I ONLY REST IN THE STORM (2025) Cannes 2025

This is a love it or sleep on it slow film, which is going to make you wonder why it takes almost four hours to reach its conclusion.

The film follows Sergio who is hired by a West African nation to help with a road project. Along the way he gets involved in an intimate way with a couple from the city he is living in.

I need to say two things up front. First I like some of the director Pedro Pinho's documentaries. Yes they are told in a measured (slow) way but they work. The second thing I want to mention is that no film of any length should make you question the length. At no point should a film review mention a length, except as a courtesy (for example SATANTANGO runs over seven hours so plan accordingly).  I should not be saying this film is too long and could use several sequences removed.(SATANTANGO is rambling but pulls it together)

The thing is its not that the film is bad, but a number of sequences don't seem to go anywhere. Yes they build a sense of place and character but they don't add enough. How many sequences do you need in a 211 minute film? Not to argue length but there is a point where you stop going along  and wonder where is this going and why is this taking so long? The great long movies never make you question the length. Somewhere around the half way point I was still waiting for a reason for this to be taking the long way home. I completely understand the structure comes from Pinho's documentary background, but docs are not narratives and you can't always do what you can in a doc.

Again this is not a bad film, it's just one that rambles aimlessly for two hours too much. There simply isn't enough here to support more than a 100 minute film. Yes I made it to the end, but even so I still don't know why much of this film is part of this story. Yes, its good unto itself, but in the end it felt pointless.

I fully expect this film to show up at festivals in the fall and bore audiences to tears.

Only recommended for people who like long rambling films that go nowhere.

GRAND TOUR (2024) NYFF 2024

NYFF frequent flier Miguel Gomes returns with GRAND TOUR with the story of a British diplomat who flees the fiance he hasn't seen in 7 year by touring Asia. First we see his flight and then her pursuit.

Lots of great travel footage is wasted in a two part tale that never really works. The problem is the split tale. The tale of the diplomat is intriguing for a about ten minutes, until you realize that we know , and will know nothing about him at all. He is entirely a cipher. Well we know he's a diplomat and has a fiance, but that's all. Everything we learn is via voice over narration which doesn't remotely fill in the missing material.

The second half of the film is the quest of Molly, the fiance to see the man she loves. Actually beyond trying to marry him, she has something to tell him. While this portion explains much we didn't know about in the first part, the story still seems fragmentary. Too many details are given us by voice over. While the second half  made me curious how it was going to play out for Molly ultimately I found this journey was a waste of my time.

Not recommended

The Old Man and the Demon Sword (2024) Fantasia 2024

THE OLD MAN AND THE DEMON SWORD is a just over an hour long joy,  It’s not deep and meaningful. It’s a bit clunky, but at the same time it’s entertaining as all hell.

The film has an old guy, who some call delusional getting a demon infused word from a neo templar who is tasked with using the blade to rid the world of demons. The pair become friends.

Not operating on the biggest financial budget OLDMAN… has a over abundance of heart. Filled with actors who sell the craziness on the screen, its film that over comes any and all questions about quality with force of will and charm. I was simply delighted to be watching the film and when it was done I watched it again.

This is not high art, this is get a bucket of popcorn and beverage of choice and enjoy sort of a film.

Recommended

Tommy Guns (2022) plays NDNF 2023 today and opens April 12

A group of soldiers during the Portuguese occupation of Angola find that things are turning against them and that their efforts to retreat of a place of safety have put them into danger.

Allegorical exploration of occupation starts off as a straightforward tale of how occupiers and colonizers interact with the indigenous population and then takes a turn toward the nightmare as the film becomes more like a horror film with surreal touches.

I like a lot of TOMMY GUNS. There is a great deal to be said about the craft of the film and some of it’s nightmarish sequences get under you skin more than many straight horror films. The problem for me is that the film is trying very hard to make a point  and trying even harder to shock. The moment half an hour in when a soldier prays and then just shoots the woman he was, with while unexpected, felt like it was there just to get a rise out of the audience. The idea of taking the goods of a country and the leaving it dead was a bit too heavy handed for my tastes.

Still TOMMY GUNS packs a punch and is worth a look.

My Grandfather's Demons (2022) Fantasia 2022

An over worked young woman returns home after the death of her grandfather. He had been the one to raise her, however she  lost touch with him since moving to the city. Finding that the he had become a hermit prone to making odd figurines, she begins to try and sort out his life and figure out how he had disconnected from the village. In the process she begins to repair her own life.

Very good animated film  is probably going to play best for adults as the some of the themes and ideas running through the film may not hit the kiddies. This doesn’t mean kids shouldn’t see the film, only that unlike most American animation this film is operating on multiple levels.

Containing some stunning sequences and some great stylistic choices (The film opens in bland computer animation mirroring the office existence, it then switches to beautiful and live stop motion once the young woman gets to the farm) this is a film that is going to delight animation junkies. There is a true beauty and sense of life to the proceedings.

While the plot is kind of predictable over all the twists and turns and particularly the hard edge is not. Yea we know how its going to go- the route it takes is not one we’ve taken before which scores mega points as a result.

This is a wonderful film and its films like this that one goes to Fantasia

Mysteries of Lisbon: The Complete Miniseries (2010) hits virtual theaters 5/22

With the full miniseries five and a half hour miniseries hitting Virtual Theaters on Friday I am reposting my review from the 2010 New York Film Festival.  The version I saw ran just over four and a half hours. My notes indicate that I was told that most of the missing material are the opening and closing of each of the 55 minute episodes and recap material as well as "next time" teasers.

One thing I should have really discussed when I wrote this originally was  that the problems I have with the plot are the problems with the novel. This was written in installments over a long period of time and was simply supposed to be a soap opera that keep people coming back to the publication each week or whatever. It was not  planned out by Camilo Castelo Branco as a grand novel, it was just written so he'd get paid, the result it is plot that goes to a certain point when it suddenly wraps up because Branco was told it was time. My notes from the Q&A with the screenwriter indicate they knew there are "plot problems" but went with it understanding that was how it was written.

The film is based upon The Homonymous Novel by Camilo Castelo Branco. It was written in a serial fashion in I believe they said weekly installments. When it was put together the book filled well over one thousand pages.

The film is like being trapped in a pinball machine filled with mayo. The story and film immerse you deeply into the time and place that the film takes place but it's construction pings you around constantly from pillar to post as character after character stops the present story to tell you a story about the past. It's wheels with in wheels and stories with in stories.

The primary focus of the story is a young boy named Pedro daSilva who living in an orphanage that is run by a Father Dinis. As the film unfolds we are primarily following his story, but with long detours into the lives of everyone around him, all of whom have multiple identities and some connection to nobility. There are love affairs, duels, death, revenge, convents,rescues and several other things I'm forgetting.

Is it exciting?

Not particularly. The trouble is that the story is so fractured that it never seems to build up a real head of steam. Honestly I was bored for much of the first hour. It finally clicked, I think because it was throwing so much out it had to hit the mark eventually. The blame is partly the source novel which was written on the fly to fill a page count and had to keep readers interested. This leads to weird turns and some inconsistencies in the story (The time frames are messed up).

The film is also very silly. I know some of it, like the servant who is a refugee from The Ministry of Silly Walks was intentionally put in there, other things I'm not too sure about. A suicide of an unnamed character brought chuckles from the people behind me.

I'm not sure what director Raul Ruiz was up to at times since listening to the screenwriter talk he said that the director added bits to make things memorable. However other things like long takes that don't seem to end or serve a point confuse me since they seemed more like filler.

The film itself ends on a note of uncertainty, at least as far as I'm concerned. Its one of those was it real or was it all a fevered dream sort of things that feel like a cop out. I don't know how the book ends so I can't say. What I can say was that the ending kind of sent the film crashing down for me. I think I could have taken the numerous WTF moments that pop up here and there during the preceding four hours and twenty five minutes had the ending lead to something. It doesn't and your left with a story that just sort of hangs there with all of these odd moments that make no sense (the previous mentioned suicide).

I know the problem with the incestuous nature of all of the characters somehow knowing everyone in a manner that is way too neat comes from the book, but the rest of it...is just weird.

I know that I could have forgiven the film had the film been about something, other than the notion of identity which is obvious and too small a notion to fill five hours of screen time. It would have worked in a 90 minute movie, but almost five hours was too much to ask. Had the film not had an aire of being about something more it could have worked, I mean the old movie serials run about as long and are about nothing but motion. This film is touted to be about something, but I find it's about...nothing.

Djon Africa (2018) NDNF 2018

A fiction film based on directors João Miller Guerra and Filipa Reis previous film, a documentary about a young man returning to Cape Verde to reconnect with his long lost father. The trip does not go as planned as the the man, sometimes called Djon Africa gets side tracked by the things he finds along the way.

Solid character study picks you up and carries you along with it's story of a drifter trying to find his lost past and forge a new future of maturity. To be certain it rambles about but it never really loses focus or interest. This isn't so much about really finding a lost father but a lost searcher.

Possibly the least arty of the films I've seen at New Directors this year this is the one film that I would most likely return to  for no real reason other than I had a good time watching it. Say what you will about NDNF, the films can some times work to hard to make you feel and think but DJON AFRICA makes it look so easy and simple that you really can't believe that there is anything more going on than a good time with interesting people.

One of the best films at NDNF it is heartily recommended.

Bad Bunny (2017) NDNF 2018

Love it or loath it over long short has a teenager who always wears a helmet with bunny ears punishing his mother's lover.

Arty, mannered and artificial this tale of erotic madness would have been better in the hands of one of the Jodorowskys who could made this actually seem like something.

Actually I suspect this might have worked better had the lead not had the ridiculous bunny ears on though the whole film. Early on I just lost any respect for the film when the ears stayed on no matter what was happening.

Clearly I'm the wrong audience for this film, which is the usual feeling I get watching most films at New Directors New Films which more often than not seemed to be programmed for a very specific audience of which I am not part of.

If you're curious the film plays in Shorts Block 2 with the much better MOBIUS

Ornithologist (2016) New York Film Festival 2016

THE ORNITHOLOGIST left the audience at the press screening shaking our heads wondering what we just saw as the film shifts from the tale of the title character into a religious allegory and spiritual journey and into psychotronic territory.

Beautiful to look at film goes from normal to weird in an instant and then just gets stranger and stranger as it goes on. Trust me on this this film just goes off the deep end in ways I never imagined.

It begins with Fernando, the title character, alone in the wild ending up on the wrong end of some rapids He's found by a pair of devoutly Christian lesbians from China who are lost and want him to take them to the pilgrimage route of Saint Anthony. When he refuses they tie him up in is sleep in a manner I've only seen in a bondage magazine. It goes on from there with a the appearance of natives in costumes, the appearance of bare breasted Amazons speaking Latin, a killing, mystical birds and other strange things.

I know what it is supposed to mean, the transformation (literal) and redemption of the self through belief, but I really don't think the film manages to pull it off other than as the concept the director was shooting for. Of course if I knew the story of the Saint Anthony whose pilgrimage it's mirroring that might help too...or not.

A bunch of people at the press screening slept through chunks of the film. Everyone I spoke with was simply shaking their head when it was done in the "what the hell was that way" writers sometimes do.

From my stand point it's a beautiful film that is thematically a mess. Its probably the most challenging film out side of the Projection sidebar at NYFF, but that isn't enough to recommend it. Its simply too out there, too conceptual and too messy to truly work. (Though if you see it you will know you seen something even if you have no idea what the hell it was)

For tickets and more information go here

Eldorado XXI (2016) NDNF 2016

This is a portrait of La Rinconada in the Peruvian Andes, the highest-elevation permanent human settlement in the world. Told in long takes with voice over narration this film is going to enthrall a certain audience while the rest of us are going to be falling asleep.

I doubt that Eldorado XXI is going to get many play dates. Its cinematic aesthetic of pointing a camera and letting life happen is a tough one to endure.

This is not because the images are terrible, they are in fact quite beautiful, rather it’s that director Salome Lamas insists on holding the shot for way too long. How long is too long? Consider that most of the first 60 minutes consists of a single 50 minute shot of men walking in and out of a mine. We simply watch for an hour as men go in and out of the mine. Occasionally we get some voice over talk about life but mostly its men walking to and fro, the camera staring straight ahead not moving. After that the film settles down and we get an exploration of life within the small town, but at the same time the camera simply sits and records events. While the shots are not held for 50 minutes they still can go on too long.

Beautiful to look at film is very much a documentary of the sort where the director picks their shot and then lets the camera record.It harkens back to the days  when Andy Warhol would film someone sleeping for 8 hours or the Empire State Building for a day. Eldorado XXI is much more a film to be screened in an museum rather than in a movie theater. This is a film whose audience is going to be small simply because it is way outside the box of contemporary documentary filmmaking. Life happens before us and if you are a big fan of that you are going to love this film (and a recent film that is going to play in Europe of 10 hours of paint drying -seriously). If you don't you're either going to fall asleep (I struggled mightily to stay awake during the film) or you're going to gnaw your leg off if you just don't get up and walk out.

If you like this sort of thing go for it. If you don't either don't go or if you must bring a pillow. (Personally this is a film to have on a wall playing silently as a moving picture.)

Far be it for me to judge but this film was grossly mis-programmed at New Directors. This film belongs more at the New York Film Festival’s experimental side bar or more to likely at the upcoming Art of the Real series where the documentary film is pushed to its limits. Here the film is very likely to engender lots of walk outs and snoring.

The film plays March 22 and 23. For tickets and more information go here.

A rambling response to Arabian Nights Volume 1: The Restless One (2015) New York Film Festival 2015

I have only seen one part of Miguel Gomes epic riff on the politics of Portugal told via ala the frame work of the Arabian Nights. I have only saw the first of three parts because that's the only way it fit into my schedule. I had been hoping that the festival would have either screened the whole six and a half hours in one go for the press or during the festival, but that was not to be. (there was a huge amount of sadness in the press corps because many of us love when we get to spend a whole day with one movie.) The decision as to whether I would review the one part or wait until I saw them all came down down to a point- how did I feel about continuing when I was done.

When the film ended and the lights went up my feeling was that unless I could go right into the next film or see it with out too much trouble I would be okay never seeing another part. Yes I will be making an effort to see the remaining four and a half hours but at the same time unless I can see it all in one sitting I'm not going to make the time going back and forth to the theater three times (For the record the film opens in New York in December with one piece opening one a week for three weeks)

This isn't to say that the film is bad, it's not, and it becomes more interesting as it goes on, rather its not great, or at least this part isn't. Its good but it's not great.

Told in a style that is generously described as rambling the film begins with three stories being told at once: First that of a closing ship yard, Second the story of how wasps are killing off honey bees. And third the story of the director who has a nervous break down not being able to connect the first two stories. This leads into the director and his crew being arrested and sentenced to die. Desperate to survive the director spins a story that is a modern telling of the Arabian nights. From there we get the story of ministers and bankers with magical hard ons, a crockrel on trial for crowing too much, a love story and a guy having heart problems as he tries to put a January first swim together. There's more to it than that but its a start.

My problems with the film comes from two places. First this is political film that says up front is tied to the collapse of the Portuguese economy in 2013 and 2014. If you think I have any idea what happened you'd be wrong so any and all allusions to real world events were lost. Secondly this film is all over the place- I mean all over the place. Real world mixes with made up. Reality mixes with fantasy (when the whale above explodes a mermaid ends up on the beach). Things happen because it seemed like a good idea at the time. A love triangle is played out by children in the middle of the cockerel story. Why? no clue. Its well done but I have no idea why it's inserted.

Oh and everything kind of references everything else in ways that make you realize you have to really be paying attention.(This last point was brought home when I was trying to explain a part late in the film to some one who missed a passing reference early on)

I know the film is getting a great deal of love from the critical community but what I want to know did they see it all in one go and did they get cheat sheets? This is a film I suspect has cheat sheets floating around that connect everything.

I do like the film but this was the first part of three. There is just way too much to hold in my head until I can see the next volume some time in mid December.

To be fair I'll run a new review of it all once I see it all.

Trading Cities (2014) Art of the Real 2015

TRADING CITIES is a portrait of Cape Verde's changing existence. Rapidly changing,the city is shifting from industrial center into a tourist mecca. We watch the industry, the tourists and the people caught in the middle.

I am not a particular fan of observational documentaries. I find that many of them, a good number of Frederick Wiseman's films for example, confuse observing with documenting. There is a tendency to think that just because we are watching something happen we are learning about it when that always isn't the case. More often then not we're just watching things happen with no rhyme or reason. I mention this because I went into TRADING CITIES with a kind of chip on my shoulder. The film was going to have to really bowl me over to get my respect.

It did.

Somewhere in the juxtaposition of incredible images and run of the mill ones the film paints a wonderful portrait of a place and people in the middle of change. Answers are not always forth coming or readily apparent, but if you are patient you will be given enough information that you'll be pondering things for hours afterward.

While not for all tastes, the film can seem slow and the film is probably too long at 140 minutes, the film will impress those ready for it. The film will also delight those who thrive on glorious cinematic imagery. This film is full of jaw dropping images that will blow your mind on the big screen (the picture above is just a taste).

A must for the adventurous film goer.

For tickets and mor information go here.

Walk in the Flesh (2013)

Seven minute condensation of David Cronenberg's Scanners with electronic sound track and melty visuals.

If you thought Scanners was off-this is weirder- i mean real f-ing weird.This is morphing images changing and shifting and melting together in weird ways. The whole process is extremely strange and creates a weird headscape that kind of one ups the plot of the films.

And thats the trouble with Walk in the Flesh, a wonderfully weird and trippy as it is, I'm not sure this is going to play all that well if you haven't seen, and know, the Cronenberg original. How the the images melt  and what the images are are not explained in this short so if you have no knowledge or memory of the source this could be very annoying.

On the other hand if you know Cronenberg 's film this is an incredible trip.

What Now? Remind Me (2013) New York Film Festival 2013

Waiting for the movie to end

What Now? Remind Me is the chronicle of a year in the life of filmmaker Joaquim Pinto and his husband as he begins a course of treatment to keep his HIV and Hepatitis C under control. Its a chronicle of the effects of the drugs, trips to his farm, speaking engagements for his films, the battles with wild fires and remembrances of friends and his life told in a rambling style.

Where to begin?

Would it be wrong to say that seeing this 2 hour and forty five minute vanity project  about which I don't have a clue? No that's not true I do have one, this movie is too fucking long. I was with the film for about half the running time and then suddenly sometime just before the sex (If you didn't know there is graphic sex in this film. I'm not being a prude here, rather I'm stating  something that the festival people haven't mentioned, which they probably should in light of their warnings about Stranger by the Lake) I disconnected and started to wonder where this was all going.

Essentially what happens is that Pinto begins to lose his ability to hold on to reality or the moment (the drugs force him to have to force himself to do things) the film breaks down. There is no cohesive anything just a series of random events. While I completely understand that the film is suppose to mirror Pinto's state of mind, after a while, and well before its almost three hours are up, the film becomes taxing. Its as if someone ripped the film out of the bin where good films lay and tossed it into the self indulgent crap pile. A fine self portrait becomes self indulgent.

I'm sorry if that offends but it's true and it's earned.  If you look at my notes for the film the brief entries for the first part of the film are glowing admiring how the film explains things, it manipulates images and gives a sense to the illness and the drug effects. However after a certain point the film collapses as events seem to have been tossed on the screen and we get some selfies of Nuno, Pinto's husband, that just don't seem to fit. Why are we looking at this footage that Nuno shot of himself when in theory this is Pinto's story?

Okay yes it's a self portrait, but at the same time while its something I don't mind glancing at I don't need to stare at all of the material that was added to make this so damn long. You wouldn't want to watch your neighbors home movies and even if you did, odds are you wouldn't want to pay money to.

This is one you can probably miss

Tabu (2012) New York Film Festival (2012)

I had not intended on seeing Tabu at the NYFF. The film didn’t sound interesting to me. Then glowing word started to filter out of the Toronto Film festival I became intrigued. 

I became more intrigued because Kenji,  a writer whose opinion I respect didn’t like it.  While that in and of itself should be a clue that I shouldn’t see it, he said, even as he dismissed the film, that he could be wrong and that there could be something to the film. Indeed when I got to the press screening he was sitting waiting to go in.

 I should have trusted Kenji’s first impression.

I was bored.

Billed with talk of absurdism, surrealism, Murnau,Bunuel and others, this is a multi- part story about love and other things, I think. I freely admit that I left 90 minutes into this 118 minute movie so that I could get back to my day job. Let me say that again, I would rather be at my desk going over never ending streams of names and numbers on a computer screen rather than seeing how the film came out. 

The first part of the film tells the story of a great white hunter going into the bush to forget lost love. He ends up meeting his destiny with a crocodile.

Part two follows a woman living alone and her interaction with an older woman living next to her.  She has lost all her money in a casino , her daughter has ignored her and she claims her maid is a witch.

Part three is a flash back to some 50 years earlier to the story of her in Africa where she meets a man she has an affair with.

Shot in moody black and white in Academy ratio the dialog is loopy, the performances distant and the attitude is detached. I didn’t care about anyone because everything was so forced.  I kept feeling like I was being rammed in the ribs by an unfunny friend who wanted to get his unclever and unfunny jokes…at least that’s what I felt like when I would open my eyes to read the subtitles. Nothing is shown to us in a way for us to discover it, it's held up as if to say This is important.

A Polish student comes to Lisbon and tells one of the characters she's some one else. Its done so that we laugh at the situation, and it's framed as if to seem important.

Aurora has a long rambling speech in a casino after losing everything and it's done so in such away as to seem important (and as if Gena Rowlands were doing it in a Cassavettes film- whip off those glasses girl)

The absurdity is forced  inan attempt to mimic an early Jim Jarmusch or Guy Maddin film. The mopey hunter that opens the films, the odd off camera leap to the crocodile  reminded me too much of other better films and filmmakers.

To me the film fails, especially in the supposedly better second half because there are no characters. We have actors dressed up in clothing that doesn't seem to jibe with when the film is taking place. It seems more like dress up. The voice over narration over the improvised silent footage drains the life out of everything because those aren't real people up there. Its over done not in the style of Murnau, which is often quoted, rather like some bad home movie made on super 8 by someone who had no clue about what they were doing or aping a style they didn't understand.

People are raving about this? Really? What film are they seeing? No wait the woman behind me was laughing through much of it. ..one hopes that she really found something funny and wasn’t dropped as a child.

This movie is terrible. I’m sure that this might have worked if the filmmaking hadn’t been so affected.

Seriously I was bored silly. I would have walked out a half an hour in but I had read about a miraculous second half.  The second half just bored me further as I kept wanting to ask lots of questions, not the least of which being why are you taking so long to tell me this story?

I am convinced that anyone who found the film enthralling  and worthy of an award is simply afraid to say that they didn’t get it or that the director is full of crap.  I suspect someone said they liked it and everyone went along with it because they didn’t to seem stupid…

This is the sort of art film I hate..  stupid, full of itself and dumber than even pretentious twaddle. The film played last night and again on the 13the at the festival and opens in theaters December 26, but I’m sure you’re smart enough not to bother.