By Joe Bendel. The tragic events still unfolding in Japan even had repercussions at a screening of a Farsi-language feature at a Canadian film festival here in New York City. The producer Amir Naderi, who emigrated from Iran after several of his films were banned by the Islamist government, was in Japan working on his next project when the earthquake and tsunami hit. Clearly he was on the mind of his former editor Naghmeh Shirkhan this past weekend, despite the justly enthusiast reception for her directorial debut, The Neighbor (see the trailer below), at MoMA’s 2011 Canadian Front.
Though of somewhat middle-aged years, Shirin is still a strikingly beautiful woman. She is not particularly interested in men though, particularly the one she has been reluctantly seeing. In truth, there are not a lot of eligible men in Vancouver’s Iranian community. There are not a lot of men, period, and there is a very real phenomenon causing this demographic state. Frequently Iranian men working abroad who are called back on business or personal matters have trouble returning—or so they say. Such is the case for Leila, the attractive young woman who just moved in across the hall from Shirin with her little girl Parisa.
At first, Leila wants nothing to do with the older woman. In time though, she starts exploiting Shirin as an emergency babysitter, much to her concern. It is not that Shirin does not enjoy spending time with Parisa—quite the contrary—but Leila’s erratic parenting is obviously not healthy for her little girl. Continue reading LFM Review: The Neighbor
By Jason Apuzzo. A very provocative new trailer is out for The Kennedys, the new eight-part miniseries from 24‘s Joel Surnow that will be appearing on the ReelzChannel beginning April 3rd. I would normally wait to put this trailer in a Cold War Update!, but since I just did one of those on Friday I didn’t want you folks to have to wait.
From "The Kennedys."
The series looks like a lot of frothy fun, and I’m looking forward to it. I’m also understanding why the major networks were so aghast by this series; this is most certainly not the sort of depiction of the Kennedy family we’re accustomed to seeing on TV. Besides potentially out-sexing Mad Men, the series also seems to make Joe Kennedy look like Chancellor Palpatine.
Joel did an interview recently with the LA Times in which he talked about the pressures he thinks the series was under from higher-ups at The History Channel, the series’ original home. We all know what those pressure were, don’t we? Thou Shalt Not Offend the Kennedys, liberalism’s Holy Family. Frankly, you’d think the Kennedys would be glad anyone even remembers them, at this point. Decades of Teddy in the Senate took a lot of lustre off that family’s image, and memories of Camelot are growing old, indeed.
My sense is that the ReelzChannel got themselves a bargain with this series – which may end up putting that channel on the map. I would also expect this series to do excellent DVD business, and potentially revive pill box hats.
By Joe Bendel. One of the scarier aspects of Stalin’s reign of terror was the effectiveness of his cult of personality. His image was omnipresent, investing his iron-fisted rule with a secular idolatry which brooked no criticism. In fact, reverence for the dictator was so deeply ingrained in the Soviet people, many of those who suffered personal persecution under his regime reportedly still wept when news of Stalin’s death was released to the public. That emotional dichotomy is sensitively dramatized in Rustem Abdrashev’s The Gift to Stalin, which finally opens theatrically in New York after an extended festival run. Continue reading LFM Review: Gift to Stalin
By Joe Bendel. People cannot eat slogans, yet that is all Kim Jong-il’s North Korean regime provides a steady diet of. Blunt instruments of social control, the omnipresent propaganda posters are especially painful for one grieving father to behold in John Arlotto’s Deface, a devastating rejoinder to DPRK propaganda films (like Centre Forward), which screens as part of the Shorts 1program at this year’s Korean American Film Festival (New York).
A widowed father obediently labors for the Communist authorities, undergoing public self-criticism sessions as required, solely for the sake of his sweet-tempered daughter, Kyung-ha. When she also dies of starvation, Sooyoung has nothing left to live for. Ironically, this makes him dangerous in a police state that rules through fear. Using his late daughter’s school paints, Sooyoung defaces Party propaganda, becoming a graffiti truth-teller. It is a small but meaningful rebellion that naturally provokes harsh counter-measures.
Though filmed entirely in America, the Korean language Deface viscerally captures the look and feel of a hopeless corner of the DPRK. Indeed, the film packs a powerful emotional punch, thanks in good measure to deeply affecting work of Joseph Steven Yang as Sooyoung and young Aira H. Kim as his ill-fated daughter. Deface also boasts a notable supporting cast, including Alexis Rhee (whose credits include Blade Runner’s “Billboard Geisha”) as Sooyoung’s fellow slave (that is the right term), Jeung-un.
Well conceived and executed, Deface ends as it must, given the realities of the gulag nation. Yet, it still manages to hit an inspirational note, without breaking from its established tone or becoming jarringly manipulative. Far more engrossing than most full length features, it is an excellent short. Highly recommended to any and all viewers (especially those who also check out Centre and Red Chapel), the genuinely moving Deface screens twice this Friday (3/18) as part of the Shorts 1 program at the 2011 KAFFNY.
By Joe Bendel. It is good to be a man in Iran, provided you do not care about religious, political, or economic liberty. However, women must endure a profoundly misogynistic and frequently brutal society that regards them as little more than the chattel of men. Jafar Panahi confronted the unjustness of Iran’s treatment of women directly in The Circle, the winner of the 2000 Venice Film Festival’s Golden Lion prize – and a film which was promptly banned in Iran. Not content to stop there, the Iranian government has recently barred Panahi from further filmmaking for the next twenty years and sentenced him to six years in prison. Indeed, Panahi’s circumstances only heighten the poignancy of The Circle, which screens this Friday as the concluding film of the Asia Society’s retrospective-tribute to the persecuted filmmaker.
Solmaz Gholami (remember that name) has just given birth to a healthy baby girl. This should be happy news, but her mother is distraught. The in-laws were expecting a boy and will surely abandon their daughter-in-law and grand-daughter. The obvious high school science fact that it was the husband who failed to supply the Y chromosome is lost on such medieval fundamentalists. As Gholami’s mother seeks help from her family, Circle peels off, focusing on its next set of characters.
Three women have just been released from prison on unspecified “morals” charges. However, the Iranian system sets them up in a perverse Catch-22, kicking them loose without the necessary identification papers should they be stopped once again by the police (who are definitely out hunting for women in their situation). Lacking a male chaperone, sweet-tempered Nargess cannot take the bus trip back to her provincial home. Despondent, she seeks another friend, Pari, an escapee with even greater problems. She is four months pregnant with the child of her executed lover. From Pari, the chain continues, introducing a desperate mother and a woman arrested as a prostitute (perhaps not without some justification in her case), who ultimately brings the story to its symmetrical conclusion.
Sexism is a wholly insufficient term for the abuses Circle dramatizes. A stinging indictment – but also an honest, frequently moving human drama – it is not hard to see how it ran afoul of the state censors. Yet the film is not just a testament to Panahi’s artistic integrity. The cast deserves tremendous credit, especially those playing fallen women while living under a literal-minded fundamentalist theocracy. Though Circle is the only credit listed on IMDB for many of the actresses, their work has a powerful immediacy. They are frighteningly believable. Perhaps most haunting is Nargess Mamizadeh as her namesake. Young and innocent, to paraphrase the tagline of one of Circle’s international posters, she could only be guilty of being a woman.
To be banned by the mullahs might be a greater accolade than the raft of awards Circle won on the international festival circuit. Of course, the repercussions for Panahi have been severe. A truly bold film, Circle has only appreciated in importance and relevance with the regime’s campaign against the filmmaker. Highly recommended, it screens this Friday (3/11) at the Asia Society—and once again, tickets are free.
