DVD/digital debut for Philippe Van Leeuw's family-under-siege drama, IN SYRIA

We hear about Syria almost daily: the bombings, the gassings, the snipers, the deaths, the destruction, the emigration (not to mention the problems Syrians have as immigrants to new countries). So the arrival of a narrative film about a Syrian family and their neighbors in crisis mode as they endure bombings that grow ever closer, sniper fire, lack of water and much else is... well, "welcome" may not be quite the right word, but IN SYRIA, written and directed by Phillipe Van Leeuw, is certainly a worthwhile addition to cinema about the middle east today.

Whoops.... TrustMovies has just managed to somehow delete his entire post, other than the initial paragraph above, just as he was about to publish it. Technology. Fuck! And he simply does not have the time or energy to reconstruct it all over again, with the photos and editorial content. So he will simply say that this very well-written, -directed and -acted movie will give you a believable and gripping account of a family and their friends and neighbors under siege and trying to survive.

Considering the subject matter, the film is relatively low on heavy-duty violence -- a sniper incident early on and then later a nasty, graphic rape --  but the threat of violence is ever-present, and the cast members, led by Israeli actress Hiam Abbass (above and below) as the mother-in-charge, deliver first-rate performances throughout. If you want to experience Syria, second-hand at least, the movie is definitely worth seeing.

From Film Movement, in Arabic with English subtitles and running a relatively swift 87 minutes, In Syria arrives on DVD and digital this coming Tuesday, June 19 -- for purchase and/or rental. As usual with Film Movement titles, the disc includes a short film, as well: this one written and directed by In Syria star Ms Abbass back in 2000. Titled Le Pain (The Bread), it takes place in a French provincial town and involves a family of newcomers, lunch, and the need to go out to buy some bread. It's nicely done and worth seeing, too. Though the combination of the short and the film itself adds up to an awfully bleak watch. Gird up your loins.

Lucas Belvaux's THIS IS OUR LAND: the frightening growth of the French far right

A uniquely disturbing (because it is so plausible) movie, THIS IS OUR LAND (originally titled as the better, simpler and more ironic Chez Nous) shows us, bit by bit, how a smart, caring, well-liked nurse in a typical provincial French town is slowly and cleverly conned into running for mayor under the banner of the "new" far-right party and its leader (think Marine Le Pen).

Though the far right, along with its neo-Nazis cohorts, has yet to win the major election in France, as Donald Trump and the Republican Party have done here in the USA, their strength in France -- as well as all across the European community -- continues to grow.

Belgian filmmaker Lucas Belvaux (of 38 Witnesses and Rapt) who co-wrote (with Jérôme Leroy, from his novel) and directed the movie has given it a remarkably true-to-life, near-documentary-like approach filled with so many on-the-nose details of small town life -- at work, at home, in relationships with friends and lovers -- that reality is captured almost at once and remains grounded throughout, despite some melodramatic turns and a finale that seems too sudden, coincidental and easy. The movie's strengths far outweigh its weaknesses, however, and what is likely to remain with you is a cautionary tale par excellence.

In the leading role is that fine Belgian actress Émilie Dequenne (above and on poster, top), who began her career in the Dardennes' Rosetta and has been giving crackerjack performances during the near 20 years since. This is another of her best, and it is hard to think of an actress (maybe Adèle Haenel in a few years) who could be any better in this role.

What the movie is particularly good at is showing us the route, led by a very successful right-wing doctor, played with his usual savoir faire by André Dussollier (above), via which the national front party seduces our heroine, along with so much of the populace, many of which are interested in populist ideals but unable (maybe unwilling) to differentiate between those and the racist, xenophobic underlay that accompanies them.

Catherine Jacob's performance -- the actress is shown above and below, center -- as the Le Pen stand-in is impressive in both its subtle conniving and its power to rouse the masses. This Is Our Land is also quite adept at demonstrating how a smart and caring woman could be seduced by this combination of praise, attention, and the support of friends already in the hands of the far right. In fact, what makes the film so particularly disquieting is how heavily we identify with our nurse/heroine and then must watch as she (and, yes, maybe we would, too) begins compromising the very bedrock principles upon which she has lived so far.

Now, all political parties do this same thing (god knows, America's Democratic Party compromised what few principles it had left by forcing Hillary Clinton upon us rather than going with the more progressive candidate whose appeal, according to all the early polls, trumped even that of Trump. But there are bad political parties and worse ones. And the French right-wing, along with America's Republicans, are clearly the worse.

The film's wild card is the character of the Dequenne character's old boyfriend (Guillaume Gouix, above and below) who suddenly appears back in her life as a possible mate.  Alternately violent and kindly, the latter especially to her children, he quickly becomes as much of a problem for the party and their candidate, as he may be for our heroine, too.

In the supporting cast, Patrick Descamps (above, left) is particularly notable as Dequenne's layabout Communist-Party father, whose reaction to her new political affiliation will not surprise you. A movie that is, as they used to say, ripped from today's headlines, This Is Our Land seems not to be asking could-it-happen-here? (it already has) than simply to be questioning how, in this "modern" age, we might hang on to whatever is left of our minuscule democracy.

From Distrib Films US, in French with English subtitles and running 117 minutes, the movies gets its U.S. theatrical premiere this Wednesday, April 18, in New York City at Film Forum. On April 27 it opens in Los Angeles at Laemmle's Monica Film Center. Click here, and then scroll down and click on Watch Now to view all upcoming playdates, cities and theaters.

Isabelle Huppert as you've seldom seen her -- in Bavo Defurne's luscious, near-camp melodrama, SOUVENIR

The opening credit sequence is to die for: A simply gorgeous, hand-drawn typeface, telling us the who and what, is surrounded by white bubbles that move sensuously in, out and over a golden background. It's lovely and hypnotic, until it suddenly ends -- with a delightfully witty touch. I was hooked from that sequence onwards, and I hadn't yet even seen the movie's star, Isabelle Huppert. We do soon enough, and -- oh, dear -- one of the world's great cinema actresses is... almost mousy and plain, taking us back perhaps to the time of The Lacemaker. (The actress doesn't look all that much older, either, which is a little frightening at times.)

Directed and co-written (with Jacques Boon and Yves Verbraeken) by Bavo Defurne, who gave us the lovely little North Sea Texas a few years back, SOUVENIR is a kind of almost-fantasy-rom-com-drama about a May-September relationship involving a young, would-be boxer and an ex- (and once somewhat famous) singer who has dropped completely off the celebrity map and disappeared into a oddball, 9-to-5 job (or however long daily employment now lasts in Belgium) in a factory that manufacturers very large portions of -- yes -- paté!

If this sounds just a bit like unintentional camp, and at times it plays as such, the movie is generally much better than that -- thanks to its two stars -- Ms Huppert (above, right, and below) and Kévin Azaïs (above left) -- and to director Defurne's absolute commitment to his tale and the telling of it. (Douglas Sirk and Ross Hunter, I suspect, would have applauded.)

The filmmaker gives us plenty of detail regarding his protagonists lives -- in the workplace, at home with family, and past history, too. It turns out that the Azaïs character's father (Jan Hammenecker, below, right) as a young man, was as smitten with Huppert's Liliane as his son turns out to be now (much to his wife's displeasure, then and currently).

Souvenir covers a lot of ground -- past and present -- as it tells its surprising tale, which gives Ms Huppert the chance to become a full-fledged chanteuse, which she does every bit as well as she has done everything else in her screen career. Initially, her character seems oddly out of time and sync (well, she was a near star decades ago), but Huppert draws you in, as she always does, and the movie-maker has given her a couple of swell songs to sing, which she handles with rather startling style and aplomb.

The latter of these is just about good enough to have you believing that it might become a hit (which it very well may have been in Europe). It's both catchy and quirky and by the second time you hear it, it's already bonding to your brain. And the section devoted to one of those typical and ridiculous television "talent" shows is both as believable and stupid as these shows always seem to be.

Defurne is a romantic, for sure, yet how he handles the love story, along with the age difference between the protagonists, is sure-footed and believable. Motives are neither simplified nor characterizations single note. Ego, desire, vanity and the need for success -- along with the "love stuff" -- are all part of picture here.

Finally, though, it is that love stuff that resonates most strongly. The ending, in particular, is handled with simplicity and subtlety. We don't get the chance to see Ms Huppert do this kind of thing or appear in this kind of movie very often. If you're a fan, you won't want to miss Souvenir. And if you're not, or if you don't yet know this actress' work, this is an atypical but probably rather fun place to begin (or rethink) your education.

From Strand Releasing and running just 90 minutes, the film opens this Friday, March 2, in New York City at the Quad Cinema, and on Friday, March 16, in Los Angeles at Laemmle's Monica Film Center. Souvenir is scheduled to play a few more cities around the country, too. Here in South Florida it opens at the Bill Cosford Cinema on March 23. Click here and then click on Screenings to see all currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters.

DVDebut for the latest Dardenne brothers' moral exploration, THE UNKNOWN GIRL

Yet another moving and detailed exploration of guilt, caring and the acceptance of responsibility from film-making's most humane, dedicated and talented brother teams, Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardennes (pictured below, with Luc on the right), THE UNKNOWN GIRL (La fille inconnue) proves one of the siblings' most intensely interesting and meaningful provocations.

In it, a young doctor named Jenny Davin tells her intern not to answer the downstairs buzzer (which is rung only once) because it is long past closing time and this does not appear to be any emergency. The following day the police arrive and ask for the security videotape from outside the building. Jenny soon learns that the young woman who rang the buzzer is now dead, found earlier that day across the street with a very bad dent in her head.

Many people these days would simply shrug this event off with a "too bad for her but not my fault" response. But our good doctor does a bit more than that. It is clear from the start of this film that Jenny, played with a quiet determination that bespeaks deep reserves of caring and commitment by the fine French actress Adèle Haenel (below, and on poster, top), is not about to let this mistake of hers go uncorrected. She cannot bring the girl back from the dead nor, she suspects, even solve this crime (if indeed it was a crime; it might have been something of an accident).

Yet the idea of allowing the dead girl to remain unknown (the police have no clue as to who she was), and thus not being able to inform any family of what happened, proves so troubling to Jenny that she begins her own, very determined investigation. This takes her into quite uncharted territory, especially for a young, caring doctor more used to dealing with sick patients that with what eventually becomes some fairly dark family matters that involve the local police (below), prostitution, and perhaps sex trafficking.

In some ways the film bears comparison to the Dardennes' earlier (and weaker) movie, Lorna's Silence, but it is better in every way, thanks to the conception of Jenny's character and the strength and specificity brought to this by Ms Haenel's performance. And though the film comes close to these dark subjects mentioned above, it remains less a suspense piece or mystery than it does a surprisingly rich study of character(s) under pressure

We are also given a deeper and more profound sense of the town that Jenny and her patients inhabit via some lovely, moving scenes with people of both sexes and various ages. As we meet and become involved with these supporting characters -- above and below -- their own guilt and responsibility is (or is not) slowly uncovered, as well.

How these people respond to Jenny's pushing -- in ways both good and bad but always believable -- may remind you of the Dardennes' recent endeavor, Two Days, One Night. The Unknown Girl, I think, is an equally strong film. It deals, in its own sidelong manner, as does so much of the brothers' work, with immigration and "the other," and with justice and its untimely-if-ever delivery.

Performances are quite real, in the Dardennes' usual documentary style, in which Ms Haenel's work fits like a glove, with an unrecognizable (to TrustMovies, at least) but terrific Dardennes regular, Jérémie Renier, fine as always in the role of the fraught father (shown above, left) of one of the doctor's young patents. Especially lovely, too, is the job done by newcomer Olivier Bonnaud, below, right, who plays that young intern with family/career problems of his own

If you respond, as did I, to the importance of Jenny's search -- during an era in which so much responsibility has been shirked off, if not downright forgotten or deliberately undermined by the corporations and the wealthy who control the crap politicians throughout more and more of our world -- this single act of assuming responsibility will take on enormous importance. It should. And thanks to the Dardennes and Ms Haenel, it is brought to quivering, sad-but-still-glowing life.

From Sundance Selects/IFC Films, The Unknown Girl hits DVD this coming Tuesday, December 12, for purchase or rental. And it's now available for streaming via Netflix.

Whimsy done deliciously in Dominique Abel & Fiona Gordon's best-film-yet, LOST IN PARIS

Whimsy's a tricky thing. It can so easily curdle into the kind of cuteness that sets your teeth on edge. But when it's done right (and usually with enough brevity so as not to outlast its delicate charms), it can be so delightful as to make you feel you're on top of the world.

Interestingly enough the film capital of whimsy would seem to be the country of Belgium, since it's major practitioners appear to live and thrive there. Those would be Jaco van Dormael (who last year gave us a wonderful example in The Brand New Testament) and Dominique Abel (above) and Fiona Gordon (below), the pair of farceurs responsible for today's delightful example, LOST IN PARIS.

Ms Gordon is actually Australian-born, but because she is married to M. Abel and, I presume, lives with him in Belgium, I am crediting her to that little country. This pair has gifted us previously with two whimsical films, The Fairy and The Iceberg, both of which were lots of fun but also somewhat up-and-down, quality-wise. TrustMovies is happy to report that this new one is their best yet: an almost constant flow of great humor, strangeness (these are two of the weirdest-looking movie stars you're likely to see, and they love to emphasize that weirdness continually and cleverly), and performances that rely as much on movement, energy and bizarre poise as you could ever imagine.

Also in the cast are two French old pros -- the late Emmanuelle Riva (above, right, whose penultimate film this is) and Pierre Richard (above, left) -- both of whom are simply wonderful. The pair (or more likely, their dancing stunt doubles) gets to do a delightful little number featuring only feet and ankles that would probably make Tommy Tune green with envy.

The story -- a bit of silly fluff manufactured to offer up the opportunity for the leading actors to strut their pretty amazing stuff -- takes our heroine from a cold, wintry Canadian mountain village (above, in the film's first flight of fanciful whimsy) to Paris to visit her aging aunt who needs some help. (Why the aunt's letter is so very late in arriving is one of the movie's more delicious jokes.)

Once in the City of Lights, Fiona encounter a bizarre clochard named Dom who falls instantly in love with our gal, pursuing her, even as she pursues her elusive Aunt Martha. There are a number of wonderful, memorable scenes here, one of which takes place on a bateau/restaurant and involves a set of speakers with very aggressive bass tones,

and another (above) that involves the coming-undone of a fragment of La Tour Eiffel. Both scenes bring out the consummate skills at movement, choreography and comedy possessed by our talented, triple-threat directors/writers/actors.

There's also a splendid funeral scene that shows the pair's proclivity for dark whimsy, some funny underwater business (above), and a simply lovely moment near the end (below) that showcases Ms Riva's abiding ability to steal a scene. The finale, in fact, could not be a more fitting memorial to this rather special actress who came to international prominence via Hiroshima Mon Amour and managed to stay there for nearly sixty years.

From Oscilloscope Films, in English and French with English subtitles, and running a just-about-perfect 83 minutes, Lost in Paris, after opening in New York, L.A. and elsewhere, hits South Florida this Friday, July 14 -- in Miami at the Miami Beach Cinematheque and the Bill Cosford Cinema; at Savor Cinema in Fort Lauderdale and Cinema Paradiso, Hollywood; at the Living Room Theater in Boca Raton, at the Lake Worth Playhouse, and Movies of Delray and Movies of Lake Worth. To see all currently schedule playdates across the country, click here and then scroll down.

Improvisation upon improvisation, as Thomas White's lost/famous WHO'S CRAZY gets a digital restoration and a theatrical release

I'd never heard of it (prior to the press release from Kino Lorber arriving in my email box), and I suspect you will not have, either. But if senior readers would like a dead-on time trip back to the 1960s and the experimental film scene of that era (or you younger ones who might be curious about the kind of "art" that went on back then), WHO'S CRAZY? is the film to see. Directed by Thomas White (with some help from his then-partner Allan Zion), this was the first and last movie Mr. White ever made. And though the IMDB credits White and Zion with both direction and writing, while the story idea may have been theirs, the dialog would have come via the film's actors -- all members of that famous improvisational theatrical troupe The Living Theatre.

An anarchical theatrical group dedicated to busting loose from the strapped-down mores and attitudes of the 1950s, The Living Theatre's actors happened to be taking a kind of "enforced vacation" in Europe -- their directors/founders were currently in prison in the U.S. for tax problems with the IRS -- when their path crossed with that of Mr. White.

The actors were staying in a farmhouse in Belgium, which soon became the film's setting. The plot, such as it is, involves a bus carrying some inmates from a local insane asylum that breaks down, allowing the inmates to escape and take shelter in the farmhouse, where they cavort and frolic for nearly all of the film's 73 minutes.

The movie's title gives away just about all of the meaning involved, with the question being: Who are the crazies here: those inmates or their guards/authorities called in to round them up? This fits right into the "hippie" philosophy of the day -- to which TrustMovies himself thoroughly subscribed at the time. (The movie was made in 1965 and had its first public screening at the following year's Cannes Film Festival and again in 1967 at a festival in Bordeaux -- after which it promptly disappeared.)

If -- visually and plotwise -- Who's Crazy? proves an amalgam of the "experimental" tics and tropes of the day (which, it must be said, begin to wear thin pretty quickly), there is one singular thing that makes the film important, maybe even great: its also improvised musical score.  This arrived via Ornette Coleman and his musicians David Izenzon and Charles Moffett -- who evidently watched a cut of the film, improvising their score on the spot, adding immensely to both the visual and audial enjoyment of the movie. That score is terrific: jazzy, bouncy, funny, surprising and above all, fluid and utterly free. It's an amazement.

Initially Who's Crazy? has no audible dialog. (This goes on for maybe the first 25 minutes). When words are finally heard (along with French subtitles, as the movie was only screened in France!) these seem as desultorily experimental as all else. The inmates run around a lot, prepare a meal, turn the place into what looks rather like a "beatnik" club of the era past, seem to be forming some kind of "commune" and then engage in a mock trial.

There's a very nice snow scene in the Belgian landscape, and White offers up a few stop-motion visual effects. Then we get romance, complete with hot candle wax, maybe a little Satanism (or is this just bad make-up?), a tad's worth of philosophy (peace and love, doncha know?), and a wedding.

The film makes fun of so many of our cultural mores and standards -- or perhaps is simply intent on getting us to view these in a different light -- and then those nasty nut-house guards return, along with reinforcements, to round up the inmates. At this point that musical score, together with the accompanying visuals, may put you in mind of the Keystone Cops.

As I say, if this is mostly a bizarre time-trip into our "experimental" movie history, it's also one that buffs may not want to miss. And then there's that amazing score. Distributed by Kino Lorber, Who's Crazy? opens at the Film Society of Lincoln Center for a week-long run this Friday, March 10. It opens in Los Angeles for a  two-day, two-performance run at The CineFamily on April 1, and then hits Seattle at the Grand Illusion Cinema for a week on April 21 - 17.  To check for any further playdates, click here and then scroll down.

Eugène Green is back -- with his oddball, beautiful, quasi-Biblical THE SON OF JOSEPH

I've seen only two of the films of American-born French filmmaker Eugène Green -- 2014's La Sapienza and his newest work, THE SON OF JOSEPH -- but these are enough to have earned M. Green, pictured below, a place in TrustMovies' canon: that of a a very special and specialized filmmaker whose work will have limited appeal. Less so even than, say, Eric Rohmer. But for those to whom it will appeal, his movies should have enormous resonance.

The Wikipedia listing for this filmmaker is short and concise, explaining that he is noted for "training a generation of young actors in the revival of French baroque theatre technique and declamation."

When I read this, it suddenly hit me like a blast of fresh air. This is why watching and listening to Green's movies puts me so in mind of classical French playwrights like Racine and Marivaux -- yet in a modern-day context. His characters declaim, all right. But they do this so quietly and well that they almost (but not quite) convince us of their "reality." Yet reality is not the primary thing that M. Green is going for, I suspect. He is happy to attempt something more "theatrical" and perhaps old-fashioned that will nonetheless force us to stop, question, and consider things anew. And he manages this -- in spades. But at a price that simply rules out anything like a mainstream audience. Even the arthouse crowd may champ at the bit. So be it. The filmmaker goes his own way but achieves just what he wants.

Green's style combines elegance and formality with theatricality and grace. I can't think of anyone else who manages all this in anything like the same way. He has a keen interest in architecture, beauty and formal gardens; in philosophy, religion and in doing the right thing for the right reason. He's a moralist, and he uses his arsenal to help us consider being moral, too.

While La Sapienza dealt with love from a more moral/psychological viewpoint, The Son of Joseph deals with it from a moral/religious one. Faux Biblical scenes abound -- from Abraham's would-be sacrifice of Isaac (here reversed so that it is the son who very nearly kills the father) to Mary and Joseph's journey via ass. One lengthy scene takes place in a glorious church (above) where a poem is read and a song sung.

The story told is of a mother-son family in which the father (more odd-but-on-the-nose work by Mathieu Amalric) never took part past the impregnation stage. That son (a fresh and compelling performance by Victor Ezenfis, below, right), determined to learn who that father is, rejects a school friend's request that he help provide semen for an on-line business venture to go instead on his search for dad. Fathering, it seems, must result in more than mere sperm donation.

Finding his father results in also discovering a faux father (an exceptional job from Fabrizio Rongione, above, left, of La Sapienza and Two Days, One Night), the brother of the real father who proves to be everything that dad is not. The mother here is given a beautifully rounded, graceful character by Natacha Régnier (below). Green's cast proves more than capable of handling the declamation well, while the filmmaker's use of closeup brings to fine life the important moments we need to experience.

Duality is heavily present in both "Sapienza" and "Joseph," and the manner in which Green plays with this is often charming and funny. Coupled to the beauty and elegance that the filmmaker finds both indoors and out, all this makes for a pretty heady experience for those so inclined. (That's M. Green, below, left, playing a helpful hotel concierge.)

The Son of Joseph, distributed in the USA by Kino Lorber, opens this Friday, January 13, at The Film Society of Lincoln Center's Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center. Elsewhere? Yes, the film is so far booked in another six cities over the weeks to come. Click here and scroll down to see all currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters.