Ireland's entry into the BFLF sweeps--Paddy Breathnach's VIVA--filmed in Cuba, in Spanish!

Hey -- if France can submit a movie filmed in Turkey in the Turkish language, then I guess Ireland can submit one filmed mostly in Cuba with all the dialog in Spanish. France's Mustang has made it all the way to the final five nominees. while VIVA, the Irish submission written by Mark O'Halloran and directed by Paddy Breathnach, (shown below), managed to be one of the final nine foreign language films shortlisted for a possible Oscar. It's a lovely movie, and while it deals in what some will call cliches of the transvestite/ transgen-der genre, so all-embracing and emotionally resonant is Viva that most audiences, GLBT to arthouse/ mainstream, should find themselves falling for it, heart and soul.

Featuring two terrific lead performances (and a bunch of fine supporting turns), the movie tells the tale of Jesus, a Cuban teen on the cusp of young manhood who does the hair and wigs of the performers at a local trans club but want more than anything else to himself become a performer. With his mom dead and his dad in prison (perhaps dead, as well), he's a near-orphan who has learned to take care of himself with help from a wide assort-ment of friends.

As played by newcomer Héctor Medina (shown above), Jesus is a smart, somewhat scrappy kid, given to luxuriating in certain music and mostly scraping by in today's Cuba, where living above poverty level isn't easy for many people. Into his life one evening comes a man -- played by that wonderful Cuban actor, Jorge Perugorría (shown below, right, and best known here in the USA for Strawberry & Chocolate), the less I say about whom will benefit the movie's plot twists.

The relationship that develops between the two men plays out over the remainder of the movie and it is one that runs the gamut from anger and pain to just about everything else you can pack into a 100-minute movie. This kind of film lives or dies on the quality of its lead performances, and the two men fill their roles as well as you could possibly want. Perugorría has always been an actor of great strength, resourcefulness and subtlety, and he bring just about all he knows and practices into this role of a man who must now learn to go against everything he has formerly known and lived by. You'll alternately want to punch him out and embrace him.

Young Medina possess a wonderful delicacy that goes well beyond anything fey or feminine.  His early renditions of songs for the trans bar possess the kind of subtlety and grace that put to shame most of the drag queen performances we see on film. However, this is not what the usual spectators want, and so Jesus must adapt to the desires of his somewhat crass audience. He does -- losing as much as he gains in this process of adaptation.

Fortunately the movie is about a lot more than drag performances, and the strong pull that this relationship saga offers is what finally makes it so moving and compelling. Friendhip, love, "family," and more coalesce into a drama of great strength and power, making Viva the kind of keeper you don't initially expect.

From Magnolia Pictures, the movie opens in theaters this Friday, April 29. in New York City (the Angelika Film Center); in the Los Angeles area (Laemmle's Playhouse 7, Monica 4-Plex and NoHo 7, and at the Sundance Sunset Cinemas); and all over Southern Florida at nine different venues. Click here to see all currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters.

Radu Jude's AFERIM! opens: Romania's overlooked entry into the BFLF sweepstakes

It didn't get a nod from the Academy, even as one of the shortlisted films in this year's roundup of Best Foreign Language Film contenders, but Romania's entry nonetheless deserves a look from foreign film aficionados. Its title -- AFERIM! (which I am told translates from the Turkish as Bravo!) -- can only be meant ironically, as there is damned little to be "bravo-ing" about in this movie, its quality notwithstanding. These days, we are most used to films that come out of Romania as tackling one of two subjects: the current and difficult life in this now-post-Communist country or a look at the "bad old days" under the Nicolae Ceausescu regime.

To our surprise, Aferim! takes us back to some even older "bad old days," specifically to 1835, a time when the enslavement of gypsies in Romania was still very much alive and thriving. The film's writer and director,  Radu Jude (shown at right), along with his co-writer, Florin Lazarescu, and all the locations, set and costume people have given us a "period piece" that looks, to western eyes at least, even more "period" than we might imagine (maybe 1735, rather than 1835) -- so backward does everything, especially the characters, seem. But that, or course, would be the point of the ironic Bravo!

The attitudes of the people -- to each other and the world around them are so unhelpful that you might think you'd stumbled into a costume party given and attended by America's current Republican Party. Though you might find yourself chuckling now and again, Aferim! is not really a comedy. It's part satire, part road trip, and part an uncovering of history that many would rather forget. And there is one simply terrific and hilarious little speech about certain countries of the world and the particular thing that characterizes each.

The plot has to do with a brand of "Constable" (Teodor Corban, above) who has been assigned by the town's "boss" (the fellow in that bizarre "hat" shown two photos above and three photos below) to bring back an escaped gypsy slave. The circumstances under which the slave escaped will eventually become clear, but for now the Constable and his nearly-grown son head out to find the slave, while encountering all sorts of oddities along their way.

Casual betrayals by nearly one and all show the world of this time to be populated by folk who find anything and anyone unlike them to be worthless and disposable. Hate everyone, trust no one would seem to be the motto here. The groveling populace refers to the constable (and just about anyone with a little power) as "Bright Lord," and there are a number of these "Bright Lords" whom we meet as the movie progresses.

The black-and-white cinematography (by Marius Panduru) proves an enormous asset, with the camera seeming not to favor many close-ups, particularly in the initial stages of the movie. (This may be fortuitous, in that it helps us keep our distance from all concerned.) The large cast joins happily into the fray, bringing to life this time when life seemed unpleasant and most likely all too short.

By the finale of this Romanian romp, we're once again made aware of the evils of patriarchy and how power and injustice go hand in hand. If many of the subtleties of the film probably went right over my non-Romanian head, I do wonder what its original audience made of this movie: how it was perceived in its home country -- as a comedy, a provocation, or what?

Whatever, it's a very interesting film, a blend of history and unpleasant humor culminating in a grizzly act of macho power that will have males in the audience crossing their legs, while the women roll their eyes and mutter, "Men!" From Big World Pictures and running 105 minutes, Aferim! opens this Friday, January 22, in New York City (at the Lincoln Plaza Cinema and the Angelika Film Center) and Los Angeles (at Laemmle's Royal and Playhouse 7) and in San Francisco (at the Opera Plaza Cinema).  To see all currently scheduled playdates, click here and scroll down.

Pablo Trapero's CARANCHO tracks the ambulance-chasing vultures of Argentina

Don't step off the curb in Argentina, for this might be your ultimate move. Or so it would seem in Pablo Trapero's new film CARANCHO, which was Argentina's submission for this year's Best Foreign Language Film. The movie didn't get even as far as the short list, and TrustMovies is not surprised. Darker in every way than the Academy generally prefers, the film didn't have the tony love story of last year's Argentine winner, The Secret in Their Eyes. (The love story here is between an ambulance-chasing ex-lawyer and his drug-addicted doctor girlfriend.) Nor does it offer the perks of a who-done-it mystery, a frightening political backdrop, or the enormous grief of a lost love. Instead, it's got gritty realism and a lot of nihilism. But mostly it's got those traffic accidents.

What is particularly odd and ill-thought-out, I think, about Senor Trapero's work here (the filmmaker, who has given us some wonderful movies like Rolling Family and Lion's Den is shown at right) is that, in a film devoted mostly to traffic accidents, the camera so often stays in utter close-up. These close-ups are so close, in fact, that you only see a portion of a person's face. While this envelopes us in a kind of hand-held immediacy, it certainly does not work so well for the accidents, which we would prefer to see in something approaching full-screen. (I think we see only one in this fashion, the rest of are shown, again in super close-up or with sound effects only -- which is, of course, a major budget-saving technique.)  This seems even odder because the director has chosen to film in Cinemascope's 2.35:1 ratio.

I'm harping on accidents here only because the movie does, too. The first thing on screen is a statistic about the horrendous number of them in Argentina; the film's plot takes off from this premise and never leaves it; and all of its characters are satellites revolving around the theme. Finally, there is at least one -- maybe two -- too many of these bumper-scrapers by the movie's end, which should have you rolling your eyes and mumbling "Enough already!"

And yet Carancho is full of good things, starting with its cast. Supporting roles are mostly given to creepy characters who ply their trade in this ambulance-chasing game, and the actors who essay these roles fill them to a nasty, trashy tee. In the male lead is a terrific performer who should by now be more than recognizable to foreign film enthusiasts. Ricardo Darin (above, right, and further above, left) -- the star of everything from last year's BFLF winner "Secret/Eyes" to Nine Queens, Son of the Bride, The Aura and XXY -- gives another of his fully lived-in, sexy performances as one of the vultures (the English translation of Carancho) of the title. Whether he's a decent fellow giving in to his lesser impulses or a bad guy following the angels of his better nature, Darin does "conflicted" especially well.

As the doctor who first sews him up, then falls for him and -- once she cottons to his wicked ways -- is as conflicted as he, Martina Gusman (at left, in the two photos above and the one below), who was so memorable in Trapero's last film Lion's Den, matches Darin moment for moment, emotion for emotion.  These two make a great pair, and they keep us watching, even when the movie is approaching the ridiculous. It's one of those films in which the bad guys seems practically all-powerful -- until they aren't. Which makes one wonder why certain decisions were not made a bit sooner. But, whoops, then these guys are suddenly all-powerful again. Huh?

Perhaps action sequences are not Trapero's stock-in-trade. Those here are either done in the aforementioned odd close-ups or simply seem kind of silly, as does the shootout that caps the movie's visual action. On the other hand, the sequences in the emergency room to which the accident victims are taken could hardly be better. Unlike the ridiculously glossy stuff we see on TV, these have the immediacy -- the shock and awe -- of unplanned reality.  The doctors simply get in there, do their job and let the chips fall where they may. One patient pulls through, while the guy on the next bed does not. No undue drama, tears, or dialog accompanies this, only the difficult work that must be done -- and fast.

Carancho, from Strand Releasing, open this Friday, February 11, at the Angelika Film Center, New York, with a limited national rollout to follow.

Germany's entry for Best Foreign Language Film: Feo Aladag's sloppy WHEN WE LEAVE

In the what-were-they-thinking? department concerning submissions to the Academy for Best Foreign Language Film, Germany's choice must have raised a few eyebrows. In addition to raising those of TrustMovies, it also dropped his jaw. He finds it difficult to believe that this major European nation, a country who makes a consider-able number of films each year (unlike, say, Iceland, whose choice was a bit more circumscribed), could come up with nothing better than WHEN WE LEAVE.

This poorly conceived, Turk-bashing melodrama (posing as a plea for Turkish families living in Germany to come into the 21st Century) begins well enough, if relying heavily on the tried-and-true. Step by step, however, it uses the schlockiest conventions of soap-opera -- overheard conversations, chance encounters, coincidence-times-ten -- until the real slap-in-the-face arrives: the climax that provides a coup de grâce of stunning stupidity.

A first feature written and directed by actress-turned-filmmaker Feo Aladag (shown at left), When We Leave has such possibilities and, even within its present state, a number of fine performances and intelligent, well-directed scenes that most aware and mature viewers will probably feel, as the end credits roll, an acute sense of opportunity lost.

While I call the film a Turk-basher, I have no ax to grind here. I am no fan of the country of Turkey -- due to its refusal to admit to a history that includes Armenian genocide and because the Muslim religion, even though the country is taking pains to secularize itself, still holds its women down, and by virtue of that, holds its men down, too. Turkey is another of those eastern countries in which the nonsensical sense of "god and his will" continues to hold sway, while holding the population back at a time when the world, as we know it, may not have that much time left.

Like last year's film Bliss (a much better one -- and from Turkey!), Aladag's movie involves honor-killing, this time centered around a pretty young woman named Umay, played by Sibel Kekilli (shown above, right) of Head -On, whose husband is so abusive and full of male-entitlement that her only option, as she sees it, is to return to her own family in Germany, bringing her young son (Nizam Schiller, above, left) with her. When her family members understand her plans, however, they want no part of them. A good wife, after all, belongs with (under?) her husband, no matter how big an asshole he may be. End of story.

Our heroine does not see things that way and so, striking out on her own, she soon has a job (above), a new place to live, a boyfriend (played by Florian Lukas, below): the works! But, oh, how she misses that wonderful family of hers -- which leads to the film's most foolish scene, taking place at her sister's wedding shown at bottom). Sure, I can understand a girl's need for family, but around this point, I began questioning her sanity.

The melodrama increases as the film proceeds but, truthfully, the movie may have lost you by now. If not, the ending will certainly do the trick. In The Last Circus, a Spanish film set to open here soon, a protagonist and antagonist vie for the prize and in the process manage to destroy it. While the two films have almost nothing else in common -- in style, content or time period -- only this idea unites them. Despite its over-the-top comic bloodshed and craziness, "Circus" brings its theme to fruition, while When We Leave, despite its would-be seriousness and timeliness, reduces it to shambles.

The movie, from Olive Films, opens this Friday, January 28, in New York City at the Angelika Film Center and in Los Angeles at the Laemmle Music Hall 3. To view further showings around the country, click here and scroll down.