Say hello to the hybrid mockumentary: Victor Quinaz's BREAKUP AT A WEDDING

We've seen documentaries, we've seen mockumentaries, we've seen hybrid documentaries, and now it's time, I guess, to welcome the hybrid mock-umentary BREAKUP AT A WEDDING, the new whatzit from filmmaker Victor Quinaz. Just what is a hybrid mockumentary? Damned if I know, but this movie just seems a bit different from your Christopher Guest model, or last week's overblown version, Colossus, or any other kind of "mock" I can easily recall. Blatantly a fiction film, it still appears to be a documentary posing as as reality while clearly being unable to reach that precious plateau -- even as a fake "reality" movie.

Mr. Quinaz, shown at right -- who acts as director, co-writer, one of the film's producers and even has an acting role in the movie -- is handing us the notion that he's been hired to capture a couple's wedding on video (by now we know this routine very well, though the film that does it best, oddly enough, is the terrifically frisky, funny zombie movie [REC] 3), even though the twosome has decided (due to the bride, not the groom, who is nicely played by the filmmaker's brother, Philip Quinaz, below, left) that it is not actually getting married but will instead "fake it" for the relatives and guests.

How they do this and what ensues makes up most of the movie, which is relatively funny and sometimes charming but more often proves just a little bit off both base and key.

If you notice the photos above and below (this isn't fair, of course, but they are all I've found to use), you may detect a bit of a strained quality in the expressions on hand (particularly that of the bride, played by Alison Fyhrie, above and below). There's a sense here of trying too hard, and it seems to infect everything from writing to direction to performance.

Sometimes things come off well enough, at least, to allow us to sit back and enjoy. But more often that "pushing" sense occurs and we tighten up in expectation of, well, too much. This is not the best way, I think, to enjoy a comedy. But here, we must take to so-so with the good.

Comedy itself is one of the more difficult genres to get anything approaching agreement from audiences. One man's laugh is another man's lack of. I suspect there will be enough of the former to make this movie at least an OK experience. The "wedding" takes place on one of those multi-venue propositions at which several couples can marry at the same time on their own turf. My favorite section had to do with how to steal your liquor from an adjoining festivity (and if that festivity offers a "Star Wars" theme, all the better).

Breakup at a Wedding, from Oscilloscope Films and running, even at only 85 minutes, a bit too long, opens this coming Friday, August 2, at Brooklyn's IndieScreen theater, with one of the most famous of its producers -- Zachary Quinto -- appearing at select screenings for Q&As. The film was also released onto VOD and digital channels earlier this summer (and may still be playing there, if you're couch potato-inclined).

Sarah Polley's STORIES WE TELL: an objet d'art deep with meaning, feeling and justice

We're viewing more and more of what some of us call hybrid documentaries these days, films that, among other unusual combination, sometimes offer up an actual, real-life situation while using actors to fill in the past and some of the blanks that come from characters either deceased or unwilling/unable to "perform." Sarah Polley's hugely moving, surprising and entertaining STORIES WE TELL is one such film, and it is also the best yet in this new/old genre. (Flaherty's Nanook of the North, from 1922, was supposedly one such hybrid.)

What makes Ms Polley's film so special (that's she, shown at right) -- and also, it seems to me, so exquisitely Canadian -- is her search for decency and justice, along with "truth" and all the facts and fiction involved in arriving at that truth. Polley has long been a lovely actress and one of my personal favorites. She's not the most beautiful or revelatory or shocking or unusual. But she's always honest: one of those in-the-moment performers who doesn't hit a false note and is perfectly happy to give you truth without the trimmings that might make it easier to digest. To offer three quick examples, which you really ought to see if you haven't, check out her work in Last Night, Go and Splice, for starters. Then move on to The Sweet Hereafter, Guinevere and The Secret Life of Words for further verification. Toss in Beowulf & Grendel and No Such Thing for good measure and a little odd fun. Really, any of her films double as proof of the pudding.

As a filmmaker, Polley has made three excellent movies: her Alzheimers-themed Away from Her, the love-and-infidelity tale Take This Waltz, and now, her best yet. With each film she has grown more courageous -- in terms of her themes and how clearly she addresses these -- as well as more stylistically innovative. And she has kept, in fact increased, her intelligent skepticism (a quality she also brings to her acting) so that her audience cannot count on anything too safely simple.

Stories We Tell has to do with parenting and parentage and will, I think, rivet anyone with a real interest in the vagaries of both. In Polley's family (she was the youngest child), she grew up with jokes about her red hair and her lineage. But these were only jokes until, after her mother died, she began to explore the situation further. What she and we learn is, as with so many family stories, at once funny, moving, surprising and -- thanks especially to the filmmaker's insistence on being as fair to everyone involved as possible (for me, and despite the Keystone Pipeline, this is what makes her movie so "Canadian") -- especially kind, honest and often very funny.

We meet Polley's (very) extended family, dad (above in the past, and below in the present), brother and sisters, and other relatives, friends and co-workers. We meet mom, via (I think) old footage and an actress, too, as we do many of the other characters, who come to life as both their real selves and actors who play them in an earlier time. Yet so seamlessly has Polley written and directed all this, with such terrific editing (Michael Munn) and cinematography (Iris Ng) that not only do we follow the byways and oddities on view, we become more and more involved emotionally and intellec-tually with her story and all the people who buzz around and in it.

At one point, the filmmaker explains how important it is to her that each voice heard is also heard in a way that honors his or her viewpoint (I'm paraphrasing, but I believe that is what Polley wants).  This is certainly not an easy task, especially in a tale this involved and that includes so many people with their own "take" on the matter. And yet I think that she actually achieves her goal. And it is this that makes her movie additionally astonishing.

As you can see, I am not going into detail about revelations offered here. It has been said that every family has its secrets; true, but the secrets here you need to experience and discover for yourself. At the end, as the credits roll, we get yet another surprise. A humdinger, in fact, and while it almost seems that the filmmaker is teasing, maybe testing, us with something that's a bit cheap, this further revelation actually underscores yet again how difficult it is to arrive at "the truth." Ms Polley has come about as close as possible, though, while doing justice by and to everyone involved.

Don't miss Stories We Tell, which could as easily be titled Lies We Tell (and I do not mean this in a nasty way, as denial is as large a part of the lives of most of us as is love and need). The film, from Roadside Attractions and running 108 minutes, opens this Friday, May 10, here in New York City at the Lincoln Plaza Cinema and & the Angelika Film Center, and on Friday, May 17, in Los Angeles at The Landmark, and in other cities as well. You might try clicking on the film's web site to learn if and where the film is playing near you.

All about Baha'i: Mohsen Makhmalbaf's odd father & son documentary, THE GARDENER

If a new film called THE GARDENER isn't one of the weirder hybrid documentaries in quite awhile, I'll be surprised. Paid for, I'd guess, by the Committee to Make the Baha'i Religion a Household Word, this nearly (and oddly) humor-free mockumen-tary supposedly tracks the adventures of an Iranian father/
son team as it visits Israel and the huge and beautiful garden taken care of by a disciple of the Baha'i religion, who is happy -- as are all the other acolytes rounded up by the filmmakers -- to give us a grounding in this unusual religion, which appears determined to keep itself abreast of modernity in a changing world. Amen to that, as too many religions seem content to continue mimicking the dark ages.

One of the special enjoyments that go along with a blog (and a no-paying job) like this one is the fact that you can move from covering a sleaze-fest such as The Canyons one day to a film about religion and the betterment of the world the next. Where else could your interest move from A to Z so quickly? Unfortunately in this case, neither film is very good. The writer/director of The Gardener is Mohsen Makhmalbaf, shown at left, who earlier gave us Kandahar and The Silence. Here he is trying something quite different: style-wise, you might call it a kind of hybrid documentary in which father and son explore a religion new to them, as it is banned in their home country of Iran.

So, then, we have what the press materials refer to as "a poetic exploration of religion, in particular the Baha’i faith, in today's world, told from two distinct perspectives: that of the director, and of the cinematographer, his son Maysam, as they travel to make a documentary as Iranians in Israel."

This could be quite something -- if we got much of a sense of what the religion actually comprises. But its adherents we meet here are content to give us generalities and breathless praise. It is to be commended that this religion understands how the world, and it, must change: Baha'i is in favor of the emancipation of women, but do we really to see and hear a schlocky "tree" metaphor being taught to children by one of these adherents?  (Later we are told that "Flowers don't fight." Well, no: they're flowers.) Clearly this religion is less power-hungry than most -- which is great, but also probably accounts for its being such a marginal player.

What's worse, that gardener (above) that the film supposedly "follows" is little more than a cipher about whom we learn the basics and that's it (he's a tenth-generation Baha'i from Papua New Guinea). Actually, there are two gardeners shown here, the other a young man of mixed race who also tends the lovely grounds.

Stylistically, it's all pretty much hand-held with occasional use of a stationery camera. But there are two oddities along the way. One is a back-and-forth movement from color to black-and-white, which at first I thought indicated a kind of dream sequence. But as it is used so often, I think not. Why is it used at all? I have no idea.

A better and more unusual surprise comes toward the finale, when someone, that gardener or the director, makes reference, maybe re religion, to images and/or mirrors. Suddenly mirrors are being used all over the place, from garden (above) to seashore (below), and how they make a frame within the frame is quite interesting. The quality of the color even seems to change slightly in the mirror.

Nearly an hour into this 82-minute movie, son (below) grows annoyed with dad, whom he insists is making a movie to promote religion. So off he goes to the local bazaar and then explores the famous church, mosque and wall that serve as major symbols for, respectively, Christians, Muslims and Jews. He wonders aloud why god would have planted these places of worship so close together. "Wasn't there enough space in the world? Didn't he (Editor's note: yup, it's the male gender) know that his believers would not make good neighbors?"

It seems to me that here was an opportunity to really explore religion and belief, or maybe just to explore that amazing garden -- wait till you see the gorgeous pansies on view! -- and find out more about either or both. Instead we get mostly rudimentary babble, and a few generation-gap moments (son wants speed and maybe casting Brad Pitt as the gardener; dad opts for moment-to-moment reality). We do learn a bit about a religion that's probably worth knowing. Otherwise, the film offers what we would have called, back in the day, diddly-squat.

The exclusive Los Angeles engagement of The Gardener begins today Friday, August 2nd at Laemmle's Music Hall 3 in Beverly Hills and on Friday, August 9, in New York City at the Quad Cinema. Any further screenings (you can request one by clicking here), I imagine, will be listed on the film's web site. Eventually, I'd guess, we'll be able to see the movie on DVD, VOD and digital outlets.

Carol Morley's DREAMS OF A LIFE: that body, three years dead in its London flat, gets the hybrid documentary treatment

Possibly the most misconceived movie of the year so far, DREAMS OF A LIFE tries to tell the tale of one, Joyce Carol Vincent, the woman whose body was finally found in her London flat -- three years after her death, surrounded by Christmas presents (hers to other people, I'm assuming) and with the television still on. How could this be, the world wanted to know? And so film-maker Carol Morley (shown below) has tried to answer the question by cobbling together elements of a documentary with other elements of a narrative film, coming up with a movie that is neither fish nor fowl, and, for all its talking heads and cheap-jack psychologizing, ends up with a Joyce Vincent who seems more of a cipher as we exit the theater than she did when we entered it.  Boo, say I.

TrustMovies has tried (and generally succeeded, he thinks) to embrace all kinds of hybrid documentaries -- from Alma Ha'rel's Bombay Beach to the recent Imposter of Bart Layton. These movies work because, for all their odd couplings of disparate elements, they finally succeed in shedding some real light on their subjects. Ms Morley manages to obscure hers by turning it into a half-narrative, half talking-head doc, in which one side routs the other. If ever a tale cried out for an honest, imaginative, narrative re-telling of a woman and an event (think of Miranda Richardson in Mike Newell's and Shelagh Delaney's Dance With a Stranger), it's this one. Instead, it receives a tentative, pussy-footing account that contradicts itself and leaves an intelligent viewer very nearly frothing at the mouth.

Two years ago Ms Morley wrote and directed a full-length narrative film (that was not much seen, evidently), so she has some experience in this field. Instead she chooses to use a quite beautiful young actress, Zawe Ashton (at left, and more beautiful by far than the actual Ms Vincent) yet gives her little to do but pose and look pensive. The talking heads go on and on about Vincent and what she did and didn't do and maybe did and did not feel until we want to scream, "For god's sake show us!" And then we get more pensive posing.

Elsewhere, too, I suspect that things were staged to resemble what was found in the Vincent flat, once authorities had entered it -- the dirty dishes in the sink, above, and the cobwebby radio, below. These are fine, for we're now used to this kind of re-creation. But it is where the human being is concerned that we demand some meat on the bones.

Not only do we not learn know much about Joyce, who remains amorphous throughout, even the event that put her in the news, post demise, gets short shrift. Some investigative reporting as to how this was allowed to happen -- something more than a repetition of a few of the known facts -- would have been appreciated. Instead we get more of those talking heads, as Joyce's friends and/or maybe lovers, speak up about what she meant to them.

The most interesting and in some ways the saddest of these is her would-be boyfriend, below, who repeatedly tells us how shockingly lucky he was to have won someone like Joyce. Maybe; maybe not. The filmmaker seems so intent on exploring her subject as a stand-in for "the lonely life" that we leave the theater imagining that she barely had one. Which fits right into the movie's title and the film-maker's take on the whole thing.  Yet Ms Vincent had a life, such as it was, but it's something we don't come within a mile of reaching.

Maybe someone is preparing a screenplay right now for the likes of Thandie Newton, Megan Echikunwoke, Ms Ashton -- or any of the fine young black or mixed-race actresses who, with a decent script in front of them, might bring to life this sad, strange woman. Dreams of A Life, from Strand Releasing and 95 minutes long, opens this Friday in New York City at the IFC Center. I'll try to find where else is might be playing.  Check back later....

THE ADVENTURERS OF MODERN ART: the 2015 style- and genre-melding French TV series

As co-directed by Amélie Harrault, Pauline Gaillard and Valérie Loiseleux, with writing credited to Dan Franck, this unusual French television series from 2015-- six epiosdes, each one around 52 minutes in length -- tells the stories of some of the most famous figures of modern art, more from the angle of their lives (expecially their love lives) rather than via their art -- though that art is present and clearly important. In THE ADVENTURERS OF MODERN ART (Les aventuriers de l'art moderne), we meet everyone from Matisse, Picasso and Braque to Gertrude Stein, Jean Cocteau, Guillaume Apollinaire and Max Jacob (that last name perhaps the least know but among the most interesting characters in the series). 

What's most unusual about this series is that it is -- to a surprising extent, at least -- animated. And though that seems to be what most sets it apart from other film and television about art and artists, that animation -- unless TrustMovies' calculations are way off base -- is much less seen than is the footage devoted to the use of archival film documentary (and narrative film, too!). Occasionally the animation is even placed atop this archival footage.

This is probably a good thing, since that animation, though perfectly acceptable, seems to my eyes nothing all that special. It simply recreates scenes that, in other hybrid documentaries these days, would have been "enacted," using a cast of assembled performers to play the various roles. Further, the archival footage is particularly well chosen: often pointed, amusing, and seeming almost perfectly of its time and place.

Picasso (above), whatever you might think of his art, is presented as pretty much the asshole of a human being that he was. Many, if not most, males were exactly that back then (oh, right -- now, as well), but this guy managed to outdo them all. (The filmmakers seem particularly taken with the artist's eyes -- which we view in close up, animated or archival, over and over again.) 

While the series can be repetitive, it is also filled with so many little-known facts and/or speculations that one's interest rarely flags. And if Picasso earns little empathy, other folk like Apollinaire and Jacob (the also-ran among these artists, poets and cultural figures) earn our appreciation and caring in surprising ways.

The three episodes I've finished so far -- Bohemia: 1900-1906, Picasso and His Gang: 1906-1916, and Paris Capital of the World: 1916-1920 -- take us historically, artistically, culturally and especially love-life-wise into the lives of these artists and the places (from France to Spain to Germany and back) where they lived and worked. 

The series has a very nice build. It may take you some time to warm up to the animation (not so much to the archival stuff) and to these artists themselves, but once you're hooked, I suspect you'll stick with it and warm to it even more. We get Modigliani and Braque and poor, poor Soutine; World War I, the Spanish Flu, and Kiki of Montparnasse; and events of which I've only just now learned, such as Parade, the artistic collaboration of Erik Satie, Cocteau and Picasso -- which was not well-received upon its premiere but, still, must have been quite something to see and hear.  

As I say, I've only finished three of the six episodes but I'll be back for more. From Icarus Home Video, the series hit the street on DVD and streaming last week and is available now for purchase and/or rental).

Lorraine Levy's THE OTHER SON is an amazing, moving, vital & important film; Q&A with this talented filmmaker

So many movies these days are either hybrid documentaries that mix fact and fiction or narrative films based (sometimes very loosely) on "real-life events," that sitting in a theater and watching THE OTHER SON, the vitally important and moving (almost beyond belief) new film from Lorraine Levy (shown below) you sit spellbound, knowing that this movie must be based on fact. But I don't believe that it is. Instead it's the creation of some caring, intelligent, thoughtful artists looking to find a way into, and thus out of, one of the most intractable and seemingly insoluble situations in our world today, that of Israel in Palestine.

If you read other reviews of the film -- and I wish you would not, so that you come to this movie clean -- you'll be apprised of the central situation -- which is such a shock to all involved that it should also come as one to the audience so that we can experience things as do the characters. I'll just say that the movie involves two families, one Israeli, the other Palestinian, and what happens to rock both their worlds as they have know them for nearly 20 years.

This central idea is close to perfect in the manner in which it forces us to confront the Israel/Palestine situation. While this story could be set just about anywhere, placing it here, in this middle-east powder keg, is simply genius. It involves two mothers, two fathers, two sons and their siblings, and as it spins out, the tale takes in culture, faith, tradition and growth -- on both sides of the fence. The movie is particularly effective is showing us how the meaning of all these things can change -- in the blink of an eye. Not simply even-handed, this movie is deeply felt and beautifully performed.

Anyone (the New York reviewer for the end-of-magazine Agenda section, for instance) who judges this film "somewhat dramatically inert" must have slept through the movie. The very situation in which these two families find themselves is so fraught with drama -- each character's handling of the situation becomes a mini-drama unto itself -- that there is more dramatic tension here than in any ten movies you can name. That Levy and her estimable cast almost never allow things to go overboard is a mark of just how exceptional the movie is.

The Jewish family is portrayed by several fine actors: That stalwart of French cinema for over 25 years, Emmanuelle Devos plays mom (above, right); Pascal Elbé is dad (above, left) and Jules Sitruk (remember the French exchange student in Son of Rambow?), below, is one of the titular sons. Each is terrific, but the movie truly belongs to its moms -- as motherhood is examined in a way that few films have managed previously.

I am less familiar with the actors who play the Palestinian family, but they are every bit as good as those who play their Jewish counterparts: Areen Omari (mom, below, center, right), Khalifa Natour (dad, below at right), a simply gorgeous young man named Mehdi Dehbi (below, left) as the son, and in a pivotal role of his brother is another notable actor, Mahmud Shalaby, who was so striking earlier this year as the sexy singer in Free Men. (Shalaby is shown in the photo at bottom of this post.)

Ms Levy enables us to experience the fraught situation from all angles and from each character's perspective and in the process challenges our whole notion of identity. Her movie forces us, just as it does her characters, to rank humanity a tad higher than something so puny as the supposed will of Yaweh/Allah. Given what she tells us in the short interview below, I do wish that the filmmaker had ended her movie a bit differently. As it is, the finale is no deal-breaker, but the film did not need this little burst of melodrama that she gives it. Still, if The Other Son is not the best film  (and it's up there) so far this year, it is certainly among the most important.

The movie -- from Cohen Media Group and running 105 minutes -- opens this Friday, October 26, in New York City at Landmarks' Sunshine and Clearview's 1st and 62nd; in Queens at the Kew Gardens Cinema, in Brooklyn at the Brooklyn Heights Cinema, and in Westchester at the Jacob Burns Film Center and Clearview's Cinema 100.  Look for it in CT, NJ and Long Island, as well.  In the Los Angeles area, it will open this Friday at various Laemmle Theaters, and will then appear in the weeks to come across country at other Landmark Theaters.

****************

TrustMovies has not much time to spare these days, but when he sees a movie this good and this important, the chance to speak briefly with the filmmaker is too appealing to miss.  So he spoke with Lorraine Levy via phone and translator a couple of weeks back, and here's the transcript of the highlights from our conversation. Below, TM appears in boldface and Ms Levy, shown below with some of her cast members, in standard type.  (There may be some spoilers below, so why not see the movie first and read afterward?)

TrustMovies: First of all, let me say how impressed I was with your film. This idea of the film is one of the best I’ve ever seen in terms of coming at the Israel/Palestine dilemma. I thought when I first saw your movie that it must have been based on a real-life situation, but evidently it was not. It was simply thought up by you, the filmmaker…?

Lorraine Levy: No, this story is not based on any real-life situation, but it could have been. We have been able to find a lot of reports by people who were incorrectly returned to their parents during emergency evacuations during wartime. The number of testimonies available on this is growing, and there are people now who are convinced that they do have their true parents. So we decided to use this but make it more extreme: babies given over to mistaken parents: the Israeli child to Palestinians, and the reverse. I did this in order to explore what it means to be the other. To explore what is the quest for identity, and what is the path we have to take in order to overcome some prejudices.

After I saw your film, what I wanted most, and still want, is to have your movie seen all over the world, starting with the two places in which the film is located and where it means the most. Now, I am not stupid enough to imagine that it will change tons of minds, but it is bound to change some and will make some people stop and think, feel more deeply, and imagine what this might be like if the situation happened to them.

I am very touched by what you just said. This is something I really wanted to do with this film. I wanted so much that this film really touch people on that emotional level. I also want them to be able to extrapolate the situation into other areas. This is a situation that exists throughout out the world. Brothers ultimately are brothers. I have in mind the Martin Luther Kinbg “I have a dream” speech because I do believe that we are all brothers.

Because your film had its date of theatrical open delayed, and certain of us critic were not paying close enough attention, one capsule review appeared a few week ago that claimed that The Other Son, while it had an interesting premise, simply had no drama to it. This strikes me a ridiculous, because the very situation central to the film is so fraught with drama that this is really all you need, I think. Can you comment on this?

I believe you are right because this really is a paroxysm of drama. These are people who are suddenly overwhelmed. And, yes, the drama is in the situation itself. However, if what this critic was trying to say was that I did not treat the drama in a dramatic enough way, then he may have a point. I did not treat this in an overly dramatic way, I wanted to treat it in a way that offered more distance. Maybe with a little bit more reticence. In that way, I hoped to make it more real and perhaps less “dramatic.”

The casting here was particularly good. Emmanuelle Devos (above) is always wonderful, but it was Pascal Elbé (below) who did surprise me. I have seen him in action movies and comedies, but this is maybe the best role I’ve seen him tackle. I am less familiar with the actors who play the Palestinian family, but they were also fine. Did you rely on your casting director, or were these actors your idea? How did that work?

I actually used three casting directors; One in France, one in Israel, and one in Palestine. I knew very quickly, of course, for the French. I wanted Emmanuelle. I thought she really, for me, embodied what the character is. She was what I had in mind. I had already worked with Pascale Elbé, before in a comedy. I found that, as an actor, he had tremendous depth and a great deal of gravity. I wanted to give him a vehicle that would show this depth and gravity on screen. I have tremendous admiration for actors who can act "silence,” and he does this very well.

As far as the Palestinian actors, I did not know them, but through the casting director, I was able to discover some wonderful people. The actors who play the mother and father are very well-know stage actors, and it was a great thing for me to be able to work with them.

I hope this film, which I think may be the most important of the year, does well here-- and everywhere. And I want to thank you so much for making it. And I look forward to your next project.

I am very touched by what you say, because, when you are a filmmaker, you tend to be rather fragile because you have so many choices to make during the film-making process. I have learned that this film really does touch the heart of people all over the world, in Asia, South America, Scandinavia, Europe -- everywhere, so far. I think this is illustrative of the fact the film addresses questions we all share -- and must deal with.

Has the movie opened in Israel yet?

No, but it was selected for the Jerusalem Film Festival, and the screening went very well. The film was well received.

Our time is up, and so we thank Lorraine, 

and the very fine translator, for their time.