Volver was robbed!

That is my last word on the Best Foreign Film Oscar race of 2006. After having seen all five nominated movies, I can now say that Almodovar's latest is at least the equal of two of the nominees -- the excellent "Pan's Labyrinth" from Mexico, and the eventual winner from Germany, "The Lives of Others" -- and is clearly superior to the other three: Denmark's Efter Brylluppet ("After the Wedding"); Algeria's Indigenes ("Days of Glory"); and 'Canada's' "Water" (which is about as Canadian as the Blue Jays starting lineup!).

I found Indigenes to be the best of the three (I will discuss it in more detail in a later post entitled "Fighting the Good Fight"). Like Water, Efter begins in the subcontinent of India, leaving the audience off-balance momentarily. Not to worry: when the action shifts to Kobnhavn (Copenhagen) the movie slides into familiar Dogma territory: emotionally intense scenes of angst and anger, scripted by the sure hand of Lars von Trier-acolyte Anders Thomas Jensen, whose string of hits begins with 1999's Mifune, and extends to 2004's Brothers and the upcoming Red Road (premiered U.S. in the at the AFI-Dallas Film Fest in 2007). Only this film has a musical soundtrack (thankfully); one of the strange charms of the movie is being introduced to the Donald Trump-like character of listening to "It's Raining Men" on his car radio--then later dancing to it at his birthday party! [Picture a bunch of straight, white Europeans getting down with the gay anthem in the land of the midnight sun!]

There are fine performances all around, especially by the lead actor, (a Danish Viggo Mortensen!) and the actress who plays his daughter. That cannot mask the flaws in the movie's structure and technique, including an unnecessary, too-pat ending. In Volver, you know from the start you are in the hands of a master: so you sit back and let him take you wherever he wants to go.

It speaks volumes to the lameness of the Hollywood Foreign Press that, with the wealth of good foreign films in competition, their lack of imagination led them to nominate two 'American' films: Letters from Iwo Jima and the execrable Apocalypto, in their Foreign Film category.

The State of World Cinema -- Part Deux!

It has been awhile since I picked up on this theme...but as Film Festival season kicks into high gear, this past week I have seen movies from Denmark, Turkey, Italy, Argentina, and Slovenia, and all I have to say is....The Slovenian Film Industry has a LOT of catching up to do!! OY!

I went to my first "WorldFest Houston 2007" film, offensively-titled -- for an ostensible 'comedy' -- "Labour Equals Freedom" (or 'Delo Osvobaja' for you Slovenian speakers) on the recommendation of IMDB-critic Matija from Ljubljana, who called it "The Best Slovenian Movie. EVER." Well, I am just glad that Matija is qualified to make that assessment, and not me! A very depressing look at life in a post-EU Balkan country, it bills itself as a comedy, without having a single laugh in it! That takes ___ (whatever the Slovenian word for 'balls' is). It has nothing to recommend it.

I could say the same thing about the Turkish and Argentine films I saw, but I will not: because "Climates" (IKLIMLER) and "Glue" do not totally suck..
The first, because it is the product of an accomplished, talented director: Nuri Bilge Ceylan, who can wring emotional truth out of characters and situations that are otherwise lifeless and unsympathetic. It helps that he is directing his stunning wife in a series of gut-wrenching scenes that only hint at her character's inner turmoil. It is a great performance; unfortunately, the movie is not 'about' her, but about the selfish, self-absorbed male character (played by the director himself), who asks for, and receives, Zero sympathy from the audience (remember the dude in his last film "Distant" (Uzak)? He's positively loveable compared to this loser!!) -- A prize to any of my readers who actually DO remember the dude from Uzak!!-- It also helps that several scenes are shot with the stunning backdrop of Turkiye in all its diverse and seasonal glory.

"Glue" is a first feature by a London-trained Patagonian filmmaker Alexis dos Santos, who succeeds in showing the world that his country's teenagers are as vacuous and uninteresting as teenagers everywhere. If you've seen Larry Clark's overrated "Kids", you've seen this movie. The blurb says it will "take you back to those awkward and excruciating teenage years" -- well, I'm sorry, I never sniffed glue while giving my best friend a hand job! (I guess I missed out). Seen as a totally-improvised home movie (that started out as a short), rather than as a fully-formed theatrical release, I guess it does have moments of artistry. I just don't see the humor in a jilted wife beating up her rival while calling her an "oily f**ing puta" (but again, I was in the minority in the audience).

Ever the glutton for punishment, stay tuned for more exciting film festival features!!

INLAND EMPIRE

"That was some fucked-up shit!"

That was the memorable, if coarse, one-sentence review of my friend, Goldie Heidi Gider, upon exiting a screening of "Memento" in Dupont Circle. I can only hope that Goldie never, EVER sees David Lynch's "Inland Empire" -- a film that will leave even die-hard fans of "Mulholland Drive" (like myself) 'puzzled,' if not totally 'f**ed-up. '

Make no mistake: "Inland Emprie" will "F*** You Up." The movie starts off promisingly enough: with a scene involving not one, but two "Seinfeld" alums -- Susan's mother, Mrs. Ross (affecting a thick Russian accent) and Mr. Pitt (!). But then it spends WAAY too much time setting up the premise: Laura Dern's actress character, Nikki, begins to shoot a movie with Justin Theroux and directed by Jeremy Irons (who, like a true British thespian, attacks his role like he's in a movie where it matters that he create a believable character -- bless his heart!). And he's working with a film crew that totals, by my count, four! Four people making a Hollywood studio release in a studio without lights? That's the most f-ed up part of this movie!

This section -- the first, interminable hour -- is dreadful: poorly, and cheaply, shot, without any of Lynch's trademark music score, and undone by the black hole of Harry Dean Stanton's "acting." I put that term in quotes because, if this man EVER had any acting talent (I still need to be convinced) he has most-certainly lost it in the intervening 20 years since he has appeared in anything of import. The man sucks the life out of every scene he is in!

But the main problem with this movie is Lynch's insistence on using that oh-so-hip new invention -- 'digital video.' Someone please tell me what the advantage is of being able to shoot out-of-focus close-ups of the individual beads of sweat on the pockmarked face of a character actor?? This is progress? Digital video makes even the lovely British actress Julia Ormond look homely!

Yet Lynch has declared this is the ONLY medium he will use from now on. I guess that means this is the last David Lynch film I will ever see -- unless he decides to make "Mulholland Drive 2."

The story is basically this: while shooting the 'remake' of a Polish movie that was abandoned after the two leads were murdered, Nikki has a fling with her co-star, spies on her jealous husband (also Polish), gets trapped in a parallel universe, travels in and out of portals (or 'wormholes,' for the sci-fi inclined) that represent her subconscious (the 'Inland Empire' of the title), where the incidents surrounding the earlier Polish film seem eerily familiar, and eventually trades places with the young girl who's been watching the whole story unfold on her TV. (And that's just the part I understood!)

Of course, I could be totally wrong about all of this -- the Inland Empire could be somewhere in Poland, I'll have to check my atlas -- but it doesn't really matter. In fact, you could come and go at any point during the film, and you would not gain (or lose) any understanding whatsoever. I had to smile when Lynch subtitled the Polish actor's dialogue: what's the point, when nothing they say makes sense in any language? The scenes in Poland actually have a more professional look, making me wish we were watching the filming of THAT movie, instead.

The movie picks up when Nikki gets trapped in a house nicely appointed with Fifties-era furniture, no doubt bought at the "Blue Velvet" garage sale. It is also nicely appointed with young, hot babes -- a halfway house for jilted exes of Justin Theroux's character (or not). They bring some life to this moribund tale: dancing to 'The Lo-co-motion;' showing each other their breasts....it's all good stuff. But soon, Nikki gets trapped in a Southern, white-trash existence, with that same Polish husband, where she gets a house call from -- who else? -- Mary Steenbergen! At this point, I would not have been surprised had she brought Ted Danson with her, wearing a giant rabbit head!

I haven't mentioned the giant talking rabbits, have I? I actually looked forward to seeing these three, dressed in human clothes, on a stage delivering their lines to an appreciative (if easily amused) audience. You know you are watching a BAD David Lynch film when you want to see more of the talking rabbits!

And I haven't even gotten to the WEIRD part! That comes at about the 2-hour, 40-minute mark, when any sane moviegoer with a sense of the preciousness of time would have walked out of the theater. It starts when Nikki walks through another sinister-looking hallway (will she ever learn?) and shoots a guy who we've seen earlier with a light bulb stuck in his mouth.

All credit goes to the fearlessness of Laura Dern--Lynch doesn't ask her to give a performance as much as perform a series of acting exercises (playing a white trash Southerner in one scene, an abused hooker in another, and at the film's climax, vomiting and bleeding to death on the dirty streets of Hollywood & Vine after being stabbed in the stomach with a screwdriver by 'Sabrina' (Ms. Ormond). I guarantee there is no acting school in the world that has taught that scene! FYI: That scene turns out to be part of Jeremy Iron's movie (remember him?), so I'm not spoiling anything. The aforementioned babes turn up as hookers on the same street.

The film ties together nicely at the end...strange for a movie that is complete nonsense for its 179 minute running time, and there is a "sweet" payoff in the last scene that is a must-see for you 'Mulholland' fans: a scene so cheeky and self-referential (involving, as far as I can tell, actors from previous Lynch films, including Natassja Kinski, the lovely Laura Elena Harring, and a babe with a prosthetic leg ... they seem to be everywhere these days, don't they?) that blows away the much-discussed final shot in "The Departed." The final credits reveal that Naomi Watts contributed a 'special vocal performance'... one of the talking rabbits, I suspect... and include a fun, energetic music video, as well (out-of-focus, naturally) that makes you wish the rest of the film had at least half of that spirit and inventiveness.

It speaks to the power of Lynch's vision that the five minutes of brilliance contained in this movie had me exiting the theater -- 'Back to Planet Earth' as one patron said -- thinking "I'm glad I saw that." Now, that is truly fucked-up!!