In All My Journeys I Am Returning (2026) Locarno 2026

Based on the poetry of Leon de Greiff and feeling like someone transported the werner Herzog of the 1970's to the modern day, IN ALL MY JOURNEYS I AM RETURNING is something special. Its a film that can not fully be explained but needs to be experienced.

The plot of the film has a couple from Sweden traveling down a river in 19th centry Columbia. However the further they go, the more things get hazy as past and present and future collide.

I can't explain more than that. The reason is not that it isn't clear, it absolutely is, the problem is its not just the narrative that is important, but the trip, the mix of sound and images that make the film so special. We are not outsiders watching events transpire but we are fellow travelers going along with the couple of the screen. To full discuss the film I would have to describe what I experienced on the journey but how I viewed it is not going to be how you view it.  This is a film that audiences must see  first and then discuss.

I loved this film. No, it is not perfect but I love that the film creates a head space and a feeling I couldn't shake. It is in its way pretentious, as many European art films of the 70's could be, but at the same time the narrative pulls you in and makes you not care. The film creates its own reality so well that you accept everything on the screen.

I have no idea how you are going to react to the film but it connected with me in unexpected ways. I can see this appearing at festivals like the New York FIlm Festival or New Directors New Films in the months ahead.

See it on the big screeen if you can. I wish I did.

Recommended.

Torah Tropical (2024) NYJFF 2025

 

This is a lovely little film.

TORAH TROPICAL is the story of a family in Columbia who converted to Orthodox Judaism and their efforts to make a life in the faith and to move to Israel.  It’s a film full of great people you will want to scoop up and give a hug to.

I don’t know what I was expecting but I was not expecting what I got and I was delighted as result.  This story of a family in love with their faith is just wonderful. No it is not all skittles and beer but because we connect to everyone on screen we will take this ride with them.

Yes I know this isn’t much of a review but at the same time some films don’t require deep explanation, they just need to be handed to you and be watched.

Recommended

Petro(2024) opens today

Gustavo Petro, a former M-19 member, decides to run for President of Columbia.

This is a good look at a man who has been struggling for decades in order to change his country. Trying  to unite the people instead of dividing them with hate and fear Petro is fighting the good fight and he seems to be winning. Following Petro on his journey to the Presidency, the film reveals his past as well as his plans for the future. It’s a film that tries to be fair by talking to all sides (though some people refuse to speak on camera). 

I was along for the long haul and ended up liking the film a great deal.

If the film has any flaw it’s that the film doesn’t have a great deal of suspense, the result of having a low key tone.. While I know a quick check of the internet will tell anyone how it comes out,  the problem is that the film plays a clip of Donald Trump early on talking about President Petro.  That would be okay if the film didn’t open with Petro putting on bulletproof vest, seemingly indicating that there is danger ahead. It’s not fatal, but it results in a film that isn’t quite as urgent as it could have been.

That said, this is a really good film and worth a look.

Querido Tropico (2024) TIFF 2024 San Sebastian Film Festival 2024

In Panama a caregiver for the elderly takes a job working for a rich family in order to care for the matriarch who is slipping away with Alzheimer’s.

I am not going to lie an say we haven’t seen this story before. We have, but that’s okay. The reasons that it’s okay, actually much more than okay are the performances of the cast, particularly Paulina Garcia and Jenny Navarette who set this film way above most other films of this sort.  These are performances for the ages.

What makes this film work is that this is a film where the performances take what is said and amplify it. Sure we can see what is happening and the bond that forms between the women. However at the same time it’s the small things, the tiny gestures, the looks, a shift in posture or a change in walk that says so much. A late in the game thank you is crushing, not for what is said but for the welling up of tears in the eyes. Nothing is said but the depth of emotion damn near broke me.

If there is justice this film  will result in the leads winning many many awards.

This is as good as film acting gets.

Highly recommended.

MALTA (2024) SXSW 2024

Young woman dreams of leaving her boring life and heading off to far off places, like Malta.

I’m going to be brief, not because I dislike the film, but rather I really like MALTA even if I don’t have much to say about it.

This is a character study about a woman going through her life and trying to find her way in the world. There are no big set pieces just a life as lived as Mariana falls into a relationship and begins to try and work out why she wants to get the hell out of Dodge so badly. It’s a film that has semi-expected arc, but which rises above that and truly shines thanks to  a script and performances that lift the film up to something special. Because the cast headed by Estefanía Piñeres is so good we are interacting with people and not characters.  We are watching life and we are better for it.

You really don’t need anything else. This is a film of small, but potent pleasures and I don’t want to do the film a disservice by over selling them. Instead I would rather just have you buy a ticket and take a ride.

PETRO (2024) Slamdance 2024

Gustavo Petro, a former M-19 member, decides to run for President of Columbia.

This is a good look at a man who has been struggling for decades in order to change his country. Trying  to unite the people instead of dividing them with hate and fear Petro is fighting the good fight and he seems to be winning. Following Petro on his journey to the Presidency, the film reveals his past as well as his plans for the future. It’s a film that tries to be fair by talking to all sides (though some people refuse to speak on camera). 

I was along for the long haul and ended up liking the film a great deal.

If the film has any flaw it’s that the film doesn’t have a great deal of suspense, the result of having a low key tone.. While I know a quick check of the internet will tell anyone how it comes out,  the problem is that the film plays a clip of Donald Trump early on talking about President Petro.  That would be okay if the film didn’t open with Petro putting on bulletproof vest, seemingly indicating that there is danger ahead. It’s not fatal, but it results in a film that isn’t quite as urgent as it could have been.

That said, this is a really good film and worth a look.

Bajo Fuego (Under Siege) (2020) Human Rights Watch Film Festival 2021

 

After a half century of fighting the government of  Columbia and the FARC rebels agreed to a peace treaty. As part of this many poor people would be given land. Additionally those growing illegal crops such as coca and marihuana, would destroy their crops and instead grow coffee  Unfortunately as the plan is implemented all sorts of problems arise  as the new crops are less profitable and the plan leaves a power vacuum where no one is quite sure who is in charge in the area formerly controlled by FARC. New armed groups rise up hoping to protect what they had.

Watching the film I thought I had a handle on how this was going to go but I quickly say that the road to hell is paved with good intentions as what was supposed to end a half century of violence instead created more. What was thought to be a good thing quickly turns bad as things spiral out of control, more so once the leadership of the country changes.  What I thought was going to be a simple tale heading in one direction quickly went into unexpected places.

While I thought I had a passing knowledge of what was happening in Columbia I quickly saw I had no clue. I knew that peace had been declared and that things had gone side ways but I didn't know it had gone this banana shaped. I was shocked at how it all went. 

 This is a wild ride. Its a story that kept me enthralled and wondering where and how this will all end. It seems that the cycle of violence is continuing on. It's an eye opening warning about what is happening in one country and a warning of how things like this could happen elsewhere.

Recommended 

Luz: The Flower Of Evil (2020)

This folk horror film is an very much a folk tale. Deliberately constructed on every level, how you react to the film will be determined by how you react to seeing the director's hand.

The plot has the leader of a cult living in the mountains bringing in a young man he thinks maybe the messiah. The problem once he arrives things begin to spiral out of control.

I'm someone who is mixed when it comes to folk horror. Sometimes it works but more times then not the deliberate efforts to mimic a folk tale doesn't always work for me. The problem generally is that I think most directors spend too much effort trying to make the form of the film be what they want with the result that they lose the story.  In the case of LUZ  I think that the need to set the table kind of takes away from the horror. Things take a bit to get going and once things begin to happen we aren't full invested. It's not fatal but the film never reaches the heights its aiming at.

Worth a look for horror fans, all others it's optional.

LET IT BURN and PIROTECNIA at Neighboring Scenes 2020

LET IT BURN
Portrait of the seven-floor Dom Pedro hostel in downtown São Paulo, which houses 107 homeless residents. Many of the people are from fringe communities, many have drug or mental health issues. Director Maíra Bühler often stands outside the and lets things happen before the camera. Other times, and often most compellingly, the camera comes in close on holds tight on a person’s face as they talk about their lives. It’s all a serious kick in the ass which slowly gets under you skin. I wasn’t sure I really wanted to be that in the face with some of these people but slowly I became invested and I couldn’t look away. A masterful portrait

LET IT BURN Saturday the 15th

PIROTECNIA
One of the best films at Neighboring Scenes is one of the best films of the year.

A brilliantly constructed film that is ever changing as it goes. Beginning with a look at a series of photographs that record the execution of the four men who tried to kill the president of Columbia in 1906 which some people say is the start of the cinema in the country and moving onward through his own family’s story and the countries recent military history, the film knits together a huge portrait of not only the subjects it covers but existence on a larger level. Large and small events echo with each other in unexpected places . For me the process of watching the film was a series of "Ah Ha" moments as I caught echoes of earlier bits. I found that I wanted to stop the film and go back. More to the point when the film ended I wanted to watch it again just to see how it plays now that I knew where it was going. That my friends, is a great film to me

A heady wonder film.

PIROTECNIA plays Sunday the 16th

For more information or tickets to these films go here

Lemebel (2019) Neighboring Scenes 2020

The opening night of Neighboring Scenes 2020 is the magnificent LEMEBEL, a portrait of artist and activist Pedro Lemebel. Put together by director Joanna Reposi Garibaldi after the great man’s death from the material he had been putting together for a similar project, this is a one of kind film. Part biography, part art piece, part meditation on a life and what the man at the center believed it is a film that puts us into particular head space and asks us to commune with the man’s spirit.

For those unfamiliar Lemebel was an artist and writer who rattle cages in is native Chile during the Pinochet years. A gay man who fought for his rights and the rights of others he shook up the status quo and made certain that polite society was uncomfortable. His work reverberated across the globe

Watching the film I was enraptured. There is something about the way that Garibaldi assembles the material, video, film, audio recordings photos and pieces of art that really spoke to me. This is not a straight forward tale but one that jumps around through a life. Along the way we have recordings of -Lemebel talking to an unseen person about what we are seeing. He discusses how he wants the material put together. We become party to how he wants the world to see him. While there is no doubt that his wishes shaped the film, the final arbiter of the material was not the subject but the film’s director who had to make the choices on what to keep, what to lose and how to link it all up. In a weird way this is a kind of making of.

As someone who is increasing delighted by the way filmmakers bend the form to their own ends the fact that this film doesn’t look or feel like any other is a delight. We are not following to typical

While I knew only a little bit about Lemebel before going in, I came out wanting to know more.

Highly recommended.

LEMEBEL plays at Neighboring Scenes on Friday February 14th. For more information and tickets go here.

Days of the Whale (2019)SXSW 2019

Catalina Arroyave's DAYS OF THE WHALE is a gem of a film. While the film certainly chose to world premiered at SXSW because it's street artist characters were certain to connect with the festival goers, the film is much more special and alive to simply remain connected to one segment of the film going audience.

The film follows artists Cristina and Simon who are part of a community of young artists in Medellin in Columbia. Struggling to get their art seen they also have to deal with the problems of being, young, in love and living in a city here gangs hold say over some parts of life. When a threat is left on a wall by one of the gangs, the pair decide to paint over it with a mural, thus creating a conflict between themselves and within their community.

I don't know where to start so much in this film is wonderful.  The story is compelling, the art is amazing, the sense of place is near perfect...there is so much I want to say in the hope of getting you to see the film I don't know where to start. However probably the best  reason is the cast which is as good as they come. Headed by Laura Tobón and David Escallón the cast never seems to be acting only living their lives. Better yet Tobón and Escallón work so well together that they are one of the great romantic couples I've ever run across. Their affection for each other is tactile and bleeds off the screen.  Watching the pair together I kept thinking I want that level of connection in my life.

I really love this film a great deal and I don't want to spoil it for you by telling you what I think the film is. Never mind what I think the film is, other than great, just go see it. Go see it and see a world that is more real and a live than the one you are living in some bland office somewhere.

Highly recommended.

DAYS OF THE WHALE made its world premiere as part of the Global section at the 2019 edition of the SXSW Film Festival, last night in Austin, Texas, It will make its national premiere at the Cartagena International Film Festival in Colombia, March 6-11.

River Below (2017) Tribeca 2017

The question at the heart of River Below is one that is batted about in popular culture but it rarely actually seen in action in real life, namely how far will you go to save the thing you love? Would you be willing to do the most terrible thing imaginable if you knew it would change hearts and minds? On top of that would you be willing to deal with the consequences of your actions? It’s a thorny issue but it’s the compelling question that keeps us watching all the way to the end.

River Below is about the attempt to save the pink river dolphins in the Amazon river. Odd looking but absolutely charming animals they are rapidly disappearing thanks to the local fisherman killing them in order to use as bait for the Muto, a scavenger fish considered a delicacy, especially in Columbia. The killing is on a massive scale and were it not scattered across the entire Amazon would make the slaughter in the Japanese Blood Cove look like a calm day at a kids sand box.

The film follows Dr. Fernando Trujillo a biologist who has been championing the animals for over 20 years as well as Richard Rasmussen a TV show host for the Brazilian National Geographic channel and a TV superstar. When a graphic video surfaces of fisherman killing and butchering a dolphin for bait the debate exploded and the dolphins gained protection but what followed was unexpected- and that is the film.

While The River Below would be special if it just dealt with the fight to save the dolphins the fact that the film takes it further to explore the fallout of the conservation makes it something more. Far too many filmmakers would have just taken it only as far as the controversy surrounding the footage but here director Mark Grieco takes it a few extra steps showing the crippling effect  saving the animals has on the local communities…and the monstrous horror that the scavenger fish being caught with the dolphins is loaded with mercury-to the extent it is going to wipe out generations of the people eating it.

I would like to discuss the twists and turns of the film but this is the sort of film you just need to see. Where this goes and how it plays out is deeply disturbing. It is also extremely thought provoking because it’s a film that makes you think about conservation and what it means on many levels. I don’t want to ruin the twists, because discovering them along the way force you to be slapped by what the revelations mean.

I really liked this film. I love that the film is a real life examination of the question of what it takes to save a species. While I won’t join several of my colleagues in the film community who called this the best film at Tribeca, I do think it’s a wonderful piece of filmmaking and it is highly recommended.

Fair warning as good as the film is, it is very graphic in its depiction of the death of the dolphins. The audience of critics at the screening audibly reacted multiple times. I say this because it makes clear why the footage changed the minds of a country. So if you don’t want to see very disturbing images stay away.

Embrace the Serpent (2015) is a masterpiece of the highest order

EMBRACE THE SERPENT is one of my favorite films from 2016.

It’s also a film that I think may become a true modern classic.

The film is the story of Karamakate who is a native dweller of the forest. Possessing great knowledge he is approached by a deathly ill German explorer and his companion in the hope that he can take him to a certain flower which he hopes will cure the disease that is killing him. He at first is reluctant , but agrees since he wants to reconnect with his people who he had thought had been wiped out by the white rubber barons. The film also is the story of a second trip Karamakate takes some forty or fifty years later with an American botanist looking for the same flower. Over the course of the film the two trips become one and we go to the heart of darkness and back again.

As this film gets wide release you are going to hear a lot of comparisons for EMBRACE THE SERPENT to the films of Werner Herzog, to APOCALYPSE NOW, to the novel Heart of Darkness or any other tale where there is a trip down a jungle river (or any journey film really). However doing so is kind of pointless and extremely lazy, since EMBRACE clearly stands above the others.  There are any number of reasons for this but chief among them is that we have Karamakate at the center. He is not a man looking for some dark secret rather he is a learned man who is hoping to teach the outside world about the real world and what it should and could be. Yes the film goes to the heart of darkness but it is a madness of the white man’s making. Those that go mad are not looking for some terrible truth but get side tracked by delusion. The madness here is not the end of the journey but the middle and you have to go past it to find enlightenment.

I have to point out that the sequences in the monastery are truly horrifying in the actual sense of the word. They are not scary like a horror movie but scary in a real world this could happen sort of a way. Yes there are monsters here- and they are men. The sequences are some of the best horror imagery ever put on film and it could be argued that the sequences puts the film on the short list of great horror films. The most damning thing is these sequences are some of the post powerful anti-religious imagery ever put on film, not because they are over the top, rather because they are matter of fact. In their simplicity we see what is wrong with the crazed beliefs of any sort.

I don’t think the film would ever have worked in color. The fact that the it’s all monochrome allows for the imagery to be dream like. The opening sequence where the dying German scientist‘s boat swings in off the river is truly other worldly. It's as if the boat and its occupants are dropping out of nowhere or from a dream into our world. At other times the characters feel disconnected from the world, a drift in a grand mist. At still other times the imagery seems documentary like and we are rooted in the now. We are in these places with these people and it’s a real occurrence. The realness matches the photographs we see in books or even the images from places like Vietnam during the war or elsewhere.

What I love about the film is that over the course the film we really get to the point where we feel like we are traveling. I love that by the end of the film how it feels like we’ve been some place special. It’s a rare thing to have that feeling from a film. There is a moment near the end of the tale where we realize that despite the film telling the story of two trips it’s really just one journey. As the film comes to a close Karamakate says to the American that he thought that he was supposed to teach his people the hidden truths of the world, but instead he realizes he was supposed to show it to the American. While that may be true in the film the greater truth is that the line is not directed to the man on screen but to those off- he is teaching us the greater truth. Karamakate is showing us all that we have lost. It is this two level trip- the adventure on screen and the one in our hearts which makes EMBRACING THE SERPENT what it is- a modern masterpiece of cinema.

The film opens Wednesday and is an absolute must see, especially on a big screen. Go see it because it will change your life.

This is my pick for the Oscar

Magallanes (2014) Toronto 2015

Magallanes is an aging cab driver who makes extra money driving around his now senile old boss on daily trips. His boss was a once a feared colonel  in the ruling regime. When a young woman gets into his cab, Magallanes is rattled to his core. The young woman was one years before he had kidnapped for his old boss to use a s a sexual plaything. Filled with guilt he decides to try and help the girl get the money she so desperately needs- but will he be able to return to his old ways to do it?

The biggest reason to see this film is the work of Damián Alcázar in the title role. Alcazar gives one of those great performances where its all movement and and looks and gestures. We feel the weight of the world that is pushing down on him. He doesn't have to say much for us to know what he is thinking and feeling.  This isn't to say that the rest of the cast isn't great too, more its to say that Alcazar's performance is just on another plane of good. He's the one that hooks you and drags you along to the end.

I'm not going to lie,  the plot isn't anything  we haven't seen before. Plots like this are standard issue film noir or neo noir. Odds are you could write pieces of this yourself .If a film is going to become compelling it has to transcend  the familiarity with something special.

Fortunately MAGALLANES manages to add just enough spice to make one damn fine and compelling film.

The spice here comes from the reflections of the political situations in the plot. The Celina, young woman Magallanes helps is from the native population so that she was and is looked down upon by the ruling classes. There are also implications of past crimes, the change in society and position over the years. For better or worse the Shining Path insurgency changed things. The sense of a world changed bleeds off the screen. We feel as though all of history is pressing down with us and catching up to the characters. While I've seen many films that had their worlds bleed off the screen I've never seen one where the backstory did.

I really liked this film a great deal. This is a film that has grown in the day or so since I saw it. I spent several hours trying to write it up but I couldn't do so, something was off and I couldn't find a way to discuss it. There was a literal hole in my review. But after almost a day of contemplation I came back to this piece. The flaws, largely due to the familiarity of the plot, softened in my eyes. If MAGALLANES isn't perfect it's a perfect representation of his characters. While the general story is familiar, that only because this great little film looks, as we all do like our parents. And as we hope about ourselves and our children it is something greater than it's parentage.

This is a super film and I can't wait to see it again and more importantly, to get it in my collection.

See MAGALLANES when you can.

For tickets and more information on the Toronto Film festival screenings go here.

Manos Sucias hits theaters today

(This review is a revision of several posts that ran last year during the Tribeca Film Festival in 2014)

Two estranged brothers, in need of money, decide to transport a torpedo full of drugs to a rendezvous point up the coast for some drug kingpins. Things don't go as planned and they find out the real cost of doing things for bad guys.

What's supposed to be a simple boat trip becomes a road trip from hell as thing steadily go from bad to worse. I'm not going to say what happens, if I told you you wouldn't need to see the film, but getting involved in the drug trade clearly puts you on the road toward doing things you never intended. The film doesn't shy away from the human cost as we see people die and hear the stories of people killed senselessly.

A beautifully shot film this film looks great. We are very much in places that have never been put on film before and the film is so much better for it. The new horizons carries the film even when the film seems to be rambling along.

When I saw the film back at Tribeca last year I was mixed on the film. The problem was that I saw it in the middle of the wave of Tribeca pre-screening and it was the third or fourth film screened that day in the middle of multiple films every day for over a week. Such is the danger of seeing too many films in too short a time, film get lost. Its better than what I originally thought it was.

The film did not get lost on other people and I was berated my numerous people all through the festival and after who wanted to know why wasn’t I raving about the film. (I liked it I didn’t love it). Among those who loved it was Unseen Films writer Peter Gutierrez. Peter was gripped by the film and held in it's power from start to finish.

Also loving the film was Mondocurry who had this to say:

Manos Sucias (Dirty Hands), directed by first time director and student of Spike Lee, Josef Wladyka is a nerve wracking trip into the islands of Puerto Rico and Cuba where two brothers unwittingly sign on for the same risky job transporting drugs by way of a small motor boat. The feeling of dread and of how fleeting human life can be in this environment is summed up by the words "It's either us or them." When the brothers are not racing for their lives, the film brings out soulful moments of bonding over music and football. An amazingly accomplished debut from a promising new voice in film.

Manos Sucias opened in theaters today and is recommended by a good many of the Unseen Films staff.

A few brief words on MANOS SUCIAS (2014) Tribeca 2014

Two estranged brothers, in need of money, decide to transport a torpedo full of drugs to a rendezvous point up the coast for some drug king pins. Things don't go as planned and they find out the real cost of doing things for bad guys.

What's supposed to be a simple boat trip becomes a road trip from hell as thing steadily go from bad to worse. I'm not going to say what happens, if I told you you wouldn't need to see the film, but getting involved in the drug trade clearly puts you on the road toward doing things you never intended. The film doesn't shy away from the human cost as we see people die and hear the stories of people killed senselessly.

A beautifully shot film this film looks great. We are very much in places that have never been put on film before and the film is so much better for it. The new horizons carries the film even when the film seems to be rambling along.

While I'm mixed  on the film, other people at the press screening, including Unseen writer  Peter Gutierrez, loved it. Peter was gripped by the film and held in it's power from start to finish. Because Peter liked it so much, and because it's not a bad film I'm going to recommend the film to anyone interested in seeing it.

Latinbeat: Little Voices (2010)

The final film for me at this years Latinbeat at Lincoln Center was the animated 3D documentary called Little Voices.

The narration is taken from interviews with several children living in Columbia. The visuals are their stories brought to life via their drawings. This is a kids eye view of war and violence and happiness and families and life in the country. Its an amazing film that manages to show that hope and life go one even in the face of violence.

The animation is amazing. Its done so that it seems like paper cut outs brought to life. At times it seems like origami, at other times its conventional 2D animation and still other times its a mixture of styles and real objects. Its an absolute treat for the eyes and it's a shame that while the screening was well attended it didn't have many, if any of the New York animation people I've seen at other films. Frankly this is the sort of film people need to see because it makes clear that there are more ways to use the medium other than say Pixar computer animation, classic Disney animation or Tim Burton style stop motion.

While I understand why it was animated, it brings us closer to the kids and destroys the distance a typical documentary technique might have created; I'm at a loss as to why the film had to be in 3D. yes the sense of depth is really cool at times, but mostly it doesn't add anything. Also the fact the film is subtitled into English adds to the eye strain as that adds a layer of image that the animators never took into account and sometimes looking at the words and image made me go cross eyed.

The stories told have both darkness and light in them. A father goes missing, several of the kids describe being caught in a battle, one describes the horrors of being forced to be a guerrilla and one is blown up. Its not a wholly happy story...

...and yet there is hope as we see the injured child play soccer, the young girl finds her mother's kiss allows her to sleep despite fear, and there is just the joys of being a kid. It is life in all it's myriad forms.

If there is any flaws the film is devoid of details, such as what is any of the children's names.

While not the best film of the year it is one of the most joyous (if only in that it shows life goes on and can thrive). When the film ended I had a tear in my eye. It was also the only film of the four I saw at Latinbeat where the audience seemed to applaud of it's own accord (some of the others had none or seemed to spark it because the director was there)

This is one to search out. I don't know what the release plans are but do keep an eye out for it.

I should mention that the film is very brief, I think it's under 70 minutes, certainly it's not the 75 minutes advertised. There is nothing wrong with the length, however the shortness of the film may keep it from getting a wide release so do keep an extra careful eye out for it.

Latinbeat: All of Your Dead Ones plus a few updates

Tonight I went to see All of Your Dead Ones at Latinbeat at Lincoln Center. This is a film that got rightly noticed at the Sundance and Rotterdam Film Festivals.

The plot has our hero going out to tend to his fields one Sunday morning. Working his way along a fence with a weedwacker he comes to a big hole in the wire and a path way large enough for a truck, leading back into his corn. Following the path he is horrified to discover that in a clearing are fifty bodies stacked in a pile. He makes his way into town but the mayor is too busy with the election, it's election day, to pay attention, and the police are kind of disinterested. However as he's talking to a radio DJ the police decide to see what he's talking about. When they arrive the question becomes not so much who did it, but how can we cover it up.

This is a darkly funny tale that is the sort of thing that makes you squirm as you're laughing. No one seems to care abut what happened except our hero and his family. This is a film that is set in a world where no one really cares about anything other than their own butts, and the lengths that people will go to cover them is both horrifying and amusing.

One of the more telling things, and something that provides some of the biggest laughs, is the enormity of the situation. No one really understands how many people are dead until they see the pile. The number of people dead is the thing that gives the film it's zing as it were. as a writer at Twitch Film said, if it was only one or two people the film would play out as a small personal tragedy, but seeing so many bodies raises the stakes. It makes you wonder just what the hell is going on. Its the punchline to a sick joke...and yet it's not showing us the crimes of some political entity (The mayor instantly calls a neighboring mayor to ask why the other mayor dumped his bodies in this place. The implication is this happens all the time.)

Not long before the film reached it's conclusion I was thinking that, I really liked the film, and that it was more an intellectual film than an emotional one. Yes, there was tension and uneasiness as the events unfolded, I mean how could you not worry about the fate of our hero?

Then something happened. As the film ended, truly ended, just before the curtain call, something happens, an innocuous shot or two and suddenly I was sitting there feeling like I had been gut punched.

What the hell happened?

I'm still not sure, but something did and I stopped caring about the film as an intellectual exercise and instead was pained by the death of the nameless 50... and for anyone who dies in stupid political violence. As the film moved toward the credits I was simply sitting there staring at the screen.

Talk about a kick in the pants.

I suspect that this will be getting a wider release in the US so do keep an eye out for it.

(A technical aside- the subtitles on the print tonight seemed to be incomplete. Somethings were subtitled and somethings weren't. There was also a couple of misspellings, which I hope will be fixed.)

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A couple of updates.

God Bless Ozzy Osborne is getting screenings the 24th and 29th as a Fathom Events. If you like Ozzy or Sabbath, go. The film is a blast and one of the highlights of Tribeca.

The flier is out for Lincoln Center for September and October. A couple of quick notes.

Labor Day weekend they are running trilogies. They will be doing The Godfather on the 5th, Back to the Future on the 4th, and Max Max on the 3rd. They will also be doing the Three Colors trilogy of Krzysztof Kieslowski and the Koker Trilogy of Abbas Kiarostami on two days each.

There is a series of Tuesday Weld films, a series of popular Chinese films (some of which played the NYAFF), recent Polish films and they announced that the Scary Movies series runs the Thursday before through Halloween.

They also list the schedule for the Nikkatsu retrospective. It's being done approximately chronologically with the more recent films toward the end (overlapping Comicon, which complicates our going greatly)

It appears Criterion is doing an edition of Godzilla. Depending on what the extras are I may get a third super special edition (to add to the American and BFI ones)

I need to mention that the longest gestating suggested film, Fists in the Pocket has finally been watched and will be reviewed during our week of Criterions in late Fall. (as always you can email us with suggestions- which we will get to- promise- just watch the next couple of weeks and you'll see them starting to appear)
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Lastly I've gotten a couple of notes recently asking me to put films on to torrent so they could be downloaded.

The short answer is no.

A longer answer is that even allowing that I was set up to be able to do that, I'm not, recent events concerning people a couple of degrees away from me strongly suggest it's not advisable.

If you want to see something and the sources in the sidebar don't provide the film, either leave a comment asking where to get it or email us and we'll try to help you.

I'm sorry.

Blood and Rain (2009)

On a rainy night in Bogota Jorge is dropping off a fare. Across the way car pulls up and two men tell Jorge that they want to set up a meeting for their boss to give him information about the death of his brother. Jorge doesn’t want to hear it and doesn’t feel safe so gets out of his cab with a crow bar. One of the other men beats him up for “disrespecting” them. This then sets in motion a series of events that will result his meeting lonely party girl Angela and violence.

Nihilistic doesn’t begin to describe this bleak black film. It’s a film that hangs around you and makes you feel unclean. This is not a happy movie and you may hate yourself for seeing it, as a couple at the Tribeca film Festival screening I attended did. Its dark oppressive and you can’t escape. It’s a film that moves toward its conclusion with a certainty that none of the characters has, much like all of us.

I don’t know what I think of this film. Its clearly the calling card of a director with a huge amount of talent. It has the feel of a real place, of events that may have happened.

As a film as an object de art it’s a masterpiece. I could wax poetic about the technical aspects (including one of the best soundtracks-sound effects ect-that I’ve ever heard) for hours. The film is technically that good. Unfortunately the film has problems dramatically that have made it hard to put it on the high pedestal the film is aiming for (it still hits high up like some one shooting for the moon and ending up in the stars).

The problem with the film is that it is dramatically confused. There is a great deal going on that we don’t know. Much of it is because Jorge doesn’t know, but there is a great deal more that is never revealed because it’s the life of the characters that bleeds off the screen. Its as if we have been truly dropped into these characters lives with no road map. It works on some levels because its clear there is a real world they are operating in, but at the same time it leaves us wanting to know just a little bit more. Its problem that goes all the way to the end because while we see things to the end, we never get any answers about what it was that brought about the terrible events. (There is a seeming problem with the film’s internal clock but its not worth going into since its nit picking)

I’m not sure that this film is really about the events as depicted or if, perhaps the film is more a mediation on various themes running through it. In the morning after I saw the film I found that if I jettisoned the plot and just thought about the ideas I liked it better. The film is largely a dark meditation on loneliness and violence. I like the films depiction of the damage and dangers of random violence. Rarely has any film clearly shown how the stupid things we do by violent or forceful means, leads to more violence and more damage. Indeed the downward spiral of the film is set in motion because one man chooses to beat up Jorge who then has to take steps to protect himself, which leads into misunderstandings and further complications which leads to more violence and death. It’s a film where people who don’t know anything choose to beat their way through things and then get shocked (or dead) because they don’t take the time to see the stupidity of their actions.

Of course the people who see the film and use it as something to change the way they behave won’t.

This is a film I admire a great deal. I’m still not sure I more than like it but at the same time I think that this a film worth seeing.

A word of warning there is full frontal nudity, graphic sex, violence and general unpleasantness. This is a film that will probably be released in the US as either an NC17 or more likely unrated. Keep the kids away.

Currently on the festival circuit, I expect this to be picked up for release since there were several people at the screening I attended looking at the film for possible pick up.