The Arrival of Wang (2011) Open Roads 2012

I'm kind of screwed in talking about The Arrival of Wang. The problem is that in order to really talk about the film I have to reveal too much. Its not really possible to explain why I feel the way I do with out giving too much away. Then again the picture I'm using, which appears to be the poster, gives away a key plot point.

The story of the film has Gaia, a Chinese translator, being called in on the fly to translate for a government agency in desperate need of her services. They have someone who only speaks Chinese and they need to talk with him NOW. She takes the job and is whisked off blindfolded to a secret location where she begins, at first to translate for a man sitting in darkness.

I like this film. While the set up and the conclusion are a little too pat, the middle section, say the middle 70 minutes of this 80 minute film, crackles and pops as we are drawn along with our heroine into a rabbit hole. Its a killer situation where you can't be sure who is telling the truth and what our heroine should do.

As I said the problem with the film comes at either end of the story. The beginning is a bit too obtuse. Gaia, and we in the audience are left largely in the dark, literally at the start, and it makes understanding the brusqueness of one of the characters hard to understand. At the other end of the film as set up the film can only go one of a couple of ways short of the writers being extremely clever, so when the end does come, its kind of a let down, even if it looks good.

As I said this is a film that I really like, despite the fact that there is much within it that I really love. In a weird way it's a film that comes really close to being one of the great recent science fiction films, but frustratingly stops just short of the mark. That said, this is definitely worth taking a look at if you run across it or if you can get yourself over to Lincoln Center for one of the screenings at Open Roads 2012 either tomorrow evening or on the afternoon of the 13th

Some rambling thoughts on The Legend of Kaspar Hauser (2012) Open Roads 2012

This film needs to play at midnight. It's a whacked out strange film that mixes a techno score, comedy, science fiction, westerns and a few other things that shouldn't go together.

Vincent Gallo is an off the deep end long haired "sheriff" in a cowboy hat who has dance contests with the towns pusher (also Gallo).  Then one day while the sheriff is sitting by the sea Kaspar Hauser (we know his name because it's written on his chest) washes on shore. He's wearing sneakers, sweat pants  and head phones.  As the sheriff tries to teach Hauser how to DJ, the rest of the small community (duchess, priest, hooker...) try to come to terms with everything this new arrival hs kicked up...

Or not.

I'm not sure what I make of this film. Shot in a moody black and white, with a point and shoot style that reminds me of a Bela Tarr film melded with a Midnight Movie sensibility and more than a dash of silliness, this is a film that very much wants to be it's own beast. I'm not sure whether that means we're suppose to take it seriously or go off on it's oddness.

I honestly don't know what to make of it other than I want to compare it to Harmony Korine and early Jim Jarmusch,though both comparisons are ultimately wrong.

I think my feeling for the film is 'yes and?" meaning this is all well and good but after 90 minutes I'm supposed to get what out of this? Perhaps if I had been seeing this at midnight it might have played better. Actually I think what would have played better is that if the film had actually gone somewhere after the first 40 or 45 minutes.  Looking back at my notes i find I was greatly amused and engaged for about half the film, then it just kind of stopped going anywhere.

I should clarify things and say that while I am kind of down on the film, it comes from really liking the first half of the film and disappointment at it not being interesting all the way to the end. I do like the film, I just don't love it, nor do I really understand what the point it other than it being a cosmic goof.

Worth a shot for those who like the off beat, all others need not apply.

The films only screening at Open Roads is tomorrow night at 945.

Cardboard Village (2011) Open Roads 2012

Either we change the course etched on history or history will change us.

A priest (Michael Lonsdale) is in his church...

People pop in and out of the door while he warily prays at the altar. He is waiting for something... The doors open flooding the church with light...a work crew comes in, they push the pews aside as a mechanical lift comes in with men on either side. It's some form of hellish procession...

The priest retreats as the crew, along with another priest (Rutger Hauer), take the cross and the treasures....

The priest throws on his vestments and wanders back into the church beginning a service for no one...

The opening is as beautifully staged a five or ten minute sequence as I've seen on film. Its one of those sequences that you go to the movies to see...

This is the story of a priest fighting to keep his church open despite being slated for demolition.He has been there ever since he was ordained and doesn't want to leave. Through circumstance the church becomes a refuge for outcasts and illegal immigrants looking for a safe haven until they can move on. The priest allows them to stay even as outside forces attempt to interfere.

Deliberately paced with a very heightened sense of the theatrical this film is, in it's way, a truly awesome experience. Its the sort of art that you can only create with a motion picture camera. Where else could you get the opening sequence, or the one with the rain dripping through a stained glass window so it looks as if God were crying?

Possessing a wonderful beyond world weary performance from Michael Lonsdale, this is the sort of old school art film that I used to watch growing up. Its a film that feels as though it belongs to another era even though many of the issues it raises are more to the here and now. However unlike many of those earlier films, this one manages to blend the human story and the ideas that it has kicking around in its head.

I really like this film. Its filled with a nostalgia and a nostalgic style that we don't see in movies any more. You can tell that this is the work of a filmmaker who has been making films for the last 50 years. That's not a slap, rather it's simply to note that its not a film about flash but of people and ideas.

While I don't think the film is perfect, in it's way it is trying to hit too many themes and issues, I think that real flaw is that several of the actors have been dubbed into Italian. Lonsdale and Hauer in particular speak with someone else's voice, badly, dubbed in place of their own. Its distracting and it constantly pulled me out of what was going on on screen.

Definitely worth seeing when this plays Lincoln Center starting Sunday.

Shun Li and the Poet (2011) Open Road 2012

A Chinese woman living in Italy works as a seamstress to pay off the broker her brought her to the country and to save enough money  to bring  her son over. One day her boss tells her he is sending her to a coast town where she will be working behind the counter at a local cafe he just bought. One of her customers is a crusty old Slav, thirty years in Italy, who still hasn't completely assimilated. He's also recently widowed and his son worries about him. Around the bonding pair, we watch the lives of the other fishermen and people who cross through the harbor and the cafe.

Director Andrea Segre's eye as a documentary filmmaker greatly enhances the small moments of life and of the simply beauty of the Italian coast. This is a film that bristles with life for much of it's running time showing us the joy of friendship, of simple things like walking in water or seeing a new world for the first time. Its a feeling that is greatly enhanced by the wonderful cast especially by Tao Zhao as Shun Li and Rade Serbedzija as Bepi, the Poet of the title.

If there is a flaw in the film it's that in the final third of the film things get a tad dark as gossip forces the pair to be separated and the film drives to a too obvious conclusion. While it doesn't kill the film it does keep what is a great film in the first hour merely good in the end.

Reservations aside it's definitely worth your time and the effort to see this when the film screens Saturday afternoon at Lincoln Center.

La-Bas: A Criminal Education (2011) Open Roads 2012

La Bas is screening on June 10th as part of Lincoln Center's Open Road series of new Italian Cinema

Yusouf, is an artist from Africa. He travels to Italy to find his uncle. His uncle has said that if he gets there he may have a job for him. Falling in with other Africans, he has difficulty finding his uncle. Eventually he makes contact and finds himself drawn into various legal and illegal enterprises. Complications soon begin to arise with a woman, cops and lots of bad guys.

This is a good look at how good people can get sucked into bad things. It's a cautionary tale that warns us that sometimes what we think will be a new happy world won't be. Its also a peek into a world most of us will never know.

I like the film, but I'm not crazy for it. Its a tale that I've seen in variations before over the year, though to be honest perhaps with a tad less urgency. Its also a tale that is connected in many ways to the excellent film Gommorrah with it's depiction of the Commora, who are very much a nasty part of this story.

I think I should warn you by saying this is neither an action packed film nor a heavy crime film. While both of those elements are here, crime in particular, the film plays as a Yusouf's journey into the lion's den.

Diaz:Don't Clean Up This Blood (2012) Open Roads 2012

Heart on it's sleeve look at the chaos the occurred in 2001 when protesters clashed with police in Genoa during the G8 conference months before the world changed on 9/11. The film's title comes from the name of the school where the protesters were headquartered and that the police stormed in what amounted to a massacre.The school name is combined with a message left by one of the survivors. Taking the multi-character approach the film follows various characters, protesters, police, officials, people in the street and shows us what transpired one terrible night in Genoa...and in the jails and hospitals afterward as the abuse continued.

This is a brutal nasty look at a moment when official cruelty and violence was completely unleashed. I warn you the film is not for the squeamish. believe me, when the the police wade into the school it's as ugly an sequence as you've ever seen on film. Your hair will remain curled as you watch as the terrible treatment continued when people were brought to jail and hospital.

In many ways this is a must see film... in others I wish it were better. It's not that it's a bad film, it's not. It's just that on some level the film never completely pulled me into it.

On the must see level the film is a chilling chronicle of what happened 11 years ago. Its a film that clearly shows what unchecked police powers can lead to. It's a cautionary tale that everyone should be aware of since you never know when something horrible like this will happen again. While it may be some consolation that some of the people involved in the violence have been charged the cases are still pending in the courts with some charges potentially going to go the way of the wind when time runs. You will be horrified.

On the down side the film is too big a tale for such a compact telling. There are so many characters and there is so much going on as the film jumps backward and forward through time that it becomes hard to know who is who and what is what. Worse the film is so strident in it's need to tell you what its showing you is bad everything feels screamed at you instead of being told to you.

Police are bad, protesters are good. This was a horrible thing that happened. Yes I know that but what lead up to this? Why did this happen? Some answers are given, but while they are probably on target they also seem to be told so quickly and so shrilly shouted(in a manner of speaking) that I never felt I knew enough. In away it's like watching TV news footage of the event with only slightly more background then we'd get from a TV news anchor.

Again I don't hate or dislike the film, I just really wanted it to be better.

Definitely worth seeing,especially if you want to feel outrage.

Screening Friday at 9PM at Lincoln Center.