LFM Reviews Lithuanian Shorts (including The Black Box) @ MoMI’s 2014 Panorama Europe

From "Time Passes Through the City."

By Joe Bendel. The Lithuanians did not take to Soviet domination, culturally or politically. In strange ways, they cultivated their rugged, taciturn image to help sustain their distinctive national identity. One can see this strategy at work in a series of short documentaries restored to commemorate Lithuania’s EU presidency. Collected under the title Cinematic Inclusions, these often abstract films screen together for adventurous viewers during Panorama Europe.

In observance of strict chronology, the most accessible (and longest) Inclusion is the final film of the program. Not so surprisingly given their non-conformist nature, hundreds of thousands of Lithuanians were deported to Siberia during the Communist era. The exile experience was especially painful when family members passed away, because Lithuanian customs highly value burial in one’s homeland. As the rotten Communist system started to crumble, many repatriated Lithuanians returned to Siberia in hopes of smuggling loved ones’ remains back home. Algimantas Maceina followed his father on one such mission in The Black Box.

In part, Box is like a time capsule of the early days of newly independent Lithuania, but it is also an ethnographic record of Lithuanian funerary customs. However, it is not included in Inclusions merely to represent the mid 1990s. While Maceina faithfully records the trip, as well as the subsequent wake and funeral for his grandfather’s recovered remains, he plays the footage as if on an accelerated fast-forward. At least you cannot say he does not respect the audience’s time, as he documents a significant phenomenon largely particular to Lithuania.

Before going further, it is worth remembering that American experimental film icon Jonas Mekas is Lithuanian. Indeed, he would most likely appreciate the avant-garde aesthetic of the rest of the Inclusions. As much cinematic essays or visual tone poems as they are documentaries, they are remarkably consistent in tone and subject matter, despite spanning twenty-seven years of frustrating national history.

From "The Old Man and the Earth."

In the 1960s, Robertas Verba established a template with The Old Man and the Earth and The Dreams of Centenarians, celebrating the salt-of-the-earth while explicitly rejecting Socialist Realism. Poring over every wrinkle and imperfection, Verba’s films have a clear inclination towards grotesque fetishism. Not very doc-ish, they present a rather surreal perspective that becomes even more pronounced in films like Almantas Grikevičius’s Time Passes Through the City. The ambivalent attitude towards industrial “progress” reflected in Henrikas Šablevičius’s A Trip Across the Misty Meadow is also clearly out of step with Socialist propaganda. Yet, it is hard to get any less Soviet than the jazzy interludes that make their way into several of the films’ soundtracks.

Its execution might be a bit eccentric, but just about any viewer will get something out of Algimantas Maceina’s The Black Box. While the rest of the constituent films are decidedly more demanding, they represent a fascinating episode in cinematic history. It is good to know Lithuania values its heritage enough to preserve them for posterity. Recommended for hardcore fans of experimental film, Cinematic Inclusions screens free of charge this Wednesday (4/9) at Bohemia National Hall and Saturday (4/12) at the Museum of the Moving Image (free with regular admission), as part of this year’s Panorama Europe.

Posted on April 7th, 2014 at 5:40pm.

LFM Reviews Honeymoon @ MoMI’s 2014 Panorama Europe

By Joe Bendel. Usually, couples keep the wedding simple for second marriages, but not Radim Werner and his fiancée Tereza. At least when you keep a low profile, it makes it harder for unwelcomed guests from the past to crash. There will be no ex-spouses arriving uninvited, but one mystery guest will thoroughly destabilize the celebration in Jan Hrebejk’s Honeymoon, which screens during the rechristened Panorama Europe at the Museum of the Moving Image.

As fate would have it, Werner’s thirteen year-old son Dominik breaks his glasses seconds before the wedding ceremony. Fortunately, there is optometrist-in-the-box right on the church plaza. Werner does not think much of the man behind the counter, but he instantly recognizes him. Calling himself Jan Benda, the mystery man crashes the ceremony and hitches a ride to the reception in the country. He claims to be Werner’s old boarding school friend, but the groom pretends not to remember him. The kids take to Benda, but he unnerves both bride and groom.

It will become obvious the lens crafter is not really Benda, but he shares some complicated history with Werner and the real Benda. The truth is pretty ugly, especially when the newly married bride is forced to confront it. Honeymoon is considered the third installment of Hrebejk’s loosely thematic trilogy, begun with the excellent Kawasaki’s Rose, examining how the sins of the past continue to influence the present. While not explicitly political like Rose, it is worth noting Werner’s boarding school indiscretions indirectly involved his teenaged lust for Natassja Kinski during the height of her international superstardom, suggesting the 1980’s, perhaps thereby implying he was the privileged child of Party elites.

Regardless, Hrebejk successfully taps into viewers’ deep ambivalence regarding weddings and similar conventions. Somewhere deep within our inner Mr. Hydes, we resent having to dress up and be on our best behavior for people we only share an accidental relationship with. Like a Wedding Crashers from Hell, Honeymoon delivers the chaos we secretly yearn for at such times.

From "Honeymoon."

Indeed, Hrebejk deftly plays a dual game, creating suspense through not-Benda’s unsettling behavior, while dropping clear hints that he is more worthy of our sympathies. He rather risks undoing the balance act late in the third act, but he certainly keeps us on our toes. Ultimately, the messiness lends Honeymoon further credence.

As the respective nemesis-classmates, Stanislav Majer and Jirí Cerny play a dynamite cat-and-mouse game. They invest both men with sympathetic moments, as well as profound flaws, making it impossible to reflexively align with either one. Anna Geislerova initially seems to be problematically passive as the newlywed bride, but she more than holds her own during a pivotal confrontation with Cerny’s crasher.

Honeymoon is a mature film, in which karma packs a real punch. On one hand, Hrebejk challenges how well one can ever know a prospective spouse, while also questioning whether we can ever out live the moral statute of limitations for our mistakes. Good luck coming up with satisfying answers, but the resulting drama is quite compelling. Recommended for discerning adults, Honeymoon screens this Friday (4/11) at the Museum of the Moving Image, as part of Panorama Europe.

LFM GRADE: B+

Posted on April 7th, 2014 at 5:34pm.

Gina Carano Misplaces Her Husband: LFM Reviews In the Blood

By Joe Bendel. You would think two recovering addicts would go to a tightly controlled “Club Med” environment for their honeymoon. Instead, the Grants visit the most corrupt island in the Caribbean. They stay on the wagon, but even more serious problems develop. When the new Mr. disappears, the new Mrs. will unleash all her street-fighting skills to find him in John Stockwell’s In the Blood, the newest vehicle for MMA star Gina Carano, which opens this Friday.

Ava’s father Casey was an original hardcase, who taught her how to fight good and hard. Even during her strung out days, following his untimely demise, she could take care of her would be predators. She cleaned up when she met the well-heeled Derek Grant in rehab. His father is not exactly thrilled with their union, but has stopped fighting it. Aside from a little dust-up in a club, their honeymoon is all very sweet and romantic—until the zip-line accident.

Unfortunately, that is not even the worst of it. Mysteriously, the ambulance carrying Grant to the central hospital never arrives with the patient. Of course, the fat and lazy police chief is happy to shift suspicion onto his ex-junkie wife, finding a receptive ear in old man Grant. Determined to find her husband, Ava Grant sets out to give the Jack Bauer treatment to every lying witness and corrupt cop in her path.

In the Blood is a pretty straight forward martial arts programmer, but it maintains Carano’s viability as an action star. There are several down-and-dirty fight sequences that nicely showcase her chops. She also gets nice support from a colorful cast of supporting characters, including Luis Guzmán and Danny Trejo (who kills it in his final scene). It is also impressive to see that Stephen Lang continues to get rougher and tougher with age during his brief flashback scenes as dear old dad. As a Twilight alumnus, Cam Gigandet does not inspire much confidence, but he manages to scratch out some okay chemistry with Carano.

For genre fans, In the Blood could be considered the rough equivalent of early Van Damme films. The plots were never extraordinary, but they were serviceable enough to build up his credibility as an action star and a romantic lead. In the Blood serves the same function for Carano, even with its unfortunate and potentially spoilery title. Stockwell does an okay job framing the action, but he is no Isaac Florentine, let alone a Dante Lam or Wilson Yip.

Still, Carano delivers on her end. She has screen presence and chops. In the Blood will not take her to the next level, but it will keep her existing fanbase engaged and ready for more. Enjoyable as a quality B-movie with serious MMA aptitude, In the Blood is recommended for genre enthusiasts when it opens this Friday (4/4) in New York.

LFM GRADE: B-

Posted on April 2nd, 2014 at 11:08pm.

A Talky Apocalypse: LFM Reviews Goodbye World

By Joe Bendel. Rat race dropouts James and Lily live in the place where hippies and survivalists intersect. Given its strategic hilltop position and the well-stocked freezers full of food and medicine, their Mendocino County home will provide refuge to a number of their long lost college friends. Unfortunately, human nature keeps doing what it does in Denis Henry Hennelly’s Goodbye World, which opens this Friday in New York.

Nick and Becky were already en route for an awkward weekend visit to his estranged college pals. He was once engaged to Lily and business partners with James, until the hypocritical hippie forced him out over a philosophical disagreement. That is a lot of shared history, but surely they ought to be able to put it aside once the apocalypse hits, right?

Of course, it is hard to get reliable reporting on the freshly minted end of the world. Fortunately, they can rely on the analysis of Laura, another college chum, who was recently an aide to the chairman of the Homeland Security committee, until a leaked sex tape ruined her career. To further increase tensions, their Bill Ayers-lite college professor pal and his latest coed conquest also make their way to their Northern California refuge. To round out the cast of problematic houseguests, their weirdo hacker pal Lev Berkowitz turns up in state of near catatonia, openly inviting viewers to suspect he might have had a role precipitating the cyber attack.

Somehow, millions of smart phones simultaneously received the same cryptic text: “goodbye world.” Then systems started failing left and right, leading to riots in the street. James believes they can sit tight for several years, presuming they can stomach each other, until ominous outsiders start showing up and making demands.

Frustratingly, the sketchy details Hennelly and co-writer Sarah Adina Smith dole out on the early process of Armageddon are far more intriguing than the post-apocalyptic melodrama. For the most part, these are shallow, self-absorbed creeps. Even James & Lily’s daughter is an entitled princess. Still, making the scandal-tarred Laura an American Revolutionary War re-enactor is a nice bit of character detail.

As in the nearly unwatchable First Winter, the end of the world and the widespread casualties that result do not seem to cause anyone much lasting sorrow. Instead, they are preoccupied with their own petty jealousies and resentments. It is one thing to compartmentalize, but that is just cold. Logically, Gaby Hoffman fares the best amid the large vanilla ensembles, since she is blessed with the most distinctively limned character.

To be stuck in the same house as these people would be a fate far worse than any urban anarchy. The special effects team nicely evokes the end times with some subtle but clever bits of business, but Hoffman cannot single-handedly compensate for the massively boring characters her Laura must deal with. Although it gets out of the blocks quickly, Goodbye World soon loses steam. Best saved for fanatical hippie survivalists, it opens this Friday (4/4) in New York at the Village East.

LFM GRADE: C-

Posted on April 2nd, 2014 at 11:01pm.

Midnight Movies Get New Agey: LFM Reviews Fateful Findings

From "Fateful Findings."

By Joe Bendel. Prepare to have all your suspicions about the New Age mindset confirmed. We might be poised on the brink of the Age of Aquarius, the Harmonic Convergence, or whatever, but it comes bundled with some of the stiffest performances and clunky dialogue you will ever feast your previously jaded eyes and ears upon. Self-financed by writer-director-producer-lead actor-craft services Neil Breen, Fateful Finding blew into town for a weekend of ‘round midnight screenings at the Landmark Sunshine. Let the “magic” commence.

Any attempts to describe Fateful must be approximate. The link between cause and effect is often rather tenuous in this world and the exposition is more confounding than explanatory. We can say with certainty, eight year-old Dylan and Leah were once inseparable. On the last day of their final summer together, they discover a magic rock that he will keep with him as a talisman. We know it was a “magical day” because that is what she wrote in her diary, underlined multiple times for effect. Shortly thereafter, her parents whisked her away, perhaps because they were concerned about that creepy Dylan kid.

Flashing forward, Dylan is now a successful novelist with a devoted wife, but he never got over Leah. However, when a Rolls Royce plows into him, spraying red food coloring everywhere, Dylan makes a remarkably speedy recovery thanks to that cosmic stone. Finding himself in a spiritual crisis, Dylan chucks his writing career, resolving to use his hacker skills to expose all the corrupt collusion between the government and big business. You see, it’s actually believable – because he has his masters in computer science.

Meanwhile, he also facilitates his wife Emily’s addiction to the meds he refuses to take, perhaps because she read the script and figured she would need pharmaceutical help to get through the shoot. Eventually, he completely loses interest in Emily once he realizes the physician consulting on his case is none other than his long lost love, Leah, who did not recognize him under the Invisible Man bandages and evidently never bothered to read his chart.

Right, so there is some kind of plot afoot to get Dylan as well as some kind of paranormal agency at work, but you would hardly know it, because Breen devotes far more time to the marital travails of Dylan’s next door neighbors, Amy and Jim. As far as the shadowy conspiracy goes, it seems to consist solely of an underachieving henchman, who conveniently leaves his written instruction behind at the scene of the crime.

Indeed, Breen has a maddening habit of getting bogged down in the most mundane details at the expense of his big picture concept. Occasionally, we see visions of Dylan leafing through a big glowing mystical book (probably an old heirloom dictionary bought at a garage sale), but he painstakingly establishes whether or not Amy wants to try the wine at Dylan’s dinner party.

From "Fateful Findings."

Be that as it may, just like fellow cult favorites The Room and Birdemic, it is sheer folly to apply any sort of rational critical standard to Fateful. These are passion projects that come from an indescribably bizarre aesthetic plane of existence. Logic is completely out the window from the get-go in nearly all respects, starting with the fact Breen looks about twice as old as the adult Leah. More importantly, there is able space for vocal audiences to insert their own commentary (such is the advantage of a talky film with frequent awkward pauses).

Frankly, some of Breen’s choices will mystify even experienced screen-talking midnight movie patrons. Still, it amply lives up to the singular reputation it developed on the festival circuit. Recommended for those who appreciate a healthy dose of communal cinematic lunacy, Fateful Findings screened this weekend in New York at the Landmark Sunshine.

Posted on March 31st, 2014 at 9:07am.

Life Under Russian Occupation: LFM Reviews Giovanni’s Island @ The 2014 New York International Children’s Film Festival

By Joe Bendel. If Russia successfully annexes Crimea, what happens to the ethnic Ukrainian and Tartar population? If history is any guide, we should not be shocked by forced deportations. Frankly, they should probably consider themselves lucky if they do not take a detour through a Russian gulag. Residents of the Soviet occupied Kuril Islands were not so fortunate. The Production I.G team best known for the Ghost in the Shell franchise revisits a painful episode of Japanese history with Mizuho Nishikubo’s Giovanni’s Island, which screened during the 2014 New York International Children’s Film Festival.

Giovanni and Campanella are not traditional Japanese names, but they are the main characters of Kenji Miyazawa’s fantastical classic, Night on the Galactic Railroad. Tatsuo Senō is so fond of the novel he named his sons Junpei and Kanta to roughly correlate. At the time of Japan’s surrender, the elder Senō is the island’s civil defense coordinator, but since he is not technically military, he is not rounded up with the other soldiers.

Initially, rumors spread like wildfire of what the Americans would do when they arrive. Unfortunately, it is the Soviets instead. Needless to say, their arrival is quite disruptive for the island community. Many families, including the Senōs, are displaced to make room for the occupiers. Similarly, Junpei’s class is forced to share space with the lower grades to make room for the soldiers’ children. Still, he forms an unlikely friendship with the commander’s daughter Tanya that steadily develops romantic overtones.

Sadly, the Soviets will do no favors for tweener romance. After his father is arrested for distributing rice to needy villagers (so much for “to each according to their needs”), Junpei, Kanta, and their school teacher Sawako (who long carried a torch for dad) are forced to board the supposed repatriation transport without him. Ominously though, they do not seem to be bearing south towards Japan.

Frankly, screenwriters Shigemichi Sugita and Yoshiki Sakurai are remarkably restrained in their depiction of the Russian occupiers, perhaps for fear of reprisals. Nevertheless, the grim realities of the forcible deportations are inescapable. For all intents and purposes, the occupied islands were ethnically cleansed. Those familiar with Miyazawa’s short novel will also realize the Senō family is destined to experience acute tragedy.

From "Giovanni’s Island."

Indeed, the way the Galactic Railroad is weaved into Giovanni’s narrative is quite thoughtful and literate. Hardly stuck in denial, the film forthrightly acknowledges the misfortune of Koreans displaced by the Imperial military, whom the Russians never bothered to repatriate. There are also a few decent Russians in Giovanni (such as Tanya’s parents), but the Stalinist war machine is a brutal, impersonal fact of history.

Much like Jack and the Cuckoo Clock Heart, Giovanni uses poetic imagery to soften the blow of the on-screen heartbreak. Yet, there is a maturity to the film and how its characters (especially the young) resolutely “endure the unendurable” that is quite powerful. Viewers will not feel bereft at the end, despite the grueling journey it takes us on. While it focuses quite intimately on the Senōs and those closest to them, it is a rather epic story. Featuring characters you will care about caught up in historical forces likely to repeat themselves, Giovanni’s Island is the sort of animated film adults will appreciate as much or more than children.

Highly recommended as a legit big screen drama, Giovanni’s Island had its first screening outside of Japan at this year’s NYICFF. Patrons should keep an eye on their website, just in case another screening is added. Regardless, it should have a long life on the festival circuit.

LFM GRADE: A

Posted on March 25th, 2014 at 6:30pm.