All about service dogs and the folk they serve: Heddy Honigmann's lovely doc, BUDDY, opens

Hot on the heels of another fine, festival-favorite doggie documentary, Los Reyes, comes an equally good doc concerning service dogs (real ones, not these ubiquitous "emotional support" animals) and the disabled humans they serve -- in so many ways.

Written and directed by Peruvian-born, internationally-known documentarian Heddy Honigmann (who made that great doc Forever, about the Père-Lachaise cemetery in Paris), BUDDY takes us into the lives of six amazing service dogs and the equally interesting folk they assist.

Honigmann, shown at right, bounces back and forth between the six dogs/owners, and eventually we get quite a rich picture of these people, their animals, and the situation in which each of them finds him or herself. The subjects she chooses to question the humans about often provide entryway into more than that initial subject, and clearly her manner with humans and animals puts both at ease. There is never any sense here of the filmmaker prying or poking where she is unwelcome. And this serves to make the viewer comfortable and welcome, as well.

One man is an increasingly disabled veteran (above) with PTSD and a dog named Mister; another is a woman in a wheelchair who, with the help of her dog, manages to work and live and even produce ("He's my freedom!" she notes of her dog, Kaiko).

There's a young boy (below) who's somewhere on the autism spectrum, who, among other gifts, gets the necessary calming support from his dog, while a blind woman on her 80s, who seems perhaps the most physically active of all of these people, still runs like a teenager -- with the help of her dog, of course.

If you're anything like TrustMovies, you'll have long been impressed with what these service animals can accomplish. Still, by the time you watch as one dog actually turns his mistress over in her bed, pushes a hypodermic syringe into her body, takes off her socks and pulls up her blanket, you may wonder if you're suddenly in science-fiction land.

Yet unlike robots, these are animals you can also cuddle and love and who respond to that love. Aside from the real and very important work these dogs do, their emotional bond with their owners seems equally so. When one of the dogs suddenly dies, this'll hit you something fierce. Until you see and then further imagine what it has done to the dog's owner.

A shoo-in for any animal lover, Buddy -- in Dutch with English subtitles and running 87 minutes -- should also appeal greatly to those who work with or are interested in the lives of the disabled. Further good news: Grasshopper Film has just picked up distribution rights to Buddy. So, after its  two-week U.S. theatrical debut this coming Wednesday, March 20, at Film Forum (which has previously hosted five other of Honigmann's documentaries), it should play elsewhere around the country. This is a movie that ought to hit all the big cities and eventually stream everywhere else. Click here and then scroll down to click on Where to Watch to view all currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters.

Note: The above "doggie bone," specially made for Film Forum, will be on sale at the concession during the two-week presentation of Buddy.

Ceyda Torun's delightful doc, KEDI -- Cat lovers: the movie of your life has arrived!

And not only cat lovers: Movie lovers in general might just might want to stick this new documentary on their must-see list. No film I've viewed so far has made me want to visit the country of Turkey (along with its city of Istanbul) more than this one. The reasons are three-fold: those titular cats, of course (I'm told that Kedi means cat in Turkish); the people we meet who care for those cats (thoughtful, humane, and with plenty of smart stuff to tell us); and finally this: Though little is overtly made of religion in the film -- save one sweet anecdote about the Muslim faith, Christianity and burials with crosses -- you come away from Kedi with the notion that Muslim-must-equal-terrorism pushed about as far back in your brain as possible. These days in particular, that is no small achievement.

The film's director, Ceyda Torun (shown at left), grew up in Istanbul till she reached eleven years, with the city's cats her constant companions. TrustMovies did not know this about Istanbul: Hundreds of thousands of cats roam the city freely, just as the species has done for thousands of years, wandering in and out of people's home and lives, and making (or so the movie posits) those lives infinitely richer.

KEDI lets us into the world of some of those cats (quite a diverse bunch, both visually and personality-wise), along with the people who are their semi-caretakers, and whom the cats seems to have adopted -- rather than the other way around. As charming and delightful as these cats are, it is those people -- their thoughts, feelings and ideas -- that make this movie as rich as it is.

One of these folk reminds us that, while dogs may see humans as god, cats understand that we are merely the middlemen in the equation.

Another fellow, who appears to work in a bakery (maybe it's a bakery/restaurant) notes that all the tips taked in here are used to care for the cats. We watch in wonder as yet another man carries around his plastic bag full of food that he offers the felines, while explaining why and how the cats have saved his life.

As "modernity" encroaches and high-rises replace whole neighborhoods, the cats' habitat diminishes. Torun and her cast/cats and crew gives us some wonderful aerial views of the city (the cinematography is by Alp Korfali and Charlie Wupperman), as well as an up-close-and-personal look into homes and offices and various cat quarters around the town.

No mention is made of "animal control." Perhaps there simply is none. We hear reference only once to an animal being "fixed," If the cat population continues to grow, even as its habitat diminishes, something will surely have to be done. Meanwhile, we get quite a dose of a culture very different from our own -- different from all of Europe and even that of other Muslim countries.

Turkey has long endeavored to be a secular, rather than a religious, state, though this may be changing. Fundamentalism appears to be on the rise everywhere. The single "political" statement made in the film is a bit of stenciled graffiti shown in the background that says Erdo-gone. Yes, Turkish President Erdoğan, like Saddam Hussein in Iraq, has pushed for a secular over a religions state. But he has also, like all power-hungry dictators, left a trail of blood in his wake.

To be sure, this documentary is nothing like the whole story of Turkey, nor even of Istanbul. Yet one comes away from it most impressed with the kindness of these caretakers and the myriad ways that these cats have enriched and changed their lives.

Kedi -- from Oscilloscope Films, in Turkish with English subtitles and running a just-right 79 minutes -- opens this Friday in New York City at the new Metrograph. The following Friday, February 17, it hits the Los Angels area at Laemmle's Royal, Playhouse 7 and Town Center 5. The following weeks will see the film open all across the country. Here in South Florida it will debut on March 3 and will play the Bill Cosford Cinema and the O Cinema Wnnwood in Miami, the Living Room Theaters in Boca Raton, the Classic Gateway Theatre in Fort Lauderdale, and at the Movies of Delray and Lake Worth. To view all currently scheduled playdates, cities and  theaters, click here and then click on SCREENINGS on the task bar at top.

Dani Menkin's and Yonatan Nir's DOLPHIN BOY is all about healing -- on several levels

DOLPHIN BOY -- the new movie opening this week by Israeli filmmakers Dani Menkin  and Yonatan Nir -- is such a cheapo, hand-held, do-it-by-your-bootstraps kind of documentary that you almost start fidgeting within the first minute or two of screen time. But because those minutes include the subject at hand, a 17-year-old young fellow named Morad, who when we meet him, below, has been traumatized by a physical beating almost unto death, we stay focused.

This beating came via another young man (and his friends) who had found what he deemed an inappropriate text on his sister's cell phone and decided that something untoward had been going on. It had not, but Morad was almost killed nonetheless. When we meet him, he has recovered physically but not mentally nor emotionally. He's unreachable.

Menkin (at left) and Nir (below, right) go out of their way to show us how Morad's doctors are flummoxed by their inability to breakthrough to the boy. And so, in a kind of last resort, because they have heard that "dolphin therapy" can sometimes reach the unreachable, off Morad goes, with his family's blessing, to an area by the sea in which dolphins are kept in what seem to be as ideal conditions as possible, without being exactly "free."

Fortunately Morad comes from what appears to be a well-to-do Muslim family. His father, when the movie opens, has already sold much of his property to pay for his son's rehabilitation.

The dolphins, with their seemingly innate kindness, do their job and improvement comes, if slowly. We watch and marvel as, bit by bit, the boy begins connecting with the world again. At around the six-month period, we hear about (but do not see) the reunion with his mother, which, as described, is something else. Here, the primal becomes physical.

Eventually we visit the courthouse with the family and see the criminals. It's shocking, after all the peace and serenity we've been experiencing, to see the stupidity, anger and inhumanity of the attackers. Then it's back to the dolphin base. Interestingly, as much good as the dolphins do, the movie does not concentrate on them. Rather, it's Morad and those around him that gain our keenest attention.

Dad -- above, praying -- is ever-present and loving; mom, too. Morad even becomes close with one of the young female workers (shown below) at the base, and a relationship develops. Without pushing the idea, the movie begins to mirror life and its complexi-ties: relationships, coming to terms with the past and with family.

We learn more about Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome, too, and how, as Morad's doctor explains, it makes you acutely aware of what violence can do to the human body and mind. Even as Morad grows more articulate and "normal," coming to terms with any thoughts of that traumatic time seems out of the question. Yet that, finally, must be the goal.

To that end everything from hypnotism to a startling new device to physically make the trauma symptoms cool down are used to help Morad. I don't know that this movie ever actually uses the term itself, but Dolphin Boy is all about healing. Healing Morad, healing the past, and -- as Morad's family are Muslims and the film takes place in Israel under the helm of Israeli filmmakers, maybe even healing the Arab/Jew conundrum.

Dolphin Boy is a lovely movie. And if those dolphins, as important as they are, finally seem the least of it, Morad himself is a fellow you're unlikely to forget. The film opens this Friday here in New York City at the Quad Cinema. I don't know of any other theatrical playdates, but surely we'll see the movie come to DVD, VOD and/or cable/streaming eventually.

Monkeyshines & shocks in James Marsh's moving and thoughtful PROJECT NIM

At its outset, back in the early 1970s, an animal experiment involving the use of sign-language taught to a chimp appeared to go quite interes-tingly and well. Hey, it made the cover of New York magazine! When we get the whole story, however -- which lasts decades, incorporates so much more than we might have imagined and looks like one of the more horrendous examples of animal anthropo-morphization (not to mention another glowing sample of human hubris) -- we're brought up short. This is PROJECT NIM, the new documentary from James Marsh, shown below, which is as fascinating and ironic a movie as you might expect from the filmmaker who gave us the award-winning Man on Wire.

Over the course of the film and the life of Nim, its Chimpanzee star, so much happens and so event-filled is this tale that it bears comparison to the event-filled film of all-time, Paul Verhoeven's Holocaust hoot, Black Book. So intent is Nim's original surrogate mother, Stephanie Lafarge (an integral part of the experiment, she is shown flanking Nim, below, with her then-husband) in making our hero human that she even breast-feeds him and teaches him to smoke pot. (This was the 1970s, remember: anything went.) Later surrogates were both amused and abused by Nim, who, as he grows larger, also grows stronger and some-times hurts his keepers. But he also knows how to sign, "Sorry."

As the film moves forward, telling  Nim's tale, it also grows stranger, sadder and even frightening. And not simply for those people around Nim, who grow to love and care for him, but especially for Nim himself, who -- for all his inroads into language skills -- remains an animal adrift in a human world.

After recent films such as The Elephant in the Living Room (about the hazards of exotics pets) and One Lucky Elephant (that explored the human/animal bond at the expense of the animal), Project Nim is yet another cautionary documentary that reminds us of the -- surprise! -- animal nature of animals.

What sets the film apart are its story -- amazing, funny and important -- and its style. Mr Marsh is quite a movie-maker; he'll do anything, it seems, to tell his tale as well as it can be told. Combining interviews with all the major participants, complete with knockout archival footage, plus -- here's the kicker -- staged reenactments, the filmmaker weaves it all together so quickly and expertly that you have neither time nor inclination to separate the strands. (These are not the clunky re-enactments found on so many TV would-be documentaries. You barely realize that they are there.)

Is this "truth"? I would think so: recreated truth, at least. In telling Nim's story, Marsh finds one semi-villain, maybe two. Most notable is the Columbia University behavioral psychologist Herbert Terrace, who began the experiment (and then shut it down). Self -justifying and self-satisfied, Terrace seems to have felt little for anyone other than himself. Then there is the late and perhaps unduly noted "animal rights" activist Cleveland Amory, who "rescues" Nim, only to plop him into his most horrible environment yet, and who will not listen to a word of good advice from anyone else.

The rest of the characters surrounding our chimp range from loving and kind to foolish and kind -- with the exception of Bob Ingersoll, below, who comes off as perhaps Nim's one true, sensible human friend. The havoc some of these people wreak, while unintentional, is no less horrible, and the fine film made from it all is both a parable and a cautionary tale about man and beast.

Project Nim, from Roadside Attractions, opens this Friday, July 8, in New York at the Angelika Film Center and the Elinor Bunin Monroe Film Center; in Chicago it will play at the Music Box Theater and in Evanston, IL, at the Cinema Arts 6. The film will open in the Los Angeles area, and in Boston, Atlanta, San Diego, Phoenix and San Francisco on July 15, with a wider expansion expected to follow soon.

In Michael Webber's THE ELEPHANT IN THE LIVING ROOM, that pachyderm proves no mere metaphor

Nor does the 300-pound gorilla in the room. Nor the pair of full-grown lions and their three cubs. Nor the 12-foot python. Usually when we hear a phrase like "the gorrilla in the room," it refers to a subject about which no one wants to talk, and so it sits there, looming, with everyone looking and speaking around it. This is not the case with Michael Webber's new documentary THE ELEPHANT IN THE LIVING ROOM, in which each and every "exotic pet" featured is more than happy to be talked about by the filmmaker and his subjects.

An award-winner at a number of festivals (it's easy to understand why), Webber's documentary tackles an issue that would seem to go to the heart of a citizen's rights. No, not the right to bear arms, but the right to bear lions, tigers, cougars, chimps, snakes, elephants and whatever exotic pet you might want, despite the possible harm it can bring to you, your family, your neighbors and your community. If you dont think this is a big issue, you should try seeking out one of the Exotic Pet marketplaces shown in the movie, where like-minded buyers and sellers gather and cameras are not permitted.  (Fortunately, Webber -- shown above, right -- managed to get around that rule somehow.)

What makes this movie work as well as it does is the fact that Webber's two main protagonists are likeable and can see both sides of the issue, to some extent.  If the owner (Terry Brumfield, above, with Lacie) of that pride of lions (mom, pop and four offspring) is less able to look at things from the perspective of frightened neighbors, he at least understands the risks involved. But so attached to his brood is he that at times, it seems he'll go off the deep end.

Keeping things clear and as far from the deep end as possible is police office, martial-arts expert and animal protection advocate, Tim Harrison (above) who has captured and resucred a slew of exotic pets of all kinds across the USA. His best friend was killed by his own "exotic pet," so Harrison can easily move from one side of the argument to the other. His connection are pretty impressive, too. If I needed to place an odd pet, this is the guy I'd go to first.

Harrison explains the situation very cleverly and carefully: "There are now more alligator "nuisance calls" in Dayton, Ohio, than there are in Florida."  "We have dog-tags for dogs," notes another fellow, "but not for lions."  The officer takes us to a desolate spot outside of a town where a large tiger, evidently a no-longer-wanted pet, has been shot several times in the face and then left by the side of the road.

We see the damage done buy the idiotic talk shows hosts and their guests, on which chimps, bears, elephants and other wild beasts appear to charm the audience without ever cluing it into what taking care of an animal of this size, strength and danger-quotient is like.  Entertainment trumps intelligence every time.

The movie finally comes down to the story of Terry's increasing difficulty housing his lions, and how officer Harrison seems to move heaven and earth to find a decent home for the animals. While the end titles tell of updates on lions and other exotic pets in Ohio, I think it may be the simple prayer spoken by the group of men, in-cluding Terry (below), Tim and his strongman friend (above) who've helped with the final move of the lion pride, that will surprise you most. You don't have to believe in any higher power to be moved to tears at the sadness and strangeness of the human race.

The Elephant in the Living Room opened in Los Angeles last week and will open here in New York City this week, with many other openings in cities around the country in the weeks to come. You can find all the screenings -- cities, dates and theaters -- by clicking here, then scrolling down.

DVDebut: THE HORSE BOY -- one family's amazing autism story

When your child is threatened -- in this case with a seem-
ingly incurable prob-
lem -- anything, everything goes. So it is with Kristin Neff, Rupert Isaacson and their son Rowan (all three are shown, with horse, two photos below).  Rowan, in his very young years, develops full-out autism. Yes: the kind that is given to waves of non-stop tantrums and no control over bowel movements. These waves can last for up to four hours and are neurological in origin, which makes the child seemingly unreachable and worse, impossible to console.

When you've raised a "normal" child (yes, I know: whatever that means), it is very nearly impossible to imagine experiencing something like this. The other films that TrustMovies has lately seen on this subject (Her Name is Sabine, Autism: Made in the USA and even the narrative movie Adam, while all important and very good in their way, seem rather conventional next to THE HORSE BOY, a documentary directed and photographed by Michel Orion Scott, shown below.

To the wilds of Mongolia from the not-so-wilds of present- day Texas the film takes us, and the journey is alternately uplifting and upsetting but always just plain bizarre.  Because, during this family's most difficult time, young Rowan suddenly seems able to be calmed by proximity to horses, father Rupert researches everything he can about this connection and learns that Shamans -- yes, those people -- on the Mongolian plains are noted for their ability to work with the autistic.  Off goes the family, eastward to Mongolia.

What happens there is, depending on your viewpoint, amazing or maybe weird.  The film does not push us into belief, although seeing does tend to lead to believing.  For a time it seems as though Rowan goes one step forward and a couple back (at one point he even rejects horses).  Dad claims he is a better father because of his son's autism, which has forced him to listen.  "I'm glad now; we're into something good here," he later tells us.  For her part, Mom looks back at her own family and a grandmother whose bouts of manic depression make her wonder what kind of genetics she has sealed into her son.

The Horse Boy is as eye-opening a film about autism as I've seen, and the family's story is well served via interspersed interviews with autism specialists from Simon Baron-Cohen (that's right: Sacha's cousin), Temple Grandin (herself autistic) and Roy Richard Grinker. Well organized around some suspenseful moments (will the travelers finally find -- and get the help of -- the reindeer people and their shamans?), the film never loses its audience and also never forces us into complicity via melodramatics.

One of the most telling moments, for me, comes when our experts talk about how other societies treat their special people, finding a place for them and a role for them to play in society.  Are these people sick, they ask, or do they simply have a different role to play?  Here, we keep them separate from the bulk of our society; many other countries do not.

Clearly, this couple is not hurting financially, and the realization may occur as you watch the film that most of us could never afford to do anything like this, were our offspring someone like Rowan.  But this is not the main point.  This film should open the door to further research.  As Rupert Isaacson finally tells us, his son was not cured of autism, but his most aggravating and difficult symptoms have now vanished and all three of their lives are so much easier.

How the movie climaxes and then concludes is quietly stunning. The Horse Boy made its DVD debut last month and is available via the usual suspects. Running 93 minutes, it is a more than worth your time.