Category: Narrative

By Joe Bendel. With grace and naiveté, the oblivious Moomins face the perils of pirates and French snobbery. Naturally, the pirates are much more pleasant to deal with. Nevertheless, some of the Moomins will rather enjoy living the high life in the south of France, at least until the bills come due in Xavier Picard’s Moomins on the Riviera, which screens during the 2015 New York International Children’s Film Festival.

In the film, Moominpappa says it straight out—they are not hippopotamuses. It is not clear just what they are, but they are clearly some sort of anthropomorphic animal. Already well known from Tove Jansson’s children’s book series, the Moomins made the transition to the funny pages, but they were abruptly canceled by a leftwing Finnish paper that found them too bourgeoisie. Subsequently, the comic strip was revived by a British syndicate. Eventually, the Moomins were adapted as a Japanese anime series, so they are quite well-established internationally, even though they never cracked the U.S. market. Still, there is no reason American kid will not appreciate a family of talking animals, ambiguous though their species might be.

All is pretty okay in the vaguely Northern European Moominvalley as the film opens. Young Moomin shyly pursues his flirty neighbor Snorkmaiden, when not out fishing with his friend Snufkin. When a pirate ship founders on the rocky shoals, the Moomins mobilize to salvage what they can. Of course, they gather up all the books and tropical seeds, neglecting the pirates’ treasure. Largely on impulse, the Moomins and Snorkmaiden soon set off on a nautical expedition of their own, rather irresponsibly sailing into a white squall. After a brief detour, the Moomins land on the Riviera, which the star-struck Snorkmaiden has always dreamed of visiting. She and Moominpappa soon fall in with the moneyed smart set, but Moomin and Moominmamma are uncomfortable with the shallow, indulgent lifestyle.

The animation of Picard’s Moomins is nowhere near as lush as a Studio Ghibli release or the work of GKIDS associated filmmakers like Tomm Moore or Michel Ocelot, but that is somewhat by design. The new Moomins feature deliberately evokes the feel of the vintage comic strip. In fact, that clean look is appealingly classy and well-suited to the Riviera backdrop.

Although Picard and a battery of four co-screenwriters faithfully adapted a story arc from the original newspaper strips, the film’s narrative is not exactly earth-shaking stuff. However, there are a lot of clever bits of business thrown in for seasoning. Moomin is also a decent sort of chap and the be-true-to-yourself-and-beware-of-phonies message should appeal to parents.

Despite skewing towards younger audiences, Riviera has a sophisticated vibe older viewers will appreciate. Considering it recently set the Finland record for two-week box office gross, it is probably safe to assume there will be more Moomins to come. Pleasantly upbeat and life affirming, Moomins on the Riviera is recommended for kids 5-10 (as per the festival’s guidelines) and animation fans who will enjoy its gentle quirks. It screens again this Sunday (3/22) at the IFC Center, as part of this year’s NYICFF.

LFM GRADE: B-

Posted on March 22nd, 2015 at 1:16pm.

By Joe Bendel. There will be no shuffleboard for the passengers of this vessel. Nor will they find any class solidarity with the impoverished crew. Instead, the ethnic Korean illegal immigrants being trafficked from China will be treated with contempt, hostility, and lethal negligence, but karma will come back around good and hard as it always does in Shim Sung-bo’s Haemoo, which screens during this year’s New Directors/New Films.

Co-adapted by Shim and lefty auteur Bong Joon-ho from a 2003 play, Haemoo somewhat fictionalizes the real life 2001 maritime tragedy that forced the Korean government to issue an apology to China for deaths of twenty-five illegal migrants. Of course, the Chinese government might have considered apologizing for creating the circumstances that made the hard passage seem reasonable, but apparently that would be asking too much. In this case, it is the Ahab-esque fishing captain Kang Chul-joo who takes on the trafficking run, in hopes of making enough money to buy back his beloved but decrepit trawler from its disinterested owners.

Obviously, the boat is ill-equipped to handle large numbers of passengers. Tempers flare when Kang hides them in the fish hold, but he silences protest with ruthless efficiency. The attractive Hong-mae further destabilizes the situation, inspiring lust and jealousy among the crew. However, she finds a surprisingly resourceful protector in the earnest engineer’s mate, Dong-sik. Thanks to his efforts, she will survive the initial wave of tragedy, but the ship soon descends into every-man-for-himself anarchy.

Shim and Bong (who also co-wrote Memories of Murder) unleash their inner B. Travens in Haemoo, combining class consciousness with close-quarters mayhem. Yet, it is never as abrasive as Bong’s more overtly didactic films, such as The Host and Snowpiercer. This is really old fashioned noir, at its most naturalistic and fatalistic. At one point, characters blame the IMF for their despicable actions, which is relatively reasonable by Bong’s standards.

Regardless, Kim Yun-seok commands with picture portraying Kang’s mounting mania with unnerving intensity. He is a terrific villain-in-denial, combining psycho-elements of Captain Queeg and Robert Ryan’s Slater in Odds Against Tomorrow. Han Ye-ri is also a terrific humanizing element, directly expressing Hong-mae’s fear and resiliency. Unfortunately, Park Yoon-chun’s Dong-sik looks rather stiff and awkward by comparison, but Moon Sung-geun adds the perfect note of ill-fated dignity as the veteran engineer.

Despite its relevancy to current controversies, Haemoo works as a taut Then There Were None thriller, with Perfect Storm-like atmosphere laid on top for extra added menace. This is exactly the kind of film Kevin Macdonald’s Black Sea should have been, but fell sadly short. Recommended for fans of nautical thrillers who appreciate dark irony, Haemoo screened as part of this year’s ND/NF.

LFM GRADE: B+

Posted on March 22nd, 2015 at 1:15pm.

By Joe Bendel. When Evan saw Louise, it is like a scene from a Sophia Loren film or Ruth Orkin’s famous photo. In this case, he is the visiting American, while she is very definitely a seductive Italian. Eventually, he learns there is considerably more to her than meets the eye. The truth comes as a shock, but it is not enough to dissuade him from wooing the mystery woman in Benson & Moorhead’s Spring, which opens this Friday in New York.

Evan should have gotten out of his dead-end burg long ago, but his father’s untimely death and his mother’s protracted illness kept him anchored to their old home. When she finally succumbs, there is little holding him there, but a drunken brawl with a vengeful gang member gives him every reason to leave. On his buddy’s advice, his hurriedly departs on the Italian trip his father always wanted to take. Initially, he takes the youth hostel route, falling in with some obnoxious Brits. Frankly, Evan can hardly stand them, but he tags along on their excursion to Puglia anyway. When he sees the town’s old world charm and Louise’s sultry beauty, he decides to stay.

Initially, Louise is adamantly opposed to any sort of long term entanglement, but Evan slowly wears down her objections. He even finds lodging and employment with Angelo, a sympathetic farmer outside of town. However, unbeknownst to Evan, Louise requires regular injections to halt her transformation into something slimy and Lovecraftian. As she eventually explains to Evan, her cyclical condition is getting increasingly severe. When it reaches its regular twenty year apex, it will be dashed dangerous for him to be around her. As a trained genetic biologist who has gone through this process a time or to before, she knows of what she speaks. Yet, Evan is not prepared to cut-and-run on their relationship just yet.

Benson & Moorhead (as the filmmaker partners Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead prefer to be billed) have really raised the dramatic standard of genre films with Spring. They take their time fully establishing the characters of Evan and Louise and the dynamics of their relationship, before introducing the exquisite bizarreness lurking below the surface. Frankly, their early courtship scenes work quite well on their own merits, separate and apart from the strange developments that follow. Yet, the particulars of who Louise is and how she continues to exist over time are well thought out and scrupulously observe their own internal logic. Indeed, the third act never feels like a tacked-on curve ball from left field, but rather the culmination of the careful groundwork laid by the cast and filmmakers.

A well-deserved award winner at last year’s Fantastic Fest, Lou Taylor Pucci is unusually compelling as Evan, offsetting his impulsive punkiness with a deeper sensitivity. He also develops some powerful romantic chemistry with Nadia Hilker’s Louise. Although much more reserved (when not writhing in the agonizing throes of her uncanny convulsions), Hilker vividly suggests the world-weariness and emotional baggage one might associate with the more romantic strain of vampires. Veteran Italian thespian Francesco Carnelutti also provides a rock solid moral anchor for the film as the gruff but compassionate Angelo.

Spring is a terrific film precisely because it takes its time and trusts the audience’s maturity and discernment. It takes a road not often taken in genre cinema, reaping distinctive results. Moorhead’s darkly stylish cinematography heightens the mood, both with respects to the romance and the creeping dread, perfectly serving the macabrely dreamy narrative. Very highly recommended for fans of crossover classics, Spring opens this Friday (3/20) in New York, at the Cinema Village.

LFM GRADE: A

Posted on March 17th, 2015 at 10:20pm.

By Joe Bendel. In China, you need a valid state I.D. to travel on a plane, attend university, secure a marriage license, and sign most legal documents, just like here in America (but we’re probably a lot more indulgent about things like voting). Abducted children who are trafficked into new homes are doubly victimized, because they will not be able to do any of these things without their birth certificates. They are effectively denied a future, through no fault of their own. That is definitely the outlook for teenaged abductee Ceng Shuai and Lei Zekuan’s long missing son, who is probably in a similar position. The two men’s related fates will lead to a bond of trust when they head out on the road together in Peng Sanyuan’s Lost and Love, which opens this Friday in New York.

For fifteen years, Lei has driven through China on a longshot quest to find the missing infant son who was snatched away from his grandmother. He doggedly hands out fliers and drives through town after town trailing a banner of the young baby taken shortly before his disappearance. However, when Lei spies a notice for a recently kidnapped Zhou Tianyi, he has a banner made for her as well. He is obsessed, but compassionate.

When life on the road leads to a spot of trouble for Lei, Ceng volunteers to fix his motorbike. At first, he cannot help resenting Lei as an extension of the birth parents he presumes to be negligent. However, as he comes to understand Lei’s story and his lingering pain, he slowly accepts the older man as something of a mentor. Together, they hit the road, following up leads to his possible home village posted on various abduction-resource web sites.

Evidently, the illicit trade of kidnapped infants is a growing problem in Mainland China. For victimized parents, the government’s only partly relaxed One Child policy makes it even more painful, consigning them to a permanently empty nest. Peng’s screenplay offers a peak into the criminal operations causing such anguish, but his primary focus is on the lasting emotional repercussions for birth parent and abducted child alike.

Much as he did in Ann Hui’s quietly moving A Simple Life, Andy Lau completely lets go of his movie star trappings to give a raw, earthy performance as the guilt-wracked Lei. For the most part, his work is reserved and understated, but when he fully explains what the loss of his son meant for him and his family, it is pretty devastating. Likewise, Jing Boran is completely convincing as the confused and angry yet still down-to-earth Ceng. Viewers really get a sense that he is just a kid making his way in the world, but it is even more challenging for him, given his circumstances. Fans will also enjoy seeing “Big” Tony Leung Ka-fai turn up in a rather touching cameo as a brusque but compassionate traffic cop.

Although Peng’s roots are in television, L&L is remarkably free of manipulation and melodrama. It might be considered an issue-driven film to an extent, but it always feels more like a character study (or rather two character studies). It is indeed an intimate human interest story (supposedly based on real events), but Mark Lee Ping-bin’s arresting cinematography gives it a big, cinematic look. One of the best in the business, Lee vividly captures the expansive beauty of the countryside as well as the mean squalor of the cities. Despite some conspicuous loose ends, Lost and Love is a refreshingly mature and accessible drama, recommended for mainstream audiences when it opens this Friday (3/20) in New York, at the AMC Empire and the Village 7.

LFM GRADE: B+

Posted on March 17th, 2015 at 10:19pm.

By Joe Bendel. This is Kafka like we have never seen him before: lusty and Mongolian. Our alienated protagonist is indeed a land surveyor stuck in a bureaucratic nightmare, but he is a rather surly slacker of a chap (and a bit of a horndog). Nonetheless, Inner Mongolia (the Chinese Autonomous Republic) stands in quite well for the vaguely Eastern European setting of Kafka’s The Castle in Darhad Erdenibulag & Emyr ap Richard’s K, which screens during the 2015 edition of New Directors/New Films.

K, as he is still simply known, lacks the proper documentation to stay in the small provincial town governed by the nearby (yet conspicuously unseen) castle, despite having been summoned by the governor. Obviously, this causes a bit of an official quandary, especially when it is determined that the original work request was sent out in error. Nevertheless, he is now an employee of the Castle, officially reporting to Minister Klamm, who has already palmed off the surveyor on the ailing town mayor.

Still believing he has actual work to do, K doggedly pursues a meeting with Klamm, unaware his actions constitute a serious breach of local protocol. He even takes up with Frieda, a tavern hostess who is rumored to be Klamm’s mistress, but his motives for that might be more carnal and less mercenary than many assume. Indeed, despite the precariousness of his position, K will have his share of hedonistic indulgences.

Although ap Richard’s screenplay simplifies the unfinished Kafka source novel, he is still relatively faithful to its overall storyline. K duly butts heads with Artur and Jeremias, the two locals assigned to serve as his assistants. He also becomes ambiguously involved with the family of Castle messenger Barnabas, particularly his older sister Olga.

Frankly, the oddest thing about ap Richard’s adaptation is how much fun it allows K. Up until the closing sequences, he and Erdenibulag maintain a tone that is better described as eccentric than surreal or, shall we say, Kafkaesque. Since they largely dispense with the paperwork motif, it is even more challenging to read allegorical significance into their updated re-conception. However, they certainly capture a grubby sense of provincial corruption.

As K, Bayin serves partly as the film’s straight man and partly as its madman, but he is a weirdly effective in both capacities. Jula similarly keeps the audience off balance as the possible femme fatale Frieda, while both Yirgui and Jüdengowa have surprisingly touching scenes as Olga and Pepi, Frieda’s barmaid successor, respectively.

It is entirely possible that there is only enough room in the world for one lascivious Mongolian Chinese Kafka adaptation, but K (co-produced by Jia Zhangke) fills that spot rather nicely. Erdenibulag and ap Richard create a strange and irrational world, but it is not as nearly as existentially soul-deadening as most takes on Kafka tend to be. It ends in a rather ambiguous place, but when you leave the theater the sun will still shine and the birds will still chirp. Recommended as an idiosyncratic but mostly successful cross-pollenated oddity, K screens this Saturday (3/21) at the Walter Reade and Sunday (3/22) at MoMA, as part of this year’s ND/NF.

LFM GRADE: B+

Posted on March 17th, 2015 at 10:18pm.

By Joe Bendel. The assassination of Boris Nemtsov is yet another example of how tragedy continues to mysteriously befall critics of the Putin regime. Although Putin’s name is never mentioned in Yuriy Bykov’s latest film, his friends should keep a close eye on him. Bykov unambiguously indicts the corruption and lawlessness of Putin’s Russia, but he goes even further than Andrey Zvyagintev’s Leviathan, condemning the complacency and complicity of the average citizenry that allows such abuses to continue unchecked. Viewers will find Bykov’s The Fool is a bitter cocktail with a powerful kick when it screens during the 2015 edition of New Directors/New Films.

Dima Nikitin is a plumber, but he is studying structural engineering in hopes of securing a promotion in the municipal works department. His wife finds his efforts ridiculously naïve, because everyone knows such matters are arranged through pay-offs. Yet, he continues nonetheless. Called to cover for a drunken worker in a dilapidated housing project just outside his district, Nikitin has the training to recognize the tenement is on the verge of collapse. There is a huge fissure running up on side of the listing building on down the other. The foundation is literally crumbling and the ground has shifted beneath it. Concerned for the fate of the 820 residents (and what unsavory tenants they are), Nikitin takes the matter directly to the civic council, which has conveniently assembled to celebrate the birthday of corrupt Mayor Nina Galaganova.

Of course, nobody wants to hear what Nikitin has to say. Where did all the money earmarked for the complex’s maintenance go? After the mayor got her cut, it paid for a lovely house for the daughter of public housing manager Fedotov, as well as an apartment in Moscow for his thuggish son. Nevertheless, when Nikitin takes Fedotov and the fire chief out to the building, they are forced to acknowledge the urgency of the situation. The politically inexperienced Nikitin takes Galaganova at her word when she agrees to evacuate the building, but her shady advisors have different ideas.

Despite its explicit commentary on Putin’s Russia, The Fool works as a ticking clock thriller on two levels. We experience the suspense of whether Nikitin and his reluctant allies be able to start the evacuation before it is too late, while simultaneously worrying he will go the way of Nemtsov and Anna Politkovskaya for his efforts. This being Russia, it is hardly spoilerish to say the answer will be blackly ironic.

Due to its dourly naturalistic vibe, the grit and depth of the performances in The Fool sort of sneak up on the audience, but their resonance lingers. Artyom Bystrov elevates Nikitin far beyond a workaday everyman or symbolic victim. He is an anguished and self-aware Quixotic figure. Likewise, Boris Nevzorov and Kirill Polukhin are absolutely riveting as the knowingly compromised Fedotov and the fire chief. Alexander Korshunov adds tragic heft as Nikitin’s futilely principled father, the block from which he was chipped, but Olga Samoshina and Darya Moroz are rather one-dimensional as his relentlessly shrewish mother and under-developed wife.

Perhaps Bykov gives us a tad too much of Nikitin’s family drama, but his long dark night of soul is completely engrossing and profoundly alarming. Bykov lets nobody off the hook, least of all the mean, petty, loutish, and entitled tenants Nikitin is trying to save. Clearly, they are almost as much of the problem as Galaganova, but that is hardly the sort of message the state-controlled Russian media is likely to trumpet. Very highly recommended, The Fool screens this Thursday (3/19) at MoMA and Saturday (3/21) at the Walter Reade, as part of this year’s ND/NF.

LFM GRADE: A

March 17th, 2015 at 9:36pm.