Paris of the 1960s comes to oddball life in Ulrike Ottinger's PARIS CALLIGRAMES

 

A calligram, according to Wikipedia, is text arranged in such a way that it forms a thematically related image.  TrustMovies is not sure he actually saw a calligram in any of the many works of artist/filmmaker Ulrike Ottinger on display in her new documentary, PARIS CALLIGRAMMES. 

But perhaps she means her film itself to be a kind of calligram, with her voiced text acting in coordination with the often quite wonderful visuals she presents of the city of Paris that existed when Ottinger first came to live there during the transitional/tumultuous 1960s. 

Upon finishing this over-two-hour-long film, I was initially struck by the fact that I'd very much enjoyed the whole experience, even though I didn't much care for the snippets of her own films that Ottinger -- shown above on the poster as a young woman and at left in current times (yes, she likes sunglasses) -- includes throughout. 

Her colorful, humorous visual art itself is often fun, usually interesting and sometimes provocative. And one would have to have seen her films in their entirety to make any truly informed judgment. 

Yet the beauty, charm and intelligence of this documentary comes through via Ottinger's unusual combination of nostalgia for a lost time and place, and her adamant stance regarding art, artists and in particular those famous student demonstrations of the late 1960s (she seems wisely anti the violent police behavior, as well as some of the students' stupid and sleazy shenanigans).

Ottinger seems particularly taken with (as so many of us were) the work and career of wife/husband acting/producing team of Madeleine Renaud and Jean-Louis Barrault  (Remorques, Les enfants du paradis, etc. ), as well as by so many of the artists of that day (and much earlier, too). The filmmaker has a keen sense of history, particularly regarding French colonialism, and the documentary is simultaneously a love letter to the enchantments of Paris and a hard, repeated slap in the face to France itself.

The filmmaker's interests are wide-ranging, even if, of course, they come back again and again to art and cinema. Yet we spend as much time at the gorgeous, horrific Colonial Museum, as at the Cinémathèque Française, and we move from Algeria as the topic of both art and conversation to Vietnam.

Particularly interesting is how Ottinger weaves modern-day views with footage of Paris in the 60s; there's a wonderful scene in and around a hair salon for blacks that seems to span three generations. Another section details Fritz Picard and an antiquarian bookstore. In her views on how to convert experience into art, Ottinger is both generous and buoyant.

Among the examples of her art, my favorite is one of Allen Ginsberg cut into puzzle pieces. Ottinger tells us that, at its debut, she disassembled all the pieces, tossed them into air, and let the audience put them together again. Ballsy chick!

Even if you've never been to Paris but only seen and heard of its wonders secondhand, I suspect Paris Calligrammes will interest, amuse and bemuse you in equal measure. From Icarus Films, running 131 minutes, and featuring a very fine English narration from the beautifully husky-voiced Jenny Agutter, the documentary opens this Friday, April 23, in New York City at Film Forum on virtual cinema and then, April 30, will have a limited engagement at theaters nationwide. To view all scheduled theater screenings, click here and then scroll down to the "P" section.

Art and the folk who make it, sell it and buy it get a good going-over in Michael Walker's terrific little indie, PAINT

The best movie about art that I have seen in a long, long time, PAINT, written and directed by Michael Walker, plays fast and fair with all its characters -- most of whom are all too hypocritically human and a little too full of  themselves -- from the Pratt students determined to make great art and their cynical professor to the older successful artist, and especially the people who sell that art, along with the wealthy public that buys it. 

Paint may be a comedy -- much of it is gleefully funny -- but it is also serious about the desire to create art, where this comes from and how it is manipulated every which way on its journey from imagination to creation to sale (or not). The beauty and surprise Mr. Walker (the filmmaker is shown at right) has in store comes from his understanding that this need to create is genuine -- even if, especially if, the creators are often so unformed and clueless that they unable, at this point in their life and career, to achieve anything resembling their best impulses and ideas.

So these three art students/friends, played by (above, left to right) Olivia Luccardi, Josh Caras and Paul Cooper, bumble along in art, life, love, sex, theft, marketing and much else, and that bumbling is often so much fun that anyone genuinely interested in art and/or creativity will want to come along for the ride. 

The filmmaker mixes in young and old artists (the wonderful David Patrick Kelly plays the funniest and maybe smartest character in the film), students and teachers (Austin Pendleton, above, gets a lovely rant early on in the film), parents and children, buyers and sellers -- and all to great effect. His plotting and pacing are as much fun as his people, so that the 95 minutes whiz by in no time.

As one of our main character notes early on, "Is it my fault I haven't suffered? I just think there's more to life that that!" But what? And so he comes up with an idea -- oh, my! --  that is indeed something rather new, and then he gets his best buddy to help him. Which leads to a lot more fun and games at the same time that the female in this crew is finding her own success via a road not so often taken, at least not via the very amusing route we have here.

Along the way filmmaker Walker fills us in on all kinds of art theft, even as he gives us a group of characters who, for all their insecurities, occasional nastiness and naivete, are rather sweet, fun and almost always funny. 

The third wheel in this group finds his own way of connecting to the art world and its wonders (including sex), and the film's finale could hardly be bettered, giving us not just a sudden and surprising look at another kind of  "real" art, but also showing us the unintended consequences that creativity can sometimes bring. 

From Gravitas Ventures (though I dare you to try to find it on the firm's web site), Paint was released via VOD on most major platforms last week. It is definitely worth a watch, as it introduces quite a raft of talent -- in front of and behind the camera. Click here and/or here for more information.

At virtual Film Forum: Art, justice and family coalesce in Catherine Gund's doc, AGGIE

Having kept myself a deliberate outsider to both the appreciation of and the world of contemporary art, TrustMovies has heard the name Agnes Gund mentioned over the years but had not paid much attention to it. That has changed with the release of the new documentary, AGGIE, directed by Gund's daughter Catherine Gund and starring -- if  rather reluctantly -- her mother. More important, the film co-stars her mom's contributions to not merely contemporary art (she's a wealthy collector of the stuff) but to the constant and necessary struggle for justice in this ever-fraught world of ours. Aggie, it turns out, puts her money -- and much else that's important, too -- where her mouth is. 

Filmmaker Gund, shown at right and at bottom with mom, lets us know from the get-go that Aggie is not particularly happy to have this film made. 

Agnes Gund is clearly quite a private person (we don't learn much at all here about her personal life), and so the documentary concentrates on the art she loves and finds important, and how this impacts and interacts with the need for justice. (The film begins with quote on the subject from another filmmaker Aggie has championed, Ava DuVernay, below.) 

Early on in the film, we see one of  those famous comic-book inspired works by Roy Lichtenstein (below) and learn that it was somehow important in ways others than merely being an expensive piece of art. Later we learn exactly how all this happened and why. 

The junior Ms Gund mixes her mom's family history with the various artists and their art that has been important to her down the decades (the elder Gunn is now in her 80s), and with the struggle for justice she fought for on so many different fronts.

These fronts include everything from the fight for LGBT rights and feminism (that's artist Xaviera Simmons, below, left), to prison reform and most interestingly, for the full rights of people of color here in the USA. Aggie had a conversation years back in which she asked how and why the German people could claim not to have known about the Nazi atrocities during World War II. "Were you alive back in the 1950s?" her companion asks. When her answer is Yes, of course, he asks her how she and all the other Americans did not seem to know or care about the lynchings, murders and general abuse of Negros in here in the USA.

Yes, The elder Gund is one of those "white innocents" -- just like me and so many others I know -- who managed to not really see and understand what was going on in our own country at that time. Gund does not excuse herself. But her life seems to have been dedicated to helping right many of the wrongs she did not or could not fully grasp as a younger person brought up in a society and culture that implicitly consented to all of this as, if not "right," still somehow acceptable.

We meet glancingly so many of the artists she has helped and championed over the years -- from the famous to simply some school-kids she's encouraged via the in-school art programs she has funded. Even John Waters is here. (Gund went to bat for MoMA's acquisition of his bad-taste masterpiece, Pink Flamingos.) By the time we see her work during the AIDS crisis right up and through our current times of Black Lives Matter and the need for prison reform, I suspect you will agree with me that this movie is one of the few recent documentaries you can call genuinely inspiring.  (That's Gund's grandson, Rio Hope Gund, above, left.) 

From Strand Releasing and running just 91 minutes, Aggie opens at New York City's Film Forum virtual cinema tomorrow, Wednesday, October 7. Click here for more information on how to view. Will the documentary screen elsewhere? Click here and then scroll down to click on SCREENINGS in the task bar for the latest update.

Art/criticism/truth/crime combine in Giuseppe Capotondi's THE BURNT ORANGE HERESY

You may recall the name Giuseppe Capotondi from the crackerjack mystery, The Double Hour, released in the USA back in 2011. Signore Capotondi is back this year with another (sort-of) mystery entitled THE BURNT ORANGE HERESY, which, though not as extraordinary as his earlier film, still provides a lot of surprise, sophistication and fun -- especially if you enjoy movies about art, including a critique of the approaching-nonsensical criticism often written about it.

The filmmaker, shown at left, could not have cast his new film any better, had he a billion-dollar budget to waste. His quartet of performers does an extraordinary job creating full-bodied characters that alternately amuse, surprise, move and entertain us within the brief time  -- just 98 minutes -- that the movie lasts.

That cast includes the increasingly impressive Claes Bang (shown at left, below, and further below, of the recent Dracula series, as well as another very good film about art, The Square), who plays James Figueras, a relatively famous art critic whom we first meet rehearsing for and soon after giving one of his popular talks about the subject.

Into his audience, made up it appears of mostly and probably wealthy seniors, comes a very pretty young woman, Berenice (Elizabeth Debicki, at right, above and below) who remains after the "show" to spar a bit with the speaker and then ends up in bed with him.

Soon after, the two are on their way to Lake Como to meet with a famous and wealthy art collector named Cassidy, who has set up for the art critic a rare-to-impossible interview with a famous and reclusive artist named Jerome Debney.

Now, the rich collector is played by none other than Mick Jagger (above), and what a delight it is to see him acting on screen once again. You will think, 'Why doesn't he do this more often?!' and follow that with, "Well, of course: He doesn't have to; he's Mick Jagger.'  But, damn, he is good.

As the famous artist, we have no less than Donald Sutherland, giving another of his lately low-key and close to perfect performances, so you see what I mean about this great cast. As for the film's plot, it is one of those What's really going on here -- and why? explorations. Which is just fine until, toward the end, the movie takes quite a turn for the nasty.

This is jarring, to say the least, but it is not, TrustMovies thinks, the deal-breaker you might suspect because everything that happens has, in one sense, been prepared via the themes already opened and explored: art, avarice, power and, yes, the patriarchy.

Mr. Bang does a bang-up job in all respects, whether boning up his audience on art or simply boning his lady friend. He's sexy, charming and edgy -- continuing to take his place as perhaps the most prominent homme fatal of our time. Ms Debicki, lovely as always, is here even more vulnerable than she often is.

The excellent screenplay and dialog by Scott B. Smith (from the novel by Charles Willeford) is smart, subtle and sophisticated. By the finale of this artful little movie, you may find yourself with a lot of very mixed feelings. But you'll have been entertained and maybe knocked for a loop or two.

From Sony Pictures Classics, The Burnt Orange Heresy -- regarding that title, which doubles as the name of one of the artist's works, it is, notes the painter himself, "a bone tossed to the critics. They can wear themselves out chewing on it" -- opened last week in a few cities and will hit many more in the weeks to come. Here in South Florida, it will arrive on Friday, March 20, in Miami at the Coral Gables Art Cinema, and in Palm  Beach county at the Cinemark Boytnon Beach and Cinemark Palace, the  Regal Shadowood, the Living Room Theaters and the Movies of Delray. Wherever you live, click here to learn if the film is (or will be) playing at a theater or two near you.

Don't listen to the usual critical establishment: John Crowley & Peter Straughan's adaptation of THE GOLDFINCH proves rich, joyous, artful and moving storytelling

"I can't believe they did it!" raved my spouse as we left the local theater where THE GOLDFINCH has recently opened. Spousie had read the novel a few years back, loved it, and had looked forward ever since to a possible movie version. TrustMovies himself had never read the book and so sat down to view the film as a clean slate. He, too, loved it -- swept away within the opening moments and held fast throughout the two-and-one-half-hours of crackerjack storytelling, wonderful performances, and the most artful melding of past and present, youth and adulthood, time periods, places and -- most important -- that very difficult transition of loss and grief into understanding. Not to mention the uses and importance of art.

Every movie that director John Crowley (shown at right) has so far made is a good one -- from Intermission and Boy A through Is Anybody There?, Closed Circuit and the especially wonderful Brooklyn. And now he has given us what is certainly his most ambitious work and one that, I believe, will hold up beautifully and should have future audiences asking, "How in hell did this one go so unappreciated?"

Interestingly, each of Crowley's six films is in a different genre. He never repeats, and yet each takes its particular genre and lifts it quite nicely. The man is not a writer, but damned if he does not recognize a first-class story -- as well as the way to best bring it to life.

What is so funny -- surprising, rather than hilarious -- is that in the case of The Goldfinch (very well adapted by Peter Straughan from the popular novel by Donna Tartt), were you asked to give a precis of this story, you would be very hard put to do so. It's about so many people and so many things and events. Ms Tartt evidently knew just how to pull the reader into her complex tale, and so, film-wise, does the Crowley/Straughan duo.

The main event in all this the filmmakers do not allow us to see, except in small pieces, throughout their movie. It's major, though, and awful, leading to the kind of loss that can never be patched. Various characters deal with this loss in differing ways, and while it is loss and grief that bind the movie, so fascinating is the story and the characters who fill it that instead of becoming a some kind of "downer," the movie end up lifting us in rather remarkable ways.

The heavy lifting may be done by the filmmakers and Ms Tartt, but the marvelous cast assembled here certainly does its part, too.  The major roles of Theo Decker and his bizarre Russian friend, Boris, are taken by (in adulthood) Ansel Elgort and Aneurin Barnard (above, right and left, respectively) and in childhood by Oakes Fegley (at right, two photos up) and Finn Wolfhard. Each actor is not only exceedingly good, but each also makes a fine older or younger version of himself.

The distaff side is equally well represented by the likes of Nicole Kidman (above), Sarah Paulson (shown at bottom, left), Willa Fitzgerald and Ashley Cummings (below), and again, each is precisely on the mark. Crowley has always been terrific with actors, especially in his understanding of just how hard or soft to go with the various important moments. Here, he hits everyone of them with grace and ease

Crowley and Straughan (along with cinematographer Roger Deakins and editor Kelley Dixon)  understand how to create important moments of transition regarding events, characters and moods without ever once hitting us over the head. Demeaning critics have referred to this movie as "flat." Which makes me wonder how any intelligent, genuinely watchful viewer could confuse flatness with artfulness and subtlety?

Well, see for yourself, my friends, as this crackerjack tale moves from New York City to Las Vegas to Amsterdam and back. Along with everything else that's so fine here, the film's last visual is spectacular: Simplicity itself, it unites present and past with a poignancy in which all seems perfection and the best is yet to come. For that moment, at least. (Below, right, is Luke Wilson, with Ms Paulson, who brings new meaning to the term bad dad.)

Distributed via Warner Brothers (with Amazon involved in its financing), The Goldfinch has opened this past week, nationwide. If you love a good story told artfully and beautifully, give it a whirl. Click here to find the theater(s) nearest you.

All about art, architecture, storytelling, owner-ship, sharing and love: Jill Magid's one-of-a-kind THE PROPOSAL opens

Are you aware of the work of the late Mexican architect, Luis Barragán? I was not until I saw the new documentary, THE PROPOSAL, in which what we view of Barragán's architecture reminded me quite a bit of the paintings of Giorgio de Chirico: full of beauty, simplicity and solitude. The film was conceived and directed by visual artist and writer Jill Magid, pictured below. Since this is the artist's first film, I am linking her name to her Wikipedia page rather than to the IMDB. For a first film, however, this is one whoppingly good and original piece of work.

From what we learn and see in this documentary, there is a limited amount of Barragán's work (the architect is shown below) available to be appreciated by the public, thanks to ownership of his archives and "brand" by a corporation located in Switzerland. Ms Magid wants to visit that archive and explore what's there, but the corporation -- via a woman named Federica, who is in charge of the archives -- says no. Ms Magid is a persistent little thing, however, and this one-of-a-kind, funny, provocative, unsettling documentary tells us the story of what happens after this request is refused. And -- oh, boy-- Magid is a very good storyteller.

Storytelling, in fact, is part of what this doc is all about. In it, we meet the artist, of course, along with quite a few members of the Barragán family (one of whom is now in memoriam, as we learn via the end credits) and see that they, as well as the Mexican government, want the archives returned to Mexico. So we travel from the USA to Mexico to Switzerland and back, as Magid attempts to help this process along. To talk a lot about content here would simply give away too many spoilers, and the movie is really so much fun that we oughtn't do that.

We do learn that Magid has her "artistic" quirks -- a mystical side, that includes includes leaving a plate of Barragán's favorite cookies by the bedside in the room he used to sleep. If that provokes, an "Oh, please" response, just remember that all artists (human beings, after all) have their quirks -- Picasso on down (or up, depending on your taste). Artists are crazy, right? And Magid often proves crazy like a fox. How she has organized her documentary, so that viewers learn just what we need to know, and in the way and time we need to know it, proves exemplary storytelling.

Along the way the architect's ashes (well, some of them, anyway) are turned into something quite wild and wonderful, and what happens to what-they-become is paramount here. We follow along as Jill chases the elusive Federica, and all this is like a marvelous mystery somewhere between Hitchcock and Nancy Drew. And by movie's end, its title takes on enough delight and irony to have you leaving the theatre walking on air.

That titular proposal is quite something. We learn part of it, but Magid wisely leaves all of it until the finale -- which could hardly be more mouth-agape perfect if some storied, award-winning filmmaker had done this work. By the end of The Proposal, you will have confronted art and ownership, morality, the meaning of provenance and control, seen and heard greed and hypocrisy in action, witnessed an art installation that you suddenly become part of, and been treated to some unusual ideas about love of art (and artists), plus so much more. And you'll have viewed a documentary that TrustMovies thinks is one for the ages. It's that special.

Distributed via Oscilloscope Films and running 86 minutes,  the doc opens theatrically on Friday, May 24, in New York City at the IFC Center, and the following Friday, May 31, in the Los Angeles area at the Monica Film Center. As of now, it will also hit a few other cities and theaters; click here to view currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters.

Coming of age in the most unusual of ways in Steve McLean's POSTCARDS FROM LONDON

I don't recall ever seeing Steve McLean's earlier film, Postcards from America, but it has been 24 years between that one and his latest work, POSTCARDS FROM LONDON.

The latter is an unusual movie indeed: heavily stylized but never abstruse, with content that tracks the oddball coming-of-age of the film's hero, Jim, who is itching to leave his suburban British home and make his way in the world via the bohemian haunts of Soho.

How he does this, who he meets, and the way in which fine art figures into the equation -- in so many ways --makes for a movie that does not compare with much else that TrustMovies has so far seen.

Mr. McLean, shown at right, clearly means his movie to be highly visual and lots of fun to look at. He has succeeded mightily at this, from his palette of day-glo, neon colors to his cast of handsome men, both young and older, and cinematography (by Annika Summerson) that has a consistent eye for composition, and editing (Stephen Boucher) that crisply and smartly weaves these 90 minutes into a generally enthralling whole.

As the movie's hero, British actor Harris Dickinson (below, of Beach Rats) proves himself capable of physically and facially carrying the load of oh-my-god-isn't-he-beautiful! baggage that the screenplay (also by McLean) has inflicted upon him.

While this might be difficult to live up to, Dickinson, via his innate liveliness and enthusiasm, not to mention his face (above) and body (below), easily carries it off. I do wonder why, since much is made during a photo shoot, of our hero's male endowment, McLean refuses to give us the full-frontal shot that seems both welcome and necessary (even if a body double were required here). It is not as though we're currently living in censorious times (the movie is being released un-rated, in any case).

The major part that art plays within the whole is also worth contemplating.

The movie opens with our boy at a London museum, where the sudden sight of a beautiful Titian painting makes him woozy-unto-fainting.

Yes, as we later learn, this is the famous Stendhal Syndrome, which figures into things more heavily as the film moves along and is used in a particularly clever manner (certainly better than Dario Argento managed it in his mostly silly, eponymously-named mystery movie).

We get some references to Francis Bacon but mostly we hear about (and even see) Caravaggio, during the fantasies that Jim experiences whilst under the influence.

The quartet of upscale rent boys (above) with whom Jim falls in are brought to pleasing life, as are the older clients Jim finds himself servicing -- in a decidedly unusual manner. Art comes into even this quite interestingly, too.

In all, Postcards from London proves a very pretty, charming and entertaining look at young man's unusual coming of age. It's not what you would call deep or particularly moving in any manner. Yet it offers up a very welcome look at gay life (that is not time period-specific), sexuality and the uses of art -- without guilt or shame.

From Strand Releasing, after a nice run of various GLBT film festivals, the film opens theatrically in New York City at the Quad Cinema this coming Friday, November 9, and it will hit Los Angeles on Friday, November 23, at Laemmle's Music Hall 3. I don't find other cities on the agenda as yet (click here, and then click on Screenings halfway down the screen, for the latest playdates/venues), but there will certainly be a DVD and/or digital streaming available eventually.