ELENA

ELENA

Dir: Andrei Zvyagintsev

In Russian with subtitles

**WINNER: Best Narrative Feature: Sarasota Film Festival**

It is always great to see a movie that takes place in 'modern' Russia. We rarely get to see how actual Russians live: this movie provides a glimpse into the world of both the wealthy (the lead couple live in a 'mod' apartment complex in Moscow) and the down-and-out (one family lives in a nondescript apartment block literally in the shadow of a nuclear plant).


That both of these worlds intersect is the crux of this brooding, artsy film. To steal the synopsis from IMDB: "Elena and Vladimir are an older couple, they come from different backgrounds. Vladimir is a wealthy and cold man, Elena comes from a modest milieu and is a docile wife. They have met late in life and each one has children from previous marriages. Elena's son is unemployed, unable to support his own family and he is constantly asking Elena for money. Vladimir's daughter is a careless young woman who has a distant relationship with her father."


Distant is putting it mildly: she's a cold-hearted be-yotch (that's the Russian spelling), even after she finds out her father has had a heart-attack and is in the hospital. But this movie is all about long-suffering Elena -- the second wife who acts more like a domestic servant. Her relationship with her no-good son and his family (living in the aforementioned squalor, while bleeding Elena of every dollar she can squeeze out of her spendthrift hubby) drives the plot.


The wordless opening scenes show Elena's morning routine (you'll be forgiven for mistaking her for the maid): she gets out of her single bed, heats water for the coffee, fixes breakfast, wakes her husband (they have separate bedrooms), opens his curtains. If all this sounds tedious, it is -- but that is the point! 


To say that director Zvyagintsev shows great attention to detail may be stating the obvious: the entire film is composed of these details. [His first film, The Return, I did not see.] He is more interested in showing Elena putting away the groceries (another facet of Russian life we don't often see) than he is depicting the more dramatic moment when she finds out her husband suffered a heart attack at the gym (he cuts from the grocery  scene just as the phone rings!).


This technique can be frustrating, but it has a purpose. The mundane makes the later revelations in the movie all the more shocking. (For one thing, we later learn that this couple has only been married two years, yet they act like an old, married couple). 


To say the film's soundtrack is the best part of the movie is NOT damning it with faint praise: 1) you can say the same thing about many a Hitchcock classic; 2) dominated as it is by Phillip Glass' edgy Symphony No. 3, it provides a suspenseful counterpoint to the matter-of-fact action/non-action on the screen. 


Elena's other family provides the grit and the violence we have come to expect from Russian cinema, but even those scenes are compelling. The visual style is pure Hitchcock as well -- just take a look at the movie poster: ELENA proves that birds are as potent a portent as any symbol that's glided across the silver screen.

The Turin Horse

If I told you I just watched a two-and-a-half hour, black & white Hungarian movie about nothing less than the cosmic futility of existence, your first thought might be: "Why?" and your second thought might be: "And I'll bet you LIKED it!" My response to both thoughts would be the same: "EXACTLY!"

The film in question is Bela Tarr's latest (and apparently last) feature "The Turin Horse" -- Hungary's entry in last year's Foreign Film Oscar, it is much too severe to have made the final five nominees, but it is a fitting coda to this director's difficult oeuvre (I love that word). The jumping-off point is an incident in 1889 Turin involving the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche after he witnessed a pack horse being severely beaten. After throwing his arms around the horse's neck to protect it, he had a mental collapse from which he never recovered. What happened to the horse? The film posits that he ended up in the employ of a Hungarian peasant and his daughter, infecting them with the same existential dread that Nietzsche suffered.

Unconcerned with this unlikely scenario, Tarr's film opens by following the horse through a windswept landscape in one long, seemless take. Over the next six days we follow the routine of these two poor souls in excruciating detail: the camera becomes a character itself, as it follows the daughter to the well every morning, then as she helps her invalid father get dressed, then to the barn (you get the idea). Meals consist of one boiled potato, eaten with their hands, with only salt to flavor it. It's no wonder their only diversion is to take turns looking out the window. (If you've ever wondered how 19th Century Hungarian peasants spent their day, this movie is for you!).

If all this sounds like heavy going, it is. Despite the tedium, the rare interruptions of this solitude (by a narrator, a cart full of gypsies, and a loquacious neighbor) seem out of place and pointless. When the titular horse stops eating and refuses the bit, you expect the worst (and you get it). This is supposed to be a positive review, so let me say the score (repetitive, mournful strings) is riveting. The sound design (incessant wind) is captivating. And I have not seen black and white images this stark and beautiful since Ingmar Bergman's early work.

Review of Your Sister's Sister

Rarely have I reviewed a movie before the New York Times review appears, so I am re-posting this one:

"Your Sister's Sister" 

(USA. D: Lynn Shelton)

A likable cast heads this indie romantic comedy that is edgy enough to hold your interest throughout, despite its somewhat meandering tone. The titular character, Hannah, the lesbian sister of Iris (Emily Blunt), is played winningly by Rosemarie Dewitt, last seen as Anne Hathaway's sis in "Rachel Getting Married." [Her sexiest role was when she played against type as Don Draper's Manhattan mistress in season one of "Mad Men."]


Hannah, recovering from a recent break-up, unwittingly comes between her sister and her sister's male friend in a cabin they are forced to share (again, unwittingly), somewhere in the woods of Washington State. [Reviews of all romantic comedies have to use the term unwittingly at least twice.] Emily Blunt shows up un--expectedly, and comedy ensues. The male lead is played by indie star Mark Duplass -- I'm not convinced he's male lead material, but he is a decent enough actor (perhaps better suited to playing a wacko in the upcoming indie hit "Safety Not Guaranteed").


The movie is essentially a three-character piece, and all three actors play off each other well. Despite the grainy cinematography and iffy sound that distinguish most indie films from their slick studio counterparts, the witty script and lively direction are miles beyond the standard Hollywood 'rom-com.' Keep an eye out for this movie and for director Lynn Shelton. 

She's easy on the eyes, too (like her two female leads).

NEWS: JC to prepare for Broadway debut in September

Jessica Chastain talks about "The Heiress" at the TONY Awards

I will have my flight booked for an October 7th premiere (see how this anonymous Hollywood Reporter tries to jinx poor Jessica at the end).  Also starring David Straithairn and Dan Stevens -- for all you Downton Abbey fanatics, he plays heartthrob Matthew Crawley.

Jessica Chastain is a great actress with chameleon-like prowess and enormous emotional intelligence; I think she's one of the best actresses of her generation. I'm thrilled to be  working with her on "The Heiress." 

- - Moisés Kaufman

CORIOLANUS reviewed

CORIOLANUS

Directed by Ralph Fiennes

with Jessica Chastain as Virgilia

It pains me to write this, but I finally saw a Jessica Chastain movie I wasn't completely enamoured with!  Lest you think this is due to her limited screen time as the hero's devoted wife Virgilia, I am a big fan of both William Shakespeare and Ralph Fiennes, so something else is afoot ... (methinks). 

A 'problem play'

Sh's second to last play is a difficult one to adapt under any circumstances -- the characters are one-dimensional and unlikeable, the story lacks any of the complexity of human character that mark his greatest tragedies. Nor does it offer modern-day viewers any of the over-the-top madness of Titus Andronicus (effectively adpated for the screen by Julie Taymor in 1999). This is no actor's vanity project, either. Fiennes shows real talent directing his actors and using the language of film to convey a story.


Fiennes updates the action in the play to a nameless, battle-scarred European country, complete with 24-hour CNN-style news channel providing the necessary, if dry, explanation of enemies and troop movements (a clever device that Fiennes overuses). To compensate for the drier aspects of the plot, Fiennes devotes a large amount of screen time to the warfare itself. This treatment owes an obvious debt to the time Fiennes spent on the set of The Hurt Locker, shooting his memorable cameo in that film. The scenes of urban warfare that earn the title character, Caius Martius, a new moniker ("Coriolanus" after the city he captured) and the opportunity to rule Rome, are bloody, tense, and belong in another movie!  


These wordless 'action scenes' may serve to open-up the story beyond the confines of the stage, but you cannot watch Shakespeare without thinking "maybe he had another reason for conveying the action with a few choice lines of dialogue instead." I found myself impatiently waiting out these unnecessary scenes, for I knew the real action was back in Rome.

The citizens of Rome are a fickle lot

Boy, are they! They change allegiances faster than Republicans choosing a Presidential nominee. And like all Shakespearean rabble, it doesn't take much to sway them. Coriolanus' refusal to curry favor with them or the Roman Senate doom him. The Roman tribunes (here they look like British members of Parliament) are similarly malleable, and are responsible for Coriolanus' exile from Rome.  


It is at this point when the movie finally takes off, on the wings of the Bard's brilliant command of the English language. The monologues of Coriolanus and his willful mother Volumnia are priceless when delivered by outstanding Shakespearean actors like Fiennes and Vanessa Redgrave. Their performances make this movie a must-see for Shakespeareans and provides a satisfying payoff at the bloody end of this 122-minute saga. 


It is a shame the character of Virgilia wasn't given a similar scene.  Poor Jessica Chastain is reduced to standing around looking pretty, and shedding the occasional tear (rolling it down her flawless, porcelain cheek on cue!). She performs both duties exquisitely. Let's hope Fiennes remembers her the next time he directs Shakespeare (he has too much talent not to try again): she would make a lovely Ophelia.

Britt Marling = Sundance Sweetheart

Move over, Parker Posey, there's a new It Girl on the Independent Film scene, and her name is BRITT MARLING. 

Considering where she got her start -- as a Econ major at Georgetown (a major near and dear to foreignfilmguy's heart) -- the lovely Ms. Marling has captured the attention of the parka-wearing set at Park City in a remarkably short time, with TWO films to her credit premiering in the same year: 2011's sci-fi "Another Earth" was well-received and nominated for two Independent Spirit awards (Best First Feature and Best First Screenplay). 


The second film she both starred in and penned, "Sound of My Voice" (in wider release in 2012) is sure to garner the same accolades (Well, not exactly the same, since she's already written her first screenplay). But there is no doubt she is destined for stardom, propelling the film as the mesmerizing leader of a bizarre cult whose motivations are never fully explained. As you can see from the pictures, her movie star good looks go a long way to sell the notion of this mysterious stranger leading a group of devout followers from a basement in southern California.


The screenplay, sadly, takes a nose-dive after setting-up a compelling story about a couple (the very good Christopher Denham and Nicole Vicius) who infiltrate the cult in an effort to expose it. Another indie, last year's "Martha Marcy May Marlene" is both more nuanced and effective at depicting a cult's simultaneous allure and danger. But much like Darren Aronofsky's first effort, Pi, the brilliance is in the set-up -- outweighing the drawbacks of a hasty, poorly thought-out conclusion, and offering the promise of better things to come.

You-know-who's triumphant return to Cannes

(The lovely) Jessica Chastain continues her red carpet domination at the Cannes Film Festival by attending the Lawless premiere (one night after the Madagascar 3 premiere). One challenge with viewing the much-buzzed about Lawless -- Chastain has a very prominent nude scene which she will have to watch with hundreds of other viewers at the film's premiere. "It's going to be interesting to see this film in a huge theater," says Chastain, speaking at the Euphoria-Calvin Klein party on Thursday night. "Because I am, you know, more exposed." 

"It will be totally embarrassing," she adds, breaking into peels of giggles. "I am going to be bright red. I'll have to cover my eyes during that scene."

Chastain said a controversy about the lack of female directors in the line-up for the Palme d'Or was pointless. "I think it's silly," she told AFP in an interview. "I think a film should be judged on the film and not on the sex of the person who directed the film." 
>>Tell it like it is, JC! (ffg)


(More than a thousand women film-makers and others have signed a US petition in support of French feminists protesting the lack of female directors in the line-up for the Palme d'Or top prize at Cannes. There are no female film-makers among the 22 competing for the Palme, which will be awarded on May 27, and just two among the 17 in its new talent section).


This headline got my attention:

Cannes 2012: Jane Fonda, Jessica Chastain, Naomi Watts Vie for Top Gown at 'Madagascar 3' Premiere 

Best & Worst in the same week

I saw two movies this week that run the gamut from art to pointless waste of film. Reviewing chronologically, I'll start with the latter.

Damsels in Distress

Dir: Whit Stillman

I always had pleasant memories of Whit Stillman's 1990s films (while I've always thought his debut film "Metropolitan" (1990) far superior to his 1998 follow-up "The Last Days of Disco," in between he created a gem with 1994's "Barcelona"). He has inexplicably waited 14 years to direct again, and his talents as a writer-director have plummeted precipitously, judging from the vehicle he chose to make his comeback: "Damsels in Distress" is dreadful on so many levels, it will be hard to list them all. 

All attempts at wit, humor and pseudo-intelligence that Stillman crams into his script fall flat, like lead. I suspect he dusted off a screenplay he wrote BEFORE his breakthrough hit, and refused to change a word of it! (A sadder alternative is that he has been living  in a bubble for the past 20 years, and has no idea how young people think, act or talk nowadays). Of course his fans will say this is all a deliberate exaggeration, you know for comedic effect! The best comeback to that argument? It's not in the least bit funny. Released on the heels of HBO's new series, the anti-'Sex & the City' for Generation Y, "Girls", this movie feels even more dated and out-of-touch.

Nothing in this film has the slightest connection to reality (anyone's reality). The male students who inhabit this college come straight out of 'Animal House'--but with less wit and intelligence (you read that right). The female students speak like only a middle-aged white patrician would imagine a liberal arts major would speak -- circa 1950, perhaps (but I doubt even then).

I prefer to remember the good times!

The lead damsel, poor Greta Gerwig ("Greenberg"), is fast-earning a reputation for doing nice work in utterly unwatchable movies (let's hope her next one, "Lola Versus," fares better). The other young actors, all attractive and intelligent, make the most of the very little they have to work with.

The movie has two minor things to recommend it: 1) one character is a practicing Cathar, that 13th century Christian sect in the south of France that was persecuted out of existence by the Inquisition (it's about time they had a revival!); and 2) the incongruous song-and-dance number at the very end of this disaster is refreshing, given the overall inanity of the rest of the film. But even that moment recalls a similar scene in a much better movie: "500 Days of Summer," which has 10 times the wit, humor and intelligence that Damsels so obviously strives to achieve, AND it has a better song-and-dance sequence!

The Deep Blue Sea

Dir: Terence Davies

Speaking of incorporating song (and music) into a film, no one does it with more artistry than the British director Terence Davies who, like Stillman, has waited over a decade between feature films, but in this case, his absence only makes us miss and appreciate his undiminished talents. Davies has always had a very narrow focus. His films ("Distant Voices, Still Lives" (1988); "The Long Day Closes" (1992)) are quiet reminiscences of a time long past: Britain during and just after the War. To call them nostalgic would be damning with faint praise: his films are reverent meditations on the specific past of their creator. For his latest, he chooses material that nicely fits into his ouevre: Terrence Rattigan's 1950 stage play "The Deep Blue Sea." 

The opening title tips you off that you are watching a play: "Around 1950" (film is too concrete a medium to fudge on time like that). Then for the next five uninterrupted minutes the movie wordlessly takes you under its spell, as the strains of Samuel Barber's Violin Concerto sweeps you back in time to homes heated by gas (only after you inserted a shilling into the meter), without phones or television, as the camera lingers over furniture, pictures, and finally, Rachel Weisz's lovely bare legs. The story takes off from there, but Davies' gift is in keeping his audience in his world for the next two hours, so much so that you can hear the crack of the fire, every squeak in the  floorboards, and can almost smell the old-fashioned gas furnace and the mixture of smoke and beer in the pubs.

The story, costumes and staging evoke David Lean's "Brief Encounter" -- a classic of the time period depicted here (1945), and a personal favorite of mine. The film's finest moments involve the music of the era (remarkably, some of the most emotional scenes have no dialogue): patrons in a pub sing along to "You Belong to Me"; Londoners wait out an air raid in the Underground during the Blitz while singing the haunting Irish traditional "Molly Malone." This is pitch-perfect filmmaking.

Ms. Weisz truly inhabits the depressive main character, Hester Collyer. You are willing to follow her downward spiral from bored wife to neglected lover because you can't take your eyes off of her. Her male counterparts are both fine -- Tom Hiddleston as Freddie and (especially) Simon Russell Beale as her spurned husband.

True, Davies cannot entirely overcome the play's inherent staginess: it does gets talky in the second half, and it is rather depressing throughout. But before it sinks too deep, Barber's majestic music brings the story to an emotional and uplifting close. Even during the closing credits, I was treated to Eddie Fisher's "Anytime" (I'm sure my mother knew that song) while I learned that the Barber recording used in the film was the same recording I've been listening to all these years: Hilary Hahn's excellent version with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, which the lovely Ms. Hahn autographed for me at the Kennedy Center on March 27, 2003. No wonder I have an emotional attachment to that piece! 

Dispatches from the wild Sarasota Film Festival

Wildlife spotted at the CINEMA TROPICALE PARTY, Sarasota Yacht Club 

What little I had heard of the Sarasota Film Festival centered on the quality and abundance of its associated parties, so that was enough motivation for me to fly off to Florida for the final weekend of the 2012 Fest! I did not leave disappointed (in either the quality of the films or the parties). The SFF team runs an organized and professional two-week festival, in large part due to a large cadre of volunteers who, unlike many festivals I have attended (DC FF), actually know what they are doing! Many screenings sell out, and like all good festivals, the air is filled with buzz about which films to see and which to avoid. I love the camaraderie of strangers with a shared passion. And these festival-goers were passionate!

The lovely actress JENA MALONE ("Donnie Darko") graciously posed for a picture (she was there to promote her new feature "In Our Nature")

Of the six films I packed into four days -- if I had been serious, I could have squeezed in nine or 10 -- I would definitely recommend four of them. Here is the rundown (in order of preference):


1. "Under African Skies" (USA. D: Joe Berlinger) - I may be biased since I was a fan of Paul Simon's "Graceland" album from the beginning (way back in 1986!). The ostensible occasion for this 25-year retrospective of that ground-breaking and controversial album is Simon's return trip to South Africa in 2011 for a one-show reunion with many of the musicians who appeared on the album and tour. We see little of the actual concert, but that doesn't matter since Berlinger has filled all 108 minutes with footage and recordings from the original source. He and Simon do a masterful job explaining how each song was constructed using the rhythms and sounds of many native musicians, while collaborating with them to create entirely new music. 


The controversy surrounding Simon's breaking the cultural boycott during apartheid, as well as the criticism he received for 'stealing' their music, all seems rather ridiculous in hindsight, now that the album is regarded as one of Simon's best. This doc is a rare treat for fans (the sold out crowd I saw it with rhythmically clapped during the closing credits!) and I imagine will hold interest for music lovers of all stripes.

2. "Your Sister's Sister" (USA. D: Lynn Shelton) - a likable cast heads this indie romantic comedy that is edgy enough to hold one's interest throughout. The titular character, the lesbian sister of Emily Blunt's character, is played winningly by Rosemarie Dewitt, last seen as Anne Hathaway's sis in "Rachel Getting Married." She unwittingly comes between her sister and her male friend in a cabin they share, somewhere in Washington State. The male lead is played by indie star Mark Duplass -- I'm not convinced he's male lead material, but he is a decent enough actor. The script and direction are witty and lively: keep an eye out for this movie and for director Lynn Shelton.  

3. "Leave Me Like You Found Me" (USA. D: Adele (pronounced a-DAY-la) Romanski) - Film Festivals were created to showcase films like this one: and Independent, low budget, cast of unknowns, filmed during a 14-day camping trip in Sequoia National Forest, and without the Park's permission! (The Q&A with the director informs this review.) To the film's credit, you wouldn't necessarily know any of this by what's on screen: the script is intelligent and perceptive (following a young couple as they take the initial steps to getting back together after a one-year break-up); the acting is solid, especially by Megan Boone (a Kristen Stewart look-alike); and I didn't notice any drop off in production values. Accepting the confines of the story (the film is essentially two people talking, arguing, making up, repeat), I was pleasantly surprised that I enjoyed it so much.


4. "Impardonnables/Unforgiveable" (FRANCE. D: Andre Techine) - Of all the films I saw, this had the highest pedigree: noted French director ("Wild Reeds"); accomplished cast, led by the ageless Carole Bouquet (former Bond girl); beautiful setting (Venice!). The trouble is, the story is so dark, the character's actions so selfish and hurtful, it is hard for even a Francophile like myself to wrap my arms around this one. The acting is first rate, however.

Of course, I have to mention the other two films I sat through. 

5. Regrettably, "Dancing on a Volcano" was an inartful, by-the-book documentary that relies on only three interview subjects and a suitcase full of old photos (slowly panned, of course) and stock footage of Nazis to tell a truly remarkable story of survival of two Jewish sisters in WWII Austria. The film lacks both style and historical context -- it is as if the filmmakers had never heard of Ken Burns. A compelling film could have been made from this material, but instead the story gets the standard History Channel treatment, complete with a ponderous narrator and incessant, maudlin music (but at least we were spared the endless info-mercials).

6. "The Loneliest Planet" should have been titled "Worst Camping Trip -- EVER!" It certainly felt like the longest camping trip ever endured. Director (I use that term loosely) Julia Loktev obviously threw her three actors together, dropped them into the stunning scenery of the Caucasus Mountains of Georgia, and told them to 'improvise.' A director with a clear vision, something to SAY, and the trust of her actors might be able to get away with this method. Ms. Loktev has none of these, so she fails miserably. 

Scenes meander pointlessly while the actors (led by the fine Mexican actor Gael-Garcia Bernal) gamely try to create something out of nothing. To separate these so-called 'dialogue' scenes, Loktev uses the tiredest of cinematic devices to convey the characters' state of mind: a stationary camera shoots a vast landscape, as we watch three minute figures travel across it, from one end of the screen to the other, over and over again! The entire film reeks of pretension, but it is an empty vessel. 

Anyone who is familiar with the work of noted Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky will appreciate this comparison: imagine sitting through all 3-hours of his 1979 film "Stalker" (which consists of long takes of three men hiking through a primeval forest) and then strip the film of any intelligence, artistry, feeling, and mystery -- what are you left with? Three hikers with nothing to say. That is indeed the loneliest planet. 

Goethe! now showing at Sundance Houston

I'll bet when you had to read "Faust" in your college survey of European literature, you didn't realize that its author -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe -- led as adventurous an early life as the young William Shakespeare depicted in "Shakespeare In Love." If you did, you should be writing scripts for the movies! For that is the premise of a charming new film from Germany, very loosely-based on the early life of the great Germanic poet/author/color theorist that recently opened Stateside. If the parallels to the previous Oscar-winner aren't blatant enough, the American distributor wants to make it perfectly clear, by changing the name from the German title "Goethe!" to "Young Goethe in Love." (clever!)


Despite the obvious debt to the previous film, Philipp Stolzl's film works for many of the same reasons: It is fast-paced, witty, well-acted by an attractive young cast (led by Alexander Fehling from "Inglourious Basterds" in the title role), and it's FUN! The story follows the young Goethe's apprenticeship in a law court in a 'backwater' German town, where he falls in love with a sensitive (she sings in the church choir), redheaded beauty named Charlotte (a fresh-faced Miriam Stein). Of course, it doesn't end well, or the world wouldn't have Goethe's first blockbuster novel, "The Sorrows of Young Werther," written in a love-sick frenzy from a jail cell (or so this film would have you believe). I'm sure any similarity to the early days of the historical Goethe are purely coincidental, but it cannot be any more fictionalized than the Bard's story. I don't mind the dramatic license taken by either film, because they both entertain. It's about time this German literary great got the Amadeus-Shakespeare treatment on the big screen.