist who feels unfulfilled in her marriage to the well-heeled Ashkan. However, the way they bicker and grouse like a prematurely old couple suggests there must have been some feeling there originally. They certainly know each other very well, but neither suspects the other harbors deeper feelings for their trusted house servant, Maryam.

Eventually, scandal will shake their household, but viewers will not see it. Instead, Akbari resorts to straight out telling us what would have happened. Obviously, there are all kinds of abrupt tonal shifts and sudden temporal jumps. Akbari hardly had the luxury of returning for pick-up transitionals. Yet, her kit-bashing techniques speak volumes regarding the wider circumstances.

Frankly, from what viewers can tell, the story of Ava and Ashkan could only be considered political around the margins. Certainly, it would have (and does) address issues of gender roles and sexuality in contemporary Iran, but the Albee-like marriage is the centerpiece. In fact, the initial scenes of the couple sparring are surprisingly grabby. There is real bite to the chemistry shared by Neda Amiri and Bijan Daneshmand. Through the moody lightning and suggestive sound of rain outside, Akbari and her crew create a sense of foreboding that is unusually eerie.

Although quite accomplished as a director, Akbari is still probably best known as the nearly unseen driver in Abbas Kiarostami’s Ten. In front of the camera, she is quite convincing as Ava’s more conventional worrywart sister, Roya. She also deserves tremendous credit for her commitment to free expression, starting the film with a dedication to: “all those filmmakers in Iran, who have served a prison sentence and the ones who are still in prison.” That alone is worth seeing on the big screen.

At just over forty five minutes, Tehran easily pulls viewers in and leaves them wondering “what if?” Yet, it should be considered definitive, as the very particular product of its time and place. Challenging, intriguing, and maddening, From Tehran to London is a significant film that deserves greater attention. Highly recommended, it screens Tuesday (10/22) as part of the Noor Iranian Film Festival.

LFM GRADE: A-

Posted on October 19th, 2013 at 11:55am.

By Joe Bendel. Louis Lester’s band swings so hard, many of their fans assume he is an American, but he is really a born and bred British subject. Several high society types will take an interest in them, but that will not always be a good thing during the course of Stephen Poliakoff’s Dancing on the Edge, a six night mini-series beginning this Saturday on Starz.

Stanley Mitchell is a progressive jazz fan, but he is also a bit of an operator. He sings the praises of the Lester band, hoping his magazine Music Express will rise with their tide. While not to the manor born himself, Mitchell knows many of the right people, like Arthur Donaldson, a man of leisure who happens to appreciate real deal jazz. Through Donaldson’s connections and Mitchell’s glad-handing, the Lester band books some high profile gigs, eventually becoming the house band at the formerly staid Imperial Hotel.

For a while, it seems like everyone will enjoy the good life together, especially when the mysterious American tycoon, Walter Masterson, starts inviting the band to his lavish parties, along with the wealthy but somewhat emotionally codependent Luscombe siblings. The interracial romance brewing between Lester and Sarah, a photographer close to the Luscombes, obviously portends future trouble, but the erratic Julian Luscombe’s reckless pursuit of the band’s lead singer will lead to more immediate problems.

Chiwetel Ejiofor is about to become an Oprah superstar through 12 Years a Slave, but his turn as Lester is arguably his best work since Dirty Pretty Things. In many ways, it is a treatise on “cool” as a defense strategy and a personal aesthetic. Rigidly controlled, Ejiofor still shows us all the gears turning in his head. Arguably, the major historical influences on his Lester are the suave sophistication of Ellington (whose 1930’s small big band could be a model for the Lester outfit) and the not-so-passive aggressive aloofness of Miles Davis to come in later years.

In contrast, Matthew Goode gives Mitchell a slightly manic edge, nicely playing off the tightly wound Ejiofor in their smartly written scenes together. (If you’re asking whether he rings to someone who has written about and championed jazz, the answer is yes.) Probably nobody is more over-exposed for Anglophiles than Tom Hughes right now, but while he was conspicuously miscast in About Time, The Hollow Crown, and The Lady Vanishes, he is sort of perfect for the boyishly creepy Julian Luscombe. Like Hughes, John Goodman brings out the messy human dimensions of grandly indulgent Masterson, a role that could have easily descended into gross caricature.

In fact, one of writer-director Poliakoff’s great strengths is the manner in which he preserves some degree of audience sympathy for all his characters despite their often horrid actions. Shrewdly, he also maintains considerable ambiguity regarding certain relationships, instead of beating viewers about the head, as a less artful production might. Dancing does right by the music as well, featuring a soundtrack of original era appropriate swingers and ballads, recorded by real life working jazz and studio musicians, who also appear in character as the Lester band. If jazz advocates will have any gripe with Dancing it will be the lack of development for the musicians, besides Lester and his two vocalists.

Like the best of television, Dancing quickly hooks in viewers and keeps them emotionally invested throughout. Poliakoff captures the exhilaration of the after-hours jam, but also incorporates pointed references to the ominous rise of National Socialism, Britain’s lack of military preparedness, and the rather dubious character of the future temporary Edward VIII.

Nicely crafted in all respects, Dancing on the Edge is recommended for fans of swing music and British television when it premieres this Saturday (10/19) on Starz. As a note, the fifth installment is technically the finale, but an epilogue follows the next week (11/23), which purports to collect Mitchell’s aborted interviews with Lester. Initially, it seems to be a DVD-extra kind of thing, but it might conceivably set up a sequel series in its final moments.

LFM GRADE: A-

Posted on October 17th, 2013 at 9:49am.

By Joe Bendel. There is an old man and the sea—sans marlin. There is no tiger, either. Instead, it is an errant workaday cargo container that leads to a mortal and existential crisis in J.C. Chandor’s All is Lost, which opens this Friday in New York.

“Our Man,” as he is simply billed, is in the midst of a solo cruise through the Indian Ocean when his small yacht is struck by said container. He wakes to find his boat taking on water and the electronics, including the radio, shorted out. He is able to patch up the gaping hole and bail out most of the water, but lasting damage has been done. Sailing blindly as a result, Our Man unknowingly proceeds towards a Sebastian Junger-level storm.

Considering it arrives so soon after Ang Lee’s Oscar winning Life of Pi, viewers might assume Lost is just more of the same. However, there is a muscular leanness to Chandor’s film that frankly compares favorably to its predecessor. All the New Age allegories and comforting sentimentality are stripped away, leaving a mere man to face the elements alone.

On one level, Chandor’s screenplay is relatively simple, with almost no dialogue to be heard from start to finish. Still, despite the limits of the water-bound location, Chandor dexterously introduces one darned thing after another to torment his sole character. Being the one and only face of a film is always a considerable challenge, but the shockingly haggard looking Robert Redford (showing his full seventy seven years) rises to the occasion. Rather than acting out and raging against fate, he vividly portrays the man’s slow deflation, which is far more compelling over time.

If not as visually arresting as Pi, Lost fully conveys the cold, damp, claustrophobic crumminess of Our Man’s precarious situation. Technically, it is quite an accomplished film, with particularly credit due to the Tahoe, the Tenacious, and the Orion, the three vessels that sailed their last as stand-ins for Our Man’s ill-fated Virginia Jean.

If nothing else, Lost should convince viewers not to look in the middle of the Indian Ocean if they want to go find themselves. It is surprisingly gripping stuff, buoyed by a remarkably disciplined performance from its craggy star. Recommended for those who appreciate a realistic man versus the elements survival story, All is Lost opens this Friday (10/18) in New York at the Angelika Film Center.

LFM GRADE: B+

Posted on October 15th, 2013 at 12:17pm.

By Joe Bendel. Camille Claudel is a woman of extraordinary associations. She was the sister of playwright Paul Claudel, the mistress of Auguste Rodin, and was once erroneously thought to be the lover of Claude Debussy. In the cinema, she has been played by Isabelle Adjani and now Juliette Binoche, but in reality, she led a deeply troubled life. Bruno Dumont picks up with Claudel two years after her family institutionalized the sculptor, dramatizing three anesthetizing days leading up to her brother’s visit in Camille Claudel 1915, which opens this Wednesday at Film Forum.

Her brother blames the artistic temperament and perhaps he is right. Regardless, his sister clearly suffers from paranoia and a persecution complex. Unfortunately, her commitment rather vindicates the latter. Since she is convinced her food is constantly poisoned by her multitude of enemies, Claudel has special dispensation to cook her own meals. Given her mostly calm demeanor, the sisters give her relatively free reign at Ville Evrard and even recruit her reluctant help with more quarrelsome patients. Nevertheless, if you ask her about her situation you will get an earful.

1915 is easily Dumont’s most accessible film in years, but it still bears the hallmarks of his aesthetic severity. If you hum a few bars of anything during the film, you will become the soundtrack. Color is also rather scarce. However, there are plenty of static shots framing Claudel as her spirit slowly ebbs away.

Having previously invited sympathy for the Devil with Hors Satan and suggested all devout Christians are a wink and a nod away from becoming Islamist suicide bombers in Hadewijch, Dumont will not surprise anyone with his unforgiving view of Paul Claudel, the devout Catholic dramatist. He sharply contrasts the ascetic austerity of the writer with the more sensual feeling of the sister. Yet, given his affinity for extremity, the rigidly disciplined Claudel ought to be more in his wheel house.

Jean-Luc Vincent duly plays Frere Paul as the cold, clammy caricature Dumont requires. It hardly matters. He is a distant second fiddle to Binoche’s title character—a role perfectly suited to her strengths. Nobody could better convey the roiling passions submerged beneath her glacial exterior or convincingly erupt in pained outrage when provoked. She is a force to be reckoned with, nearly undermining Dumont’s feminist-victimization narrative. Somehow thanks to Dumont’s powers of persuasion, 1915 was filmed with real nursing home patients playing Claudel’s fellow residents and their nurses playing the nuns, adding further dimensions of authenticity and exploitation into the mix.

Ironically, it is the work of Paul Claudel that is most ripe for re-discovery (as the Black Friars Repertory demonstrated in New York with their Claudel revival project), whereas reproductions of the sculptor’s La Valse are widely available. Regardless, Binoche delivers a remarkable performance in an otherwise flawed film. Best reserved for her loyal admirers and hardcore French art cinema enthusiasts, Camille Claudel 1915 opens this Wednesday (10/16) at Film Forum for all of New York.

LFM GRADE: C+

Posted on October 14th, 2013 at 2:01pm.