Category: Narrative

By Joe Bendel. Its population is less than ninety thousand, but evidently organized pedophilia is a growing danger in Niagara Falls, Ontario. They now have a sizable police task force working full time on such crimes. The leader even becomes an Oprah style celebrity. However, they have not produced sterling results. After eight years, Matthew Lane’s daughter Cass is still missing. Past his breaking point, the desperate father is more than willing to take the law into his own hands, if he can finally find a target in Atom Egoyan’s The Captive, which opens tomorrow in New York.

It has been a hard eight years for Lane and his wife, Tina. She still blames him for their daughter’s abduction and so does he. He only briefly popped out to pick up a pie while she rested in the back seat of his truck after ice skating practice. Tragically, it was long enough for the pederast ringleader stalking them. As the years advanced and their marriage imploded, Tina started seeing Det. Nicole Dunlop for counseling, but her partner (and lover) Det. Jeff Cornwall still suspects Lane sold his daughter to a pedophile ring, because he reminds him of a guy he used to know. Seriously, that’s the best he can do after eight years?

Of course, Lane’s investigative techniques basically amount to him driving around looking for something suspicious, but he is still more effective than the cops, who will make a series of spectacular blunders. Eventually, Det. Dunlop will wind up in peril herself, following a head-scratchingly unlikely chain of events.

Frankly, it is a real shame Captive morphs into such a klutzy thriller, because Ryan Reynolds’ lead performance could have been a career game-changer in a tighter, more grounded film. He really digs in and digs deep as Lane. You feel his pain and his rage, without any cheap theatrics. He also makes the thriller mechanics work better than they deserve to, particularly an oblique confrontation with his daughter’s abductor late in the game.

Conversely, Kevin Durand is an excellent actor, but his performance as Mika, the pervert ringleader is beyond caricature. Everything about him, from his affected voice to his sinister sliver of a moustache screams “Chester Molester.” Yet, he still hob nobs with Niagara Falls’ elite without anyone getting suspicious. Rosario Dawson is reasonably competent as Det. Dunlop. She may not look like she is from Niagara Falls, Ont., but diversity in Canadian cinema is a good thing. As if on cue, Scott Speedman also turns up, underwhelming us as Cornwall, arguably the worst cop ever who wasn’t on the take, just to remind everyone this is a Canadian film.

There was a time during the mid-1990s and early 2000s people who did not normally patronize festivals and art cinemas still went to Egoyan’s films because they were so widely acclaimed and zeitgeisty. What a difference three or four films make. Many of his regular themes are still present and accounted for, but the narrative twists are rather clunky and therefore dashed difficult to buy into. Reynolds’ work is legitimately award caliber, but it really needs Ice-T and Richard Belzer. If you have DirecTV, it is almost worth watching just to see how Paul Sarossy’s uncompromisingly icy cinematography conflicts with the otherwise lurid vibe, but it is hard to recommended The Captive when it opens today (12/12) in New York, at the Village East.

LFM GRADE: C-

Posted on December 12, 2014 at 8:34pm.

By Joe Bendel. Géant is the Col. Kurtz of Belgian art dealers. He has definitely embraced the heart of darkness in the Congo. He even has his personal “witch doctor.” It is not clear that he really believes, if the cop pursuing him believes he believes, or even whether the cop starts to believe himself. Regardless, Det. Leo Woeste is in for a rough final investigation in Pieter Van Hees’s Waste Land, which screens during the AFI’s 2014 EU Film Showcase.

Woeste is your basic cop on the edge. He tries to be a good husband and a responsible father to the step-son he has helped raise since infancy, but he has seen some terrible things. The fact that his new partner, Johnny Rimbaud, is a coke-fueled hedonist hardly stabilizes his erratic mood swings. When his wife Kathleen announces her pregnancy, but doubts the wisdom of keeping the baby, Woeste promises to retire from the force and start acting normal. Unfortunately, he has one last case to solve.

When an African immigrant is murdered and dumped in a garbage bag, the initial clues point towards Géant. Woeste tries to be extra-supportive to the slain man’s grieving sister, Aysha Tshimanga, perhaps because his fatherly instincts have been stimulated. However, their relationship soon takes on weird sexual overtones. She will accompany him to various underground boxing matches and hipster night clubs, where the throbbing hot house atmosphere will keep his head spinning.

Waste Land flirts with a lot of genres, but it never fully commits to any. It also injects some clumsy commentary on imperialism, particularly a running non-joke supposedly claiming Woeste is descended from Leopold II. Nevertheless, much of the second act investigation is rather compelling procedural stuff. Unfortunately, the climax is so self-consciously feverish, it undermines the gritty mystery and ambiguous genre elements that proceeded it.

Still, there is no denying Dardenne Brothers regular Jérémie Renier puts on a clinic as Woeste. This is fierce, no-holds-barred, rub-your-nose-in-the-self-destruction work, but it is never self-indulgent. In fact, he balances the inward burn with the outward rage quite adroitly. Babetida Sadjo also finds a spark in Tshimanga that elevates her beyond a mere victim, while Peter Van den Begin gorges on scenery as the roguish Rimbaud.

Despite its narrative frustrations, Waste Land is a massively stylish film. Cinematographer Menno Mans makes Brussels look like a real life Sin City, where most of the buildings are either abandoned warehouses or underground dance clubs. The opening sequence is especially evocative, in a disconcerting way. Nicely played and skillfully put together, Waste Land just lurches out of control down the stretch. Recommended for those who will admire its ambition, Waste Land screens this coming Tuesday (12/16) and Wednesday (12/17), as part of the AFI’s EU Film Showcase, outside of Washington, DC.

LFM GRADE: B-

Posted on December 12th, 2014 at 8:59pm.

By Joe Bendel. He wrote the equivalent of a bestselling memoir, before the invention of Gutenberg’s printing press. Dozens of hand-written manuscripts of The Travels of Marco Polo have widely circulated, making it rather difficult to determine the canonical truth of the celebrated merchant’s life. That might be frustrating for scholarly biographers and historians, but it rather takes the pressure off filmmakers dramatizing his life. Before securing his fame and fortune, the young Venetian (or “The Latin” as he will often be called) finds an unusual place in the Court of Kublai Khan, becoming enmeshed within a geo-political struggle between two ancient dynastic powers in Marco Polo, an original ten episode historical series premiering on Netflix this Friday.

Polo never knew his father Niccolò Polo, until the Venetian trader made a brief homecoming, before setting off for Asia once again. Desiring a paternal relationship, the younger Polo invited himself along, but it is soon apparent he is quite well-attuned to the rhythms and mysteries of the Eastern world, perhaps even more than his father and uncle. In fact, the great Kublai Khan accepts Marco Polo into his service, when Niccolò Polo offers to barter him in exchange for trading rights along the Silk Road. Of course, the son is quite put out by this, but his father promises to return, which he will, but maybe not in the manner he imagined.

Valuing Polo’s shrewd observations unclouded by courtly biases, Kublai Khan often dispatches the Latin to report on flashpoints within his empire. Not surprisingly, Polo’s favor rather displeases the Khan’s Chinese-educated son, Prince Jingim. Frankly, Polo is not exactly close to anyone in court, least of all the Khan’s trusted ministers. However, he will develop something approaching friendship with Byamba, the Khan’s illegitimate son with one of his many concubines. Polo also becomes ambiguously involved with Kokachin, the Blue Princess, the last surviving noble of a conquered people, and Khutulun, the Khan’s independent-minded warrior niece.

Regardless of historical accuracy, writer-creator John Fusco spends enough time in the Khan’s harem to make the broadcast networks curse the FCC. As Mel Brooks would say, it’s good to be the Khan. Yet, despite the nudity and hedonism, some of MP’s strongest action figures are women. As Khutulun, Korean actress Claudia Soo-hyun Kim credibly wrestles men twice her size and projects a smart, slightly subversive sensibility. Olivia Cheng also displays first class martial arts chops (sometimes naked) as Mei Lin, a Song concubine who infiltrates the Khan harem on the orders of her war-mongering brother, the villainous Imperial Regent Jia Sidao. Zhu Zhu’s Kokachin might be more demur, but she is still quite compelling, balancing her vulnerability with resoluteness. Of course, international superstar Joan Chen frequently upstages everyone as the iron-willed Empress Chabi.

Italian actor Lorenzo Richelmy holds his own as best he can amid the exotic locales and pitched battles, maintaining the necessary fish-out-of-water earnestness. However, he is no match for the British Benedict Wong (son of naturalized Hong Kong parents), who absolutely dominates the series as Kublai Khan. Although he put on considerable weight for the role, it is his commanding presence that really seems huge. Likewise, Tom Wu is terrific delivering the goods for genre fans as Hundred Eyes, Polo’s blind tutor in the martial arts.

In the initial episodes, MP offers more intrigue and Game of Thrones style decadence than actual fist-and-sword action, but the martial arts melees increase as the series progresses, with the threat (or promise) of an epic war hanging over everyone’s heads. There is a lot of setting-the-scene in episode one, but it quickly sets the addictive hook in the second installment and reels in viewers from there. Kon-Tiki directors Espen Sandberg & Joachim Rønning give the pilot an appropriate sense of mystery and sweep, which carries forth throughout the show. Based on the six episodes provided to the media, MP definitely seems to maintain its passion-fueled energy and richly detailed period production values. Highly recommended (so far), Marco Polo launches for binge-streaming this Friday (12/12) on Netflix.

LFM GRADE: A-

Posted on December 9th, 2014 at 8:23pm.

By Joe Bendel. Emilia was allowed to shake Ceauşescu’s hand because she was a Party member who didn’t have sweaty palms. For a while, that encounter gave her great prestige in her state-run factory, but she tried to avoid discussing it after the revolution. Nonetheless, her nostalgia for the past is rather well known in Stere Gulea’s I’m an Old Communist Hag, which screens during Making Waves: New Romanian Cinema 2014.

She was once an industrial foreman, but now Emilia and her husband Ţucu make do on their pensions and a bit of bartering-up. If you ask her, she will tell you the old dictator did a better job managing the economy. At least, that is how she remembers it. However, her memory is selective and she may have only noticed what she wanted to back in the day. She will slowly and only partially come to realize this when she visits Madame Stroescu to have a dress made for her expat daughter Alice’s sudden visit.

Madame Stroescu was always a favorite of Alice’s, but Emilia never realized how much the gentle woman suffered under Communism. She should have been an accomplished artist, but she was forced to work as a seamstress instead. With her eyesight now failing, even such work is beyond her, but she still hopes to have her late father’s confiscated tailor shop restituted to her. It is an inconvenient episode for Emilia to process, especially with the 2010 financial crisis swirling around her. In fact, that is why Alice and her American husband Alan have suddenly arrived. Both have been let go by their multinational employer and now find themselves at loose ends.

Despite its hot-button title, Hag is a restrained film that eschews all ideologies in favor of human relationships. Emilia is not a bad person. She just happened to do somewhat better than her neighbors during the old regime and is now experiencing a bit of a rough patch due to the new more cyclical system. Nevertheless, Valeria Seciu’s haunted Stroescu unambiguously serves as the film’s conscience and moral corrective. It is a quiet but powerful performance that undercuts Emilia’s romanticized memories.

While it is a more restrained and forgiving role than her celebrated turn in Child’s Pose, Luminita Gheorghiu still commands the screen as Emilia, embracing her complications. Ana Ularu counterbalances her well as Alice, the daughter who sees the past era in its full historical context, but struggles with her own personal and professional failings. Texan Collin Blair’s Alan resembles a young Michael Rapaport, which works rather well in context. There are probably a dozen additional supporting players playing former colleagues and family members, who are quite colorful, but feeling unfailingly real. Still, it is Gheorghiu and Seciu who really define the film with their contrasting presences.

Gulea was a rather bold critic of the Communist regime in past films, so Hag should not be dismissed as revisionism, but more of a meditation on how folks get by, regardless of the times. It is a nice film, elevated by several thoughtful performances and a lively yet elegiac score composed by Vasilé Sirli. Recommended for those interested in seeing a different side of Romanian cinema, I’m an Old Communist Hag screens this afternoon (12/7) at the Walter Reade Theater and tomorrow (12/8) in Long Island at the Jacob Burns Film Center, as part of Making Wave: New Romanian Cinema.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on December 9th, 2014 at 8:22pm.

By Joe Bendel. You could say Majid and Adel have student deferments. They are fifteen and twelve, respectively. Of course, that is hardly too young to die for Revolutionary Iran, especially when it was locked in mortal combat with Iraq. They might live in an Orwellian state prosecuting an apparently endless war, but the brothers lead desperate Dickensian lives in Finnish-Iranian director Hamy Ramezan’s short film, Keys of Heaven, which starts a special three-day engagement today in Los Angeles.

It is in fact 1984. Majid and Adel are homeless in the great Islamist republic, but the elder brother insists they keep attending school. Should they drop out, they would be prime candidates to join the 500,000 other Iranian children who served in the Iran-Iraq War. They work late into the night as street hawkers to earn money for a more permanent relocation, because for some reason, Majid has cut all ties to their widower father. Unfortunately, the dissolute old Kiamarz still has the brothers’ identification papers, which they will need to sit for their final exams.

Keys is a dark film with a bracingly bitter twist that Ramezan skillfully implies rather than bashing the audience’s heads with it. The film very definitely protests the use of child soldiers, but it acknowledges (obliquely) even worse crimes. It also depicts the ruthlessness of the Ayatollah’s thought police in no uncertain terms. Yet, the brothers’ relationship is the engine driving the film.

Salar Ashtiyani gives an extraordinarily honest performance as the gaunt Majid. The young actor maintains a brittle intensity while subtly turning his big revelations. Yazdan Akhoondi’s Adel reliably serves as a wide-eyed picture of innocence and Shaghayeh Djodat brings considerable nuance and sensitivity to bear as the teacher who tries to help the brothers, but lacks a full understanding of their situation.

Filmed in Turkey with Farsi dialogue, Keys feels absolutely genuine. The period details look right and the atmosphere of paranoia is quite tangible. It could be called a powerful coming-of-age tale in a country where vulnerable children, like the brothers, frequently do not live long enough to come of age. Another fine example of diasporic Iranian filmmaking, Keys of Heaven is highly recommended when it screens afternoons, today, tomorrow, and Thursday (12/9-12/11) at the Laemmle Royal in Los Angeles.

LFM GRADE: A-

Posted on December 9th, 2014 at 3:23pm.

By Joe Bendel. The natural beauty and quaint charm of the Matsu Islands make them a perfect tourist destination. The spotty cell-phone reception and lack of wi-fi could also be attractive to visitors, but it is highly inconvenient for full-time residents. A hot shot telecom exec has returned to his home island to scuttle a fiber optic development plan. While he is there, he will pencil in his mother’s funeral. However, he never bargained on the local tradition requiring his marriage a little more than three months after the ceremony. Romance and ritual threaten to stall his career in Henry Chan’s 100 Days, which opens this Friday in Los Angeles.

Wu Bo Dan felt rejected by his mother when she re-married and packed the teen off to be educated in America. Frankly, he was fine with leaving, because he would only miss his ambiguous girlfriend Xiao Wei. Now a high-flying dealmaker, Wu is not sure how to react when his stepfather comes bearing the bad news. He also brought Wu one of his mother’s favorite chickens, confusing the corporate shark even more.

Once Wu finally arrives on fictional North Island, chicken in tow, he begrudgingly attends her funeral. Of course, he is having none of the get-married-in-100-days mandate. Fortunately, his step-brother Zhen Fong is willing to fulfill Wu’s ceremonial duties in his stead. Unfortunately, he has a five-year arranged engagement with Xiao Wei. That does not sit right with Wu, but she does not want to hear it.

100 Days is pretty much headed exactly where you think it is, but it has the good sense to lose the chicken before the second act starts in earnest. It is also a ridiculously good looking film. The island is spectacularly cinematic, sort of like the Village in The Prisoner, but with shrines dedicated to the ocean deity Mazu. The cast is also obscenely attractive, even including Xiao Wei’s shy, unlucky-in-love bridesmaid Yu Jen, played by the drop-dead gorgeous Julianne Chu. So yes, 100 Days will definitely make viewers want to visit Peikan Island’s Chinpi village, where the film was shot.

Model-turned-actress Tracy Chou plays Xiao Wei with demur intelligence, somehow managing to sell her martyr complex. Likewise, Chu’s turn as Yu Jen is touchingly sweet and wholly likable. Aboriginal actor Soda Voyu (seen in Seediq Bale) largely minimizes the shtick as the unflaggingly earnest and only slightly goofy Zhen Fong. On the other hand, poor Johnny Lu’s Wu gets quite a bit of slapstick comeuppance and never really feels like he connects with the other characters, except maybe briefly with Tsai Ming-hsui, who invests his step-father with a quiet dignity that classes up the joint.

100 Days never really tries to transcend the rom-com genre, but it observes the category conventions in moderation. Chan (whose American television credits include episodes of Scrubs and the better-than-its-reputation Kitchen Confidential) keeps things moving along at an easy mid-tempo and cinematographer makes everything sparkle in the warm sunlight. If you are looking for niceness in a film, it has a bounteous spread. Recommended as a safe date film, 100 Days opens this Friday (12/12) in the Los Angeles area, at the Laemmle Playhouse 7.

LFM GRADE: C+

Posted on December 9th, 2014 at 3:22pm.