ROSE (2026) NYFF 2026

Sandra Hüller is the reason to see ROSE, the story of a woman who has been masquerading as man. Returning home from over a decade in the army she claims her inheritance, a run down farm. At first she is viewed as an outsider, until she steps up and kills a bear that had terrorized the community. Everyone was also amazed at how she got the farm functioning again. However things begin to go sideways as she takes steps to get further into the community and marries.

Shot in a moody black and white that makes everything look like a cloudy day, ROSE is pretty much what you expect from the film from looking at the clips and trailers. Its a film that is a throw back to the Eastern European art house cinema of the 1960's and 70's.  That's not a knock but more a statement of what you are going to see.

I liked the film but it didn't do anything unexpected.

On the other hand Sandra Huller is stellar as always and is the reason to see the film. She gives a performance which has rightly won awards. See ROSE for her.

bluish (2024) NYFF 2024

Moments in the lives of two women in Austria.

Yes, the film is literally moments in the lives of two young women. There is just moments. That's it.  It's a film where members of the audience can read anything they want to into the material because there really isn't connecting material just moments...

...in bluish rooms or having blue in the shot (say nail polish).

I know some people love this sort  of art house film. Me I'd rather just curl up in my bed and sleep.

For art house fans only.

Liz Whittemore on DEVIL'S BATH (2024) Tribeca 2024

This piece was originally published at Liz's regular home REEL NEWS DAILY

Goodnight Mommy filmmakers Severin Fiala and Veronika Franz‘s latest film, The Devil’s Bath, opens with a positively gruesome scene. Based on historical research, it is a story that begins with infanticide, tackles mental health and religion, and is a haunting narrative you won’t see coming. Tribeca 2024 audiences are not ready. Anja Plaschg delivers a flawless performance. Her descent into despair is heartbreaking, but it is the eventual madness that devastates the audience. The Devil’s Bath is a deliberately paced, push and pull between tradition and ignorance, cultural expectations, and desperation. It is a deep dive into female depression and the historic gaslighting through our cries for help. Boasting a cyclical finale that will appall you, Shudder has another deeply dark notch in its belt.

Mother Superior (2022) Fantaspoa 2023

A young woman take a job as a nurse working for a rich countess, She hopes that the woman will be able to help her get information on her parents. As the questions begin to be answered magic is performed and things begin to take a dark turn.

Marie Alice Wolfszahn​ first film is a stylistic tour de force. It’s a beautifully made film that sucks us in with it’s mix of technical wizardry and nicely drawn characters. It’s a super creepy film that for the most part works like gangbusters.

The only problem for me is the ending which is much too cliché. Its unremarkable nature is made worse because Wolfzahn has otherwise created one of the most enjoyable horror films in ages.

This is truly a small gem of a film and not only will you be watching it repeatedly you will also be jonsing for Marie Alice Wolfszahn​'s next outing.

Recommended.

MOTHER SUPERIOR (2022) Brooklyn Horror 2022

A young woman take a job as a nurse working for a rich countess, She hopes that the woman will be able to help her get information on her parents. As the questions begin to be answered magic is performed and things begin to take a dark turn.

Marie Alice Wolfszahn​ first film is a stylistic tour de force. It’s a beautifully made film that sucks us in with it’s mix of technical wizardry and nicely drawn characters. It’s a super creepy film that for the most part works like gangbusters.

The only problem for me is the ending which is much too cliché. Its unremarkable nature is made worse because Wolfzahn has otherwise created one of the most enjoyable horror films in ages.

This is truly a small gem of a film and not only will you be watching it repeatedly you will also be jonsing for Marie Alice Wolfszahn​'s next outing.

Recommended.

Family Dinner (2022) Tribeca 2022

Simi is a young woman who is concerned about her weight. She goes to visit her aunt around Easter. Her Aunt is nutritionist, and she begins to help her with her weight problems. However things aren't smooth. Her cousin has aggression issues and there are questions if she should stay for Easter.

This film has mood to burn. Director Peter Hengl has made a creepy unnerving film that grabs you from the first frame and holds you staring blankly at the screen waiting for something terrible to happen. This is one of the best made horror films I've seen in a while. Its so creepy that I don't want to look at some of the stills from the film since they make my skin crawl.

For the most part this is a solid entry into the folk horror sub-genre.

I'm not going to go into details  but I do want to say that as good as a director Hengl is his plotting isn't quite what it should be. While he has made a compelling film the tension kind of dissipates at a certain point when you realize into which territory is heading. While we may not get how it ends the film signals a bit too early what some of the twists are going to be.

Reservations aside I like the film and horror fans are going to eat it up.

Lillian (2019) Slamdance 2020

Playing like a mix between Agnes Varda’s VAGABOND and the under appreciated KUMIKO THE TREASURE HUNTER, LILLIAN is the story of a young Russian woman who finds herself stranded in New York she decides to go home by walking back to Moscow.(It is based on an incident that happened in the 1920's)

Absolutely beautiful to look at film is a portrait of the backwaters of America as Lillian travels across the country getting by whatever means she can manage either by making friends, stealing clothes and food, sleeping in cars or abandoned houses. It is a largely solitary existence that mixes beauty with desperation. It is an almost wordless journey

To be honest I honestly don’t know what to make of this film. As I said at the top this film reminds me of several other films. While there is absolutely nothing really wrong with it, especially if you take it on its own terms, ultimately I was left feeling as though I had wasted a couple hours of my time because I don’t know what I am supposed to get out of this film. Where Varda’s film raised issues of self-sufficiency, a woman’s place in society and life in general, and where KUMIKO showed us the folly of obsession, LILLIAN simply doesn’t seem to have a point, or one that requires two plus hours of screen time. Yes, the film has things to say about America and how outsiders perceive it but at the same time I’m not sure it adds up to very much.

A beautiful film but nothing more.

Percht (2019) Chain Film Festival 2019

Two travelers end up in a bar on a night when the men of a village dress up as Krampus and go through the village looking to scare children. The pair ends up in a drinking game with one of the revelers and things take a turn…

Good drama/thriller that is kind of hard to discuss without spoiling anything since the whole film hinges on the end bits which color what went before.

I can say the film is fantastically acted and gorgeously shot. All hings considered, the technical aspects and the storytelling, make me chomping at the bit to see what the director could do with a feature, especially something similar to this winning little confection

For tickets and ore information go here

Back to the Fatherland (2019)

Filmmakers Kat Rohrer and Gil Levanon became friends during their time at college in New York City. Gil comes from Israel, Kat from Austria. Their families' history is strikingly different. Gil is the granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor, Kat is one of a Nazi officer. In the wake of Gil deciding that in order to better herself financially she has to move to Germany, the pair decide to examine how personal memory and the memory of their countries and cultures deal with tragic events in the past and shape the future.

In a time where some deranged people are looking to the past to find a beacon of hope and way to the future and deciding that that Nazi's might have been right, BACK TO THE FATHERLAND offers us a heady discussion about how we should look at the past. Have we moved far enough forward that we can return to a place that caused do much pain? Additionally how are we deal the fact that antisemitism and xenophobia are on the rise and that moving back may very well be putting some people in danger.

It's a great deal to process and the film deftly handles the conundrum thanks to both Kat and Gil being excellent tour guides as well as their keeping the discussions centered on people who can put the problems and possible solutions into  compelling words.

A solid film.

BACK TO THE FATHERLAND opens in theaters in NYC Friday.

To The Night (2019) What The ...Festival 2019

In To The Night Caleb Landry Jones is an artist obsessed by the death of his parents years earlier in a fire. A complete and total mess he begins to disconnect from reality causing troubles with everyone around him especially his wife and new born child. It also sets him on the path to his own destruction…

Dark moody film more concerned with recreating Landry’s headspace than being a straight forward narrative, To The Night is going challenge its audience to like it’s hero. Occasionally normal and loving but more often bat shit crazy and struggling to hold on to a normal mind set, Landry’s character tests and tries our willingness to not only go into his head but like him. His behavior is at times tough to take.

Equally tough to take is the film itself which gives the audience no quarter. You either belt in and go where this film is taking you or you don’t. I belted in and took the ride but I’m not sure it’s worth the ride. Like our hero’s art this is a film that challenges you to confront it and what it is showing you. The trouble is that instead of looking at an installation for short amount of time To The Night is almost two hours of punishing head space. While I don’t mind walking around with someone else’s thoughts in my brain now and again, I need a reason to do so. I’m not sure To The Night gives us a reason. Personally I think this is two hour attempt to provoke us into feeling but with no real reason for it beyond it being able to do so.

Honestly while I made it to the end of the film with its uncertain final images, I was lost to it about a quarter of the way in. This was form over substance in the most pretentious way. I kept watching the film hoping that somehow the film would snap together to mean something or give me insight instead of just watching Jones give an Oscar worthy performance in film that just sets him adrift.

While I know that some people love the film, hence it’s appearance at multiple film festivals, I don’t think the vast majority of film goers, even those who love the off beat and weird, will ever respond to it. Frankly it’s too artsy fartsy in the wrong sort of way.

Not recommended for any reason other than Caleb Landry Jones’s stellar performance (and even then I’d take a pass)

The Waldheim Waltz (2018) NYFF 2018

A look back at the undoing of former secretary General of the United Nations Kurt Waldheim when he ran for leadership of Austria. Though narration and film and video from the campaign we watch as Waldheim's Nazi past came back to haunt him.

I am very mixed about THE WALDHEIM WALTZ. While I went in very interested in the subject and while I was very attentive for a bout half the running time, my interest began to wane as I realized that the exclusive use of archival footage wasn't going to give me any grand new insight. I remember following the story when it was transpiring so I saw some of the footage and heard a good number of the arguments Waldheim used to keep his head above water. For me there wasn't a great deal new here.

On the other hand in light of recent political happenings in the US, particularly the confirmation of Brett Kavenaugh as member of the Supreme Court it becomes clear that our pasts will never stop haunting us and that our misdeeds will cost us. One can see the parallels in that the old Nazi said he wasn't there and it's not what you think in the denials by Kavenaugh in that he wasn't there and it wasn't what you think.For me the interest in the film returned as I saw the two stories echoed. Hopefully we will see the parallels play out to the end with the Supreme Court Justice meeting a similar ignoble end.

Worth a look if you don't know what exactly happened or want to see why this story has relevance in todays world.

INTRODUZIONE ALL’OSCURO (2018) NYFF 2018

With INTRODUZIONE ALL’OSCURO director Gastón Solnicki becomes one of my favorite filmmakers. Like his previous film, Kékszakállú which played the New York Film Festival two years ago, Solnicki has made a film that requires you to take a step back and ponder not only the subject, in this case his friend Hans Hurch but also the nature of film itself.

When Solnicki learned of his friends death  he traveled to Europe to visit all of the places and things that meant something to him.  Adding in recording of Hurch's voice the film becomes something other than a typical biography. This is not a catalog of events, but an attempt to kind of recreate the feeling one got from being with the person. Yes a person did certain things but what we remember as friends are not the things but the sensations we got from them,say from just seeing their handwriting or going to a place they loved. Hurch was something much much more to Solnicki than events and as a result with INTRODUZIONE ALL’OSCURO, he tries to make us feel what he did.

I don't think I've ever quit seen a film like this before. Certainly I've not seen a cinematic biography where I've walked away from it feeling as though I've gotten to know a person without really ever getting to know someone. Solnicki has done something that is rare in cinema or even biography and made a film where we walk out of the film and feel as though we've just hung out with the person profiled. There is this tactile quality to the film that it leaves us feeling as though we have been in the room with Hurch.  No, we don't get to know everything there is to know about the achievements of the writer, but we get, more importantly I think, a sense of who the man was as some one to interact with. This is the man who lived not the man who achieved.

I am kind of in awe of what this film has done, which is rewrite what you think biography should be. Should we just concentrate on the subject's achievements or should we try to find out who they are or were? I think in many cases knowing the second is more important because it explains and sort of contradictions in lives. By knowing the person we see them as not gods or figureheads but human beings, which I think is much more important.

INTRODUZIONE ALL’OSCURO delights. It is one of the best films at this years New York Film Festival because it opens your eyes and makes you see the world in a new way.  That the film is being shunted off to a side bar showing is kind of a sin because this is a film that needs to be seen and discussed.

The film is playing one time this Sunday at the New York Film Festival and is highly recommended.
For more information and tickets go here.

The Dark (2018) Fantasia 2018

THE DARK will break your heart, but not in a good way. What starts out as grand and glorious homage to the wild and crazy horror films of the 70’s and 80’s where nothing is certain and anything is possible goes sadly off the rails after about 40 minutes as the pacing slows and the seems to become an allegory about surviving sexual abuse.

I’m not going to give you details, but he film has to do with the relationship between the monstrous Mina who lives in the wooded Devil’s Den and the blind Alex who was brought there by a very bad man. As Mina ponders why she doesn’t have the urge to kill Alex the pair begins to bond.

For the first part this is a balls to the wall creepy horror film that mixes horror and humor to stunning effect. We laugh at things that end up catching in our throats. The plotting of the film is such that there is no way to really know where the hell this is going. It is in its way one of the most original horror films in years. We have an undead beast tearing throats and traveling with a young man who has been horribly blinded.

The audience of critics I saw this with was talking back to the screen in fear.

And then things begin to change…

… the internal logic falls away and what was most definitely a kind of supernatural horror film shifts. Alex and Mina begin to bond and the film largely stops being about a manhunt and monsters but about two people who have been horribly sexually abused. Alex begins to connect to Mina and Mina begins to literally become human and alive again, with the visible scars of her “death” slowly disappearing along with her desire to kill and inability to eat people food. The film I revealed to NOT be a horror film but an allegory about recovering from horrific sexual abuse.

While I and the audience members who didn’t walk out on the film had no problem with the film turning into an allegory, the trouble is the switch is so radical it’s as if the filmmakers took two scripts and grafted them together. Plot threads fall away. The internal logic of a supernatural film crashes into the brick wall of reality. Questions don’t appear but explode like rabbits with a suite of copy machines.

To be fair I suspect that the switch is not supposed to be a complete dropping of the horror film- but if you don’t stop thinking of the film as a horror film it becomes unbearably bad. Any plot threads and all internal logic just cease. To think of the last hour as a straight up horror film means you want nothing to work because nothing in the last hour nothing does. It’s such a radical shift that it forces you to rethink what you saw in the first part and it destroys the film completely.

On the other hand if you view the film as purely from the point of view of Mina’s internal dead psyche, that she is not really a monster but a young woman who had been raped and abused by her mother’s lover helping a young man who was kidnapped by a sexual monster who did unspeakable things to him then the film works better. We understand why she connects to Alex. We understand why here physical appearance changes. Of course that still doesn’t explain people referring to her monstrous appearance or some horrific actions- but it makes the film at least tolerable.

Frankly THE DARK disappoints. I think it’s the result of the filmmakers desire to make a serious film about abuse that collided with a need to make a film people would want to see. Somewhere along the way good intentions derailed a good movie. I want to applaud the attempt but despite a good cast and great filmmaking the film never achieves the heights it was reaching for.

A noble miss.

The Dark (2018) Tribeca 2018

THE DARK will break your heart, but not in a good way. What starts out as grand and glorious homage to the wild and crazy horror films of the 70’s and 80’s where nothing is certain and anything is possible goes sadly off the rails after about 40 minutes as the pacing slows and the seems to become an allegory about surviving sexual abuse.

I’m not going to give you details, but he film has to do with the relationship between the monstrous Mina who lives in the wooded Devil’s Den and the blind Alex who was brought there by a very bad man. As Mina ponders why she doesn’t have the urge to kill Alex the pair begins to bond.

For the first part this is a balls to the wall creepy horror film that mixes horror and humor to stunning effect. We laugh at things that end up catching in our throats. The plotting of the film is such that there is no way to really know where the hell this is going. It is in its way one of the most original horror films in years. We have an undead beast tearing throats and traveling with a young man who has been horribly blinded.

The audience of critics I saw this with was talking back to the screen in fear.

And then things begin to change…

… the internal logic falls away and what was most definitely a kind of supernatural horror film shifts. Alex and Mina begin to bond and the film largely stops being about a manhunt and monsters but about two people who have been horribly sexually abused. Alex begins to connect to Mina and Mina begins to literally become human and alive again, with the visible scars of her “death” slowly disappearing along with her desire to kill and inability to eat people food. The film I revealed to NOT be a horror film but an allegory about recovering from horrific sexual abuse.

While I and the audience members who didn’t walk out on the film had no problem with the film turning into an allegory, the trouble is the switch is so radical it’s as if the filmmakers took two scripts and grafted them together. Plot threads fall away. The internal logic of a supernatural film crashes into the brick wall of reality. Questions don’t appear but explode like rabbits with a suite of copy machines.

To be fair I suspect that the switch is not supposed to be a complete dropping of the horror film- but if you don’t stop thinking of the film as a horror film it becomes unbearably bad. Any plot threads and all internal logic just cease. To think of the last hour as a straight up horror film means you want nothing to work because nothing in the last hour nothing does. It’s such a radical shift that it forces you to rethink what you saw in the first part and it destroys the film completely.

On the other hand if you view the film as purely from the point of view of Mina’s internal dead psyche, that she is not really a monster but a young woman who had been raped and abused by her mother’s lover helping a young man who was kidnapped by a sexual monster who did unspeakable things to him then the film works better. We understand why she connects to Alex. We understand why here physical appearance changes. Of course that still doesn’t explain people referring to her monstrous appearance or some horrific actions- but it makes the film at least tolerable.

Frankly THE DARK disappoints. I think it’s the result of the filmmakers desire to make a serious film about abuse that collided with a need to make a film people would want to see. Somewhere along the way good intentions derailed a good movie. I want to applaud the attempt but despite a good cast and great filmmaking the film never achieves the heights it was reaching for.

A noble miss.

For more information and tickets go here.

Goodnight Mommy (2015)

I’m at a loss to explain why Goodnight Mommy was the Austrian submission for the Oscars. Actually I’m not quite sure why it’s gotten as much play and love from the critical community as it has since it’s little more than a run of the mill exploitation film or one of M Night Shamalamadingdong’s trick films warmed up with art house pretentions.

The plot of the film has twin boys pondering if the woman in the bandages is really their mother since she is behaving strangely and keeps doing things that their real mom wouldn’t do. Of course the whole thing has a twist and it ends badly for everyone.

If you’re a fan of horror movies or thrillers there is a good chance you’ve seen a version of this film before. I could give you a list of five films off the top of my head which would tell you instantly where the film was going and if I thought about it for a bit longer I could tell you more but I’m not going to mention any titles since I don’t want to give it away. To be honest the film isn’t bad, it’s just not even remotely anything that any movie fan hasn’t seen before.

The difference here is that instead of being a low budget gritty telling this time it’s in an upscale house that looks kind of antiseptic. The filmmakers are going for a sense of a world of their own making feel and it kind of works to a point but after a while it just feels arty for arty’s sake. The film’s dialog is frequently obtuse. Instead of being daring and having everyone talk normally there are times when what we see is obtuse for no real reason except to try and hide what is going on. It’s so off that it doesn’t really pull the audience in as make you wonder what is really going on. I was listening to the dialog not so much for the drama but for clues as to what the real deal was.

In talking to a number of people about the film before I saw it everyone mentioned a point where the film flips. They never said what the flip was but everyone said there was a moment where you either accepted what transpires after that or you turn off. I was kind of left cold by the flip and what follows. To me it seemed to be an effort to bring some tension to a film that really didn’t have any.

I think it’s not so much a question as to why the film has gotten so much love, rather it’s a question of haven’t the critics who have been touting it seen the other similar films?

Jack (2015) Toronto 2015

Deeply disturbing psychological portrait of serial killer  Jack Unterweger who killed a young woman in 1974, was sentenced to prison and then was released 15 years later as a literary celebrity. Acting as reporter Unterweger managed to kill women on both sides of the Atlantic before anyone realized what he was doing.

I first became aware of Unterweger when John Malkovich portrayed him in a theater piece that toured the world where he explained his crimes while his victims sang. It was a weird evening of theater that gave an inkling of the man's head space. Elisabeth Scharang's film is disturbing because watching events transpire from Unterweger's POV on a big screen there is no where to run and no way to look away.

What makes the film so bothersome is not that we're seeing anything truly graphic, rather we are in a head space that is not our own. Johannes Krisch who plays the lead looks several years older and a bit more shop worn than the the real life mad man, but thats okay since he puts his jagged looks to good use so its clear from the first time we see him we should be afraid of him. There is something not quite right about him despite his smooth way of doing things. Krisch grabs your attention and drags you along down his road to hell.

As portraits of psychopaths or true crime films go this is one of the best of recent vintage. Definitely a a must see for those who like those sorts of thing. While I normally like them but you'll forgive me if I don't talk any more about the film because I have to do something to get the film and the man out of my head.

The film has two more screenings:
Thurs Sept 17, 9:15pm, Scotiabank 10
Sun Sept 20, 9:00am, Scotiabank 14

For tickets and more information go here

Not so much a review of CAM2CAM (2014) so much as my reaction to it

It's just a head! Who travels half way round the world for a fucking head!?!

CAM2CAM is half a good movie. Its a film that requires you to get through a wrong sort of cliched and over long first 20 minutes, then another 20 or 25 minutes of routine stuff before it gets exciting.  The problem is that by the time you get to the good stuff you may either no longer care what happens  or you'll have turned the film off. I stayed with the film to the end, but I realized somewhere about an hour in I was going to have see the film again because I had so disconnected with the film that I had stopped paying attention to details so by the time it was really good I was really lost.

The basic plot of the film, which doesn't kick in for 20 plus minutes, involves a Allie, a young backpacker, who goes to Thailand and encounters a bunch of tourists who are acting a bit odd. They are connected to a web site called CAM2CAM . The young woman has a secret of sorts too, she's looking for her sister who's gone missing (what happened is the first 20 minutes). How the tourists secrets and the search for the sister converge is the film.

I love films that make me wonder how the hell they got a release. To be honest I have no idea how anyone could really watch the first 20 minutes of CAM2CAM and decide to release it as anything other than as something just to fill the slot. The opening 20 minutes involves what happened to Allie's missing sister, she was trying to connect to someone on line for a little adult fun and instead runs head long into a psycho (and please tell me why it takes her so long to figure out something is wrong) . It is slowly paced, which would be fine, except that the film nails every cliche of this sort of film with suchabandon and a misplaced sense that it's doing something new that anyone who isn't a misogynist and who has only seen a few horror films is going to be bored.

I was.

The next bit of the film plays out as Allie wanders Thailand, meets some people and is seemingly stalked by a psycho. Its run of the mill stuff better handled than the opening 20 minutes. It also ends on a WTF moment that marks the start of the film getting interesting. To be honest it wasn't until this "hello" moment that I was even remotely interested in where the film was going. It was the point where I stopped wondering if I should turn the film off or keep going. I was going to keep going.

The second half of the film is pretty good, the problem is that it's struggle to get there. As much as I'd like to go back and see what I ignored the first time through, I never want to see the first 20 minutes again. I'll try the next time starting 20 minutes in and see what happens.

To be honest I'm wondering if the whole opening sequence was added in to make the film a salable length. It doesn't play like anything that follows and outside of setting up one character, and the missing sister, I don't know if it's needed. Then again I had my brain off for most of the first hour.

The second half of the film, details of which I won't reveal, is actually pretty good. It has some nice twists, some good lines and does some unexpected things, but at the same time it's a battle to get there.

I'm really torn about this film. I mean the first half is disposable then it gets good. The question is are you going to be able to make it to the good stuff and more importantly are you going to find that it's worth it. To be honest I can't make a suggestion because as I write this I'm still battling with that question myself. Whats worse is the very people who I'd recommend this film to, horror film lovers, are the ones who are going to be pulling their hair out at  how cliche the opening is, while non-horror fans may not feel its so bad.

Ultimately you're on you're own. Let me know what you think.

Blood Glacier opens tomorrow

Back in February I reviewed Blood Glacier when it played Film Comment Selects. (The review can be found here).

The film concerns an Austrian Alps scientific outpost that discovers a blood red glacier in the mountains. Taking samples they go back to investigate what exactly it is. They quickly find out that the material is a catalyst for change-or mutation-animals that came in contact with the glacier are combining DNA with other animals that they’ve eaten or come in contact with and turning into monsters- and the monsters are attacking.

I loved the film a great deal. Its opening in limited theatrical release tomorrow and on VOD While it’s the sort of film that is best seen in a theater with a boat load of popcorn and snacks not to mention your beverage of choice it will be perfectly fine to watch it on the big screen at home. However you see it-it’s a blast.

The Strange Case of Wilhelm Reich (2012) New York Jewish Film Festival 2014

The life and trials of Wilhelm Reich who ran afoul of the US government with his search for the fundamentals of life. While the government said that he was violating various laws from the FDA they were largely unhappy with his life style and his beliefs which clashed with the teaching or orthodox psychiatry. Told in a series of flashbacks as Reich seeks to defend himself from violating injunctions set against him by the FDA.

I'm going to be honest and say I'm not sure what I think of the film. As a biography of the man it's not a bad film, however as an exploration of his thoughts and ideas I'm kind of less happy with it. For me the problem is that watching the film I'm less sure of what I knew about Reich and his work then I was going into the film.  Yes we are told about Orgone and the accumulators and other things in his work but much of it didn't seem to connect up. What are they exactly? I'm not sure- at least as far as the film is concerned which means as far as what the threat he posed to the US government.

What confuses me is that it's not really a bad film, but it's not a good film, its a film that sort of is. Its it's own unique little thing, which I suppose  is a good thing, but at the same time I don't know if you need to pay for it. You'll forgive the lack of clarity in this review but to be honest I have no idea what to say.

Last of the Unjust (2013) New York Film Festival 2013

Filmmaker and subject

Claude Lanzmann's epic look at Benjamin Murmelstein who was the last leader of the Theresienstadt ghetto (the subject of Lanzmann's Last of the Living) is an almost four hour schizophrenic film in desperate need of an editor.

Last of the Unjust is ultimately two films of very different quality. The first is the interviews Lanzmann did with Murmelstein over the course of a week in 1975 for Shoah. During the course of the interviews Murmelstein tells the story of his life under the Nazi's. and his interaction before and during the early days with Adolf Eichmann when he tried to get Jews out of the country, on through the various attempts at resettlement which lead him to Theresienstadt.

The footage is brilliant and thought provoking. It's a stunning look at a man who tried to do right and survive in a time of great moral ambiguity. Things were so ambiguous that after the war Murmelstein was arrested and tried for collaboration but was found not guilty. That didn't stop many Jews calling for him to be dragged to Israel and executed. This footage  is something that you should see since it paints a portrait of a man and the time he lived in beautifully It raises the intriguing question  is it collaboration if by talking to the enemy you can make life better for the people you are leading?

I could watch Murmelstein talk all day long since he was a character in the true sense of the word. Its clear Lanzmann liked him a great deal since through much of the interview segments he is smiling, Also it's clear by the way he interacts with Murmelstein as they sit and walk together. Lanzmann said that he was haunted by the footage for almost 40 years and its easy to see why.

The second film, which is badly put together is new material shot by the director in the present day in the various locations mentioned. Much of the new material involves Lanzmann either commenting on events, reading from Murmelstein's book with no inflection or simply images of places. Its dull as dirt and boring as all hell and needs to be removed. Granted some of it puts the Murmelstein footage in context, but at the same time its badly organized and goes on way past the point of being interesting into endless droning. In all seriousness how many times do we need to hear kaddish? I was nodding off through most of it. I mean I was almost dead asleep.

The new material is so bad I feel sorry for anyone seeing this in a theater and can not recommend you see it that way. Personally if I had to see this again in a theater I'd walk out.

On the other hand if you can see this streaming or on DVD do so since you can zip past the crap that Lanzmann has padded the gold with.

For me the cool part of the film was afterward as I got to be a fly on the wall as John Anderson and several other big name reviewers had a discussion of the questions of moral ambiguity and what Murmelstein knew and when he knew it. They pondered how many people did he save? (the press notes but the number over 120,000)  and other bits of his story.  Anderson knew enough about the subject to question how much was revision is in Murmelstein's story. It was fascinating and the sort of thing that one only gets to experience once in a life time.  It's also a clear indication about how much food for thought is contained in this very uneven package.

If you want food for thought see this film- but do so on DVD.