Category: Narrative

By Joe Bendel. Would you feel confident throwing your conspiratorial lot in with something called “the Eunuch Clique?” Maybe not now, but the late Ming Dynasty were far different times. Senior Eunuch Wei Zhongxian was thought to control seventy percent of court officials, the so-called Clique. The new emperor is determined root out the eunuch’s influence, but that will be easier said than done for the three Jinyiwei imperial assassins in Lu Yang’s Brotherhood of Blades, which Well Go USA releases this week on DVD and Blu-ray.

The trio of Jinyiwei are so scruffy, their new commander Zhao Jingzhong is confident they have not been corrupted. It also means they could use a windfall. Shen Lian yearns to buy the freedom of Zhou Miaotong, a courtesan he has long visited, but it is unlikely to happen on his Imperial salary. The older and gaunter Lu Jianxing covets a promotion, but that will require bribes beyond his means. Meanwhile, the consumptive rookie, Jin Yichuan makes regular blackmail payments to an older associate from his criminal past.

Since they all need money, Shen Lian makes an executive decision to strike a deal with Wei. In exchange for a considerable sum of gold Taels, the Jinyiwei assassin lets Wei escape, delivering the charred body of a servant in his place. The three are hailed as heroes, but Wei’s followers are already conspiring to eliminate the only witnesses who know the powerful Eunuch is still alive. Unbeknownst to them, Zhao is part of the cabal. It turns out he is Wei’s secret foster-son. As the leader of the Eastern Depot, Zhao will give the three assassins assignments specifically intended to silence them permanently. When they manage to live anyway, things really start getting complicated.

In a way, Brotherhood is like a gangster movie decked out as a wuxia epic. Everyone is on the take to some extent. The question is how morally compromised are they? Like a good Triad or Yakuza film, it is heavy with themes of loyalty and betrayal, with personal allegiances frequently trumping concern for corps, dynasty, and nation. Of course there is also plenty of hack-and-slash action, featuring more crimson blood splatters than is typical of the genre.

Taiwanese superstar Chang Chen, whose credits go back to Edward Yang’s masterpiece A Brighter Summer Day is perfectly suited for the tightly wounded Shen Lian. He broods hard and when he loses his cool, it is serious business. Frankly, it is one of his best performances in years. Likewise, Wang Qianyuan is appropriately world weary and a bit vinegary as old Lu Jianxing. However, Ethan Li largely fades into the background as the young, sickly Jin Yichuan.

Brotherhood is fully loaded with colorful supporting turns, but it strangely shortchanges Dani Zhou’s screen time, even though she seems quite promising as Wei’s butt-kicking daughter, Wei Ting. On the other hand, Cecilia Liu totally looks the part and delivers the aching tragedy in spades as the more-substantial-than-you-expect courtesan.

It is hard to believe Brotherhood’s robust action and intrigue comes from the same director who helmed My Spectacular Theater, a sensitive drama about empathy and accommodation, but here it is—and it is jolly nice to have it. Recommended for fans who like their wuxia on the bloody, morally ambiguous side, Brotherhood of Blades is now available on DVD, Blu-ray, and digital platforms, from Well Go USA.

LFM GRADE: B+

Posted on February 9th, 2015 at 8:57pm.

By Joe Bendel. How can you be nostalgic for the bad times? Because they are the old times. For instance, our narrator looks back rather fondly on the early days of Stalinism. He and his father were fortunate to share their flat with the local police constable. That meant there were only five (and later six) people crammed into the apartment. How spacious. Even without depicting the Stalinist terror, there is still plenty of scarcity and absurdity in Aleksei Guerman’s My Friend Ivan Lapshin, which screens as part of a mini-Guerman (sometimes translated as German) retrospective now running at Anthology Film Archives in conjunction with the premiere theatrical release of Guerman’s Hard to be a God.

There is not much sugar in this sleepy village of revolutionary fervor, but there always seems to be some in Lapshin’s flat. The town will also get a treat in the form of a traveling agitprop stage performance. The show is a bad as it sounds, but Lapshin still falls for Natasha Adasova, a demur featured actress. They will have some laughs together, but unfortunately, it will be Lapshin’s suicidal journalist friend Khanin who turns her head.

However, Lapshin has another obsession to fall back on: capturing the dreaded Solovyey gang. It is not clear just what crimes the Solovyey outfit has committed, but their (comparative) liberty rankles Lapshin. Frankly, they seem to be born out of the same cloth of economic desperation that gave rise to Bonnie and Clyde—and their ability to evade justice (probably due to their considerable local support) arguably undercuts the state’s authority.

One thing is certain, everyone spends a good deal of time in queues, struggling with shortages, except Lapshin, who goes out of his way to bust black market firewood peddlers. Yet, somehow he seems like a decent fellow, in a rigid, stentorian sort of way, perhaps because we might guess what sort of trials and travails lie ahead for him.

Although Friend is far more accessible and narrative-driven than HTBAG, the vibes of the respective films are not so very different. In both cases, characters exist in a state of constant chaos, yet they live in an environment of near total stasis. Both films are distinguished by their striking black-and-white cinematography, but there is something about the dreamy vibe that keeps us at arm’s length.

Andrei Boltnev is commandingly tragic as the severe Lapshin, while Andrey Mironov makes a strangely charismatic sad sack as Khanin. Nina Ruslanova’s Adasova also brings sufficient heat to let us buy into their love triangle. Indeed, it is quite a fine example of ensemble acting, but it is still a rather odd film to watch, because Guerman is being so deliberately cagey with his allegorical implications, for obvious reasons.

Nevertheless, Friend was duly banned by the authorities for fourteen years, finally seeing the light of day in the late 1980s. Reportedly, it was deemed an insufficiently heroic portrayal of the early days of socialism building. It was also an awkward, sometimes even sarcastic reminder they had been building socialism for five decades, but things were as crummy as ever. Recommended as a fascinating historical document not without its own artistic merits, My Friend Ivan Lapshin screens again this coming Monday (2/9), as part of the Guerman series at Anthology Film Archives.

LFM GRADE: A-

Posted on February 4th, 2015 at 8:27pm.

By Joe Bendel. There are ways that parents burden their children, such as decorating their home with hipster Scandinavian furniture. It does not quite work as a unifying theme, but generational debts and inheritances play an important role in at least some of this year’s Oscar nominated animated short films, which opened collectively on Friday in New York.

The first simply will not fit into our artificial framework no matter how hard we try to force it, but it is also the shortest and the slightest of the four nominees provided to the media (again, Disney decided to do their own thing with Patrick Osbourne’s Feast). Marieke Blaauw, Joris Oprins & Job Roggeveen’s A Single Life is sort of a riff on the concept of Adam Sandler’s Click, with a 45 rpm record taking the place of the remote control. It is amusing, but it is hardly a major work.

Daisy Jacobs’ The Bigger Picture certainly deals with serious issues, depicting the struggles of a faithful grown son to care for his ailing mother, even while she persists in favoring his irresponsible brother. Jacobs’ life-size, paper animated figures are undeniably distinctive, but if this were a live action film, we would probably consider the drama manipulative.

Torill Kove’s Me and My Mouton is also a bit sentimental, but in a sweetly nostalgic kind of way. The middle daughter of tragically trendy but well-meaning architect parents must deal with their rather unorthodox aesthetics, which seem strange to her more conventional friends. In fact, Mouton is a rather sly satire of hipster sensibilities as well as an endearing coming of age story. Kevin Dean’s soul jazz trio soundtrack also makes it swing and groove.

Yet, without question, the class of the field is Robert Kondo & Dice Tsutsumi’s The Dam Keeper. When his father passed away, young Pig assumed his position as the dam keeper, maintaining the windmill that prevents a mass of toxic clouds from overrunning the village. Yet, he is still just a boy, who continues to attend school, where he is often mocked and bullied. One day, a young Fox transfers to his class and the rest of the animal students are quite taken with her (she is a fox, after all). However, she has an artist’s sensitivity, so she soon befriends Pig. Nevertheless, she presumably remains subject to the same peer pressures of other students. When it appears Fox betrays Pig’s trust for the sake of acceptance, the heartbroken dam keeper might just give up entirely, which would have ominous implications for the ungrateful village.

Dam Keeper is a beautiful fable, perfectly served by the stunning painted and hand-drawn animation, but it also resonates on a very personal level. In both visual and narrative terms, it is an extraordinary film. It is worth seeing the entire program just for it, especially since it is the longest of the nominated films. Frankly, if it does not win, the Academy will have some explaining to do.

This year’s nominated short film animated package is augmented with several other films of notable merit, including one selection from the 2015 Slamdance Film Festival. While it is not as graceful and sophisticated as Plympton’s previous Slamdance selection, the feature length Cheatin’, Footprints is a rather clever, postmodern channeling of Peter and the Wolf, rendered in a suitably surreal style.

Without question, The Dam Keeper is the main event here—and hopefully the Oscar favorite. Between it and the addition of the next strongest nominee, Me and My Mouton and the Slamdance alumnus, Footsteps, this year’s presentation of the Academy Award nominated short films is definitely worth seeing. Recommended for animation fans, it opened Friday (1/30) in New York, at the IFC Center.

Posted on February 1st, 2015 at 9:56am.