DVDebut for Jessica Gorter's doc, 900 DAYS: Myth & Reality of the Siege of Leningrad

Says the old man to the old woman, after turning off their TV set: "It's better to watch an empty screen than to watch this comedy." The "comedy" to which he's referring is the current (well, current when this 2011 documentary was filmed, at least) Russian television coverage "honoring" those "heroes" of the famous Siege of Leningrad by the Nazi Germans during World War II.

Why this fellow, himself a siege survivor, is so angry and caustic will be revealed, again and again, during the course of the 77-minute documentary, 900 DAYS: MYTH & REALITY OF THE SIEGE OF LENINGRAD, from Netherlands-born filmmaker Jessica Gorter.

Though made much before the current and seemingly worldwide siege of idiot nationalism had taken such firm hold, Ms Gorter's movie (the filmmaker is shown, left) offers a fine tonic of anti-nationalism -- from wherever state that foolish form of patriotism comes.

In this case, it's Russia, with its pompous rhetoric, ego-driven oligarchs, and stupid military parades full of medal-laden men marching in what might as well be goose-step -- for all the difference there is between Nazism and whatever fascism tickles your fancy. (The fellow below, as you'll learn, wears his own medals with a certain irony.)

Most of the folk we meet in Gorter's documentary are pretty old -- who but the very elderly survivors would remain alive well into the 21st Century? -- but they are still remarkably cogent and fiesty. The man below, together with his wife, has plenty to say in his quiet, serious manner (she's more open and talkative, but no less intelligent),

while the sad woman below seems still to be reeling from those early-life events that changed everything for her. Though remaining a major cat-lover throughout her life, as you'll soon see, she also tells us the story behind that strange painting of a cat and a pair of killers, shown to the left of her, that TrustMovies suspects you will not easily forget.

Gorter's film is full of -- besides these aged talking heads -- archival footage of the Stalingrad Siege that ought to give a pretty fair picture of what went on there, from the corpses in the streets (as below) to the relentless Russian propaganda (still going on today) that cast the citizens of the doomed metropolis as heroes rather than the victims they clearly were. And victims not only of the Nazis but of their own despicable government.

You'll hear about everything from cannibalism (complete with statistics of the time regrading the large percentage of cannibals that were not members of the Communist Party!) to the eating of one's own household pets, and you'll witness some very interesting conflicts among these survivors concerning the good deeds of old Joe Stalin. In one bizarre scene, shot during a tour being given to school children regarding this famous siege, one young fellow faints dead away as a particular visual is shown on the effects of dystrophy.

You should come away from this relatively short but piercing and absolutely necessary documentary with a new-found appreciation of what the people of Leningrad endured -- along with disgust at how their own government let them die back then and continues, in its quest toward absolute nationalism, to betray them even today.

From Icarus Home Video, in Dutch and Russian with English subtitles, 900 Days: Myth & Reality of the Siege of Leningrad will make its U.S. debut on home video (DVD and VOD) this coming Tuesday, October 15 -- for purchase and/or rental.

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.

Sunday Corner With Lee Liberman -- On Netflix, two different views of World War II: THE GUERNSEY LITERARY AND POTATO PEEL SOCIETY and THE RESISTANCE BANKER

This post is written by our 

monthly correspondent, Lee Liberman

“Perhaps there is some secret sort 

of homing instinct in books that 

brings them to their perfect readers…..” 

Spun from honey (which has food-value unlike sugar), this delicious rom-com of a war romance is not an oxymoron. A WWII story has finally arrived driven by the full-on form of romantic drama rather than embattled war film. THE GUERNSEY LITERARY AND POTATO PEEL SOCIETY, by the director of Four Weddings and a Funeral, Mike Newell, is a sparkling, irresistible pastiche of friendship, love, mystery, and travel excursion, a perfect date-night entertainment. It’s based on a best selling novel of the same name by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows (2008). Newell (below) filmed in Dover and Cornwall, as the British channel island of Guernsey itself does not offer 1946-worthy locations — too polished, painted, and updated, he said. (And on the beautiful craggy coastline he chose, Poldark might just be galloping around a bend.)

Downton Abbey’s cast is well-represented by Guernsey’s quirkily pretty and appealing lead, Lily James, plus Penelope Wilton, Jessica Brown Findlay, and Matthew Goode (the big-screen DA film version is due 9/19). Add more talent including Tom Courtenay, Michiel Huisman, Katherine Parkinson, and two children, to make a winsome and idiosyncratic Guernsey Island ensemble, offset by dashing American, Glen Powell.

Juliet Ashton (James), a fetching young writer in 1946 London, has had an exchange of letters with Guernsey pig farmer, Dawsey Adams (Huisman, “Game of Thrones”), who owns a book by Charles Lamb, essayist and critic, with Juliet’s name and address penned inside (she had sold it once in need of cash). He asks her to direct him to a London bookshop as there isn’t one left on Guernsey so he can order Lamb’s Shakespeare’s tales for children. He tells her of his reading group called The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society, formed during the war in a precarious moment when they were caught out after curfew, and which offered camaraderie and comfort in the face of the punishing Nazi occupation.

Expecting to find the plight of British islanders during the German occupation of interest to readers of The London Times, Juliet travels by boat to Guernsey (above) for the next meeting of Dawsey’s group. There she finds quietly scarred, reticent residents and a mystery: the organizing force of the Society, Elizabeth (Findlay), has been missing since her arrest in 1944, having left her tiny daughter Kit with Dawsey, who now calls him ‘daddy’ (below, Elizabeth and Dawsey before her arrest).

Elizabeth’s story is doled out in morsels as Juliet extends her stay searching for answers, gradually coaxing information from Dawsey (below) and the circle of friends, war records housed on the island, and eventual aid from Juliet’s fiancé in London, American officer, Mark Reynolds (Powell), who agrees to research what happened. Through flashbacks to the Nazi occupation, we see snatches of its harshness, concentration camp victims being worked and starved to death building fortifications on island and the indignities of British citizens being forced into submission with unthinkable rules and deprivations.

Dawsey explains that after its gaudy arrival (below) the German army forced them into isolation — telegraph cables cut, radios taken, mail stopped, curfews imposed. Island animals, including his pigs, were confiscated to feed the German army on the continent and he himself ordered to grow potatoes.

Guernsey residents were literally hungry and also starved for fellowship. Their book society became their refuge, says Dawsey, “a private freedom to feel the world growing darker all around you but needing only a candle to see new worlds unfold…..” They savored it together with trays of Amelia’s tea, nips of Isola’s (Parkinson) home-distilled gin, and Eben’s (Courtenay) tasteless potato peel pie (potatoes, peel, no butter or flour).

By and by, Elizabeth’s fate is told and resolution of the Juliet/Mark/Dawsey triangle is calculated to charm. The story would have been richer for more reveal of Elizabeth’s life, her relationship with a German soldier, and her stubborn defiance of the occupation. Reminiscent of Sybil Crawley’s rebellious spirit in the Downton Abbey saga, Jessica Brown Findlay surpasses herself in very little screen time, her emotions and actions making you want more of Elizabeth’s story, while a bit less of Juliet’s earnest dithering would have balanced the film’s rom-com-ness with more solemnity. Penelope Wilton (below, third from r) is the weight and grief of the drama, compelling as grandmotherly Amelia who has suffered much loss during two world wars. Wilton’s rich acting chops get far more reveal than the writing of her character allowed in many seasons of Downton Abbey.

But most pleasant of all, The Guernsey Society itself speaks to the pleasures of reading and in particular, its sharing.

 “What is reading but silent conversation.” 

 “A book reads the better which is our own, 

and has been so long known to us, 

that we know the topography of its blots, 

and dog’s ears, and can trace the dirt in it 

to having read it at tea with buttered muffins.” 

                                          .....Charles Lamb

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

A traditional cloak and dagger WWII story (Netflix, subtitled) THE RESISTANCE BANKER is the true account, set in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam, of banker-brothers Walraven and Gijs van Hall, who used their financial expertise and positions of authority to rob their German occupiers blind, Robin Hood style, stealing from the Nazi-run Dutch central bank in order to fund the Dutch resistance. The brothers mustered funds through forgery and fraud to help fund the Red Cross, pay railroad strikers, resistance fighters, spy, and sabotage groups, and to buy printing and ID making equipment and supplies; they carried the underground on their shoulders. Proud of fighting smart, they used ingenuity and gumption to outwit a much weightier opponent. The Resistance Banker is the Dutch entrant into the Best Foreign Film category of the 2019 Academy Awards. It was a big hit with the Dutch public and is joined by other nations entering WWII-related films into the U.S. premier awards contest. (Russia has Sobibor, Austria: The Waldheim Waltz, Slovakia: The Interpreter, Switzerland: Eldorado.)

The film is helmed by movie and tv director, Joram Lürsen (at left). The 'Resistance Banker’ and ring-leader, Walraven van Hall, is played by Barry Atsma, who must have relived his role of a few years ago as Johan de Witt, prime minister of the democratic Dutch republic in the mid-1600’s, who guided the Netherlands during its Golden Age. He was butchered like Braveheart by political opponents in the Dutch film, Admiral. While Johan de Witt and his brother were both martyred in particularly gory fashion in 1672, the van Hall brothers fared both good and bad in 1945. Wally van Hall was betrayed, arrested, and shot more antiseptically in a lineup just weeks before the end of the war. Upon the arrest, Brother Gijs (Jacob Derwig) took Wally’s wife and children and his own family into hiding while Wally’s fate played out. Following the war, Gijs had a successful political career, eventually becoming Mayor of Amsterdam.

The saga began for Wally (above) in 1942 when he discovered the murder-suicide of a Jewish client and family that was precipitated by Nazi orders to vacate their home and submit to deportation. In a second rude-awakening, on a train halted for another, he witnessed cattle cars pass by filled with screaming prisoners. (These brief moments are the viewers only contact with the scale of atrocities perpetrated by the Nazi regime other than their brutality to the resistance members they arrest.) Van Hall’s resolve to proceed consumed his life and he coaxed his more cautious older brother, Gijs, to join him in an underground bank scheme proposed by resistance members. The film lingers on the internal conflict of risk to life, family, and financial ruin before the brothers committed wholeheartedly to the dangers. But together they went on to engineer a variety of schemes, starting with raising legitimate loans and proceeding to outright theft and forgery. Below they check out fake currency, hot off the press.

They reportedly conjured up the modern equivalent of over a half billion Euros, called the largest bank fraud in Dutch history. But van Hall was a meticulous record keeper: he tracked and noted the intake and outgo of every amount and left a history of transactions as anal as Nazi record-keeping of its evil doings.

The tale does not progress smoothly; the frauds being committed under the noses of the Germans develop at a snail’s pace and the nature of the actual schemes somewhat difficult to follow, but the suspense ramps up midway to a thrill ride. Do hang on as the Nazi’s close in on Wally while money transactions are in high gear. Their work was almost done when Wally was caught near war’s end (below); Gijs, however, was able to continue distributing funds until the actual end of the war and offer exact accounting to legitimate authorities when the Dutch government reassembled.

Not until 2010 did the Dutch create a monument to their heroic steward — ‘the premier of the resistance’. Located opposite the Dutch Central Bank, it is an unusual bronze sculpture of a fallen tree (below) symbolizing their fallen giant. Both the film version and the family’s original black and white home movies (run over the credits) show Wally and his children tree climbing — the fallen tree sculpture resonates. But I’d like to think that a tall standing tree clouded in a perpetual mist would have been a more inspiring eternal metaphor for Walraven van Hall.

The Latasters' MISS KIET'S CHILDREN: kids on film in a fine and helpful Netherlands school

The earlier documentary of which the new one, MISS KIET'S CHILDREN, should most remind you is probably that fine French kids-in-school doc, To Be and To Have, which let us spend some time in a one-room, mixed-grade schoolhouse in the French countryside.

Among the differences between that doc and this new one are the country we're in (The Netherlands), the larger size of the school, and the fact that most of the kids here are recent immigrants (several from Syria) -- which addresses a subject that has grown hugely in importance throughout the European Union over the fifteen years since the release of that earlier film.

The product of filmmakers Petra Lataster-Csisch and Peter Lataster (shown above, left and right, respectively), the film offers no narration -- written or voice-over -- nor any talking-head interviews, but is simply a you-are-there, let's-watch-these-kids-and-the-interaction-with-their-teacher approach. It works. The children, for the most part, seem either unaware of the camera or so used to it that it makes little difference to them. Only one of these -- a very funny young fellow named Jorj (shown below) -- occasionally seems to be playing to the camera. And, damned if he isn't very good at it!

That titular teacher, Miss Kiet (above and below), seems a font of inspiration and warmth, yet stern enough when more control is necessary. Early on in the film she makes the point that the differences between us all is something beautiful, and this idea is quietly carried on throughout, as we watch the kids learn mathematics, movement, spelling and even how to tie a shoelace.

More than merely teaching reading, writing and arithmetic, however, what Miss Kiet excels at most, it seems, is problem-solving. She is near constantly helping these kids learn how to solve their problems without resorting to anything that approaches fighting or violence. Later she will explain to them: "For every problem, there is a solution!" And, by god, she's there to demonstrate this fact.

From near the opening moment, when a little girl arrives at school having fallen down outside into what must have been a mud puddle and now has on wet and dirty pants, to the Christmas pageant, complete with song and dance, which the kids rehearse and then put on near the film's conclusion, various problems arise and are handled by Kiet and eventually by the children with understanding and a slowly acquired skill.

The movie deals mostly with those children from Syria, though one young boy (above) hails from Macedonia. As we watch the little girl Liane (or Leeann, as it is sometimes spelled here) on the playground, and see her flinch again and again and look up into the sky when any loud noise is heard, we can't help but wonder if she is remembering the bombs and violence of her native land. Finally the teacher talks with Jorj about why he has trouble sleeping, and, sure enough, this started back in Syria. "There is no 'bang bang' here, is there?" he is asked. No, but his sleep remains troubled.

Miss Kiet's Children will appeal most, I suspect, to teachers and/or anyone who harbors the instinct for teaching, and then to those who love watching the faces of children for all the unbridled emotions these can show. The faces here are marvels indeed, and the filmmakers have captured them in all their troubled glory. Finally though, the documentary seems to TrustMovies not quite as accomplished a To Be and To Have. The fact that it sticks mostly with only four or five of these kids made me wish I had seen more of the rest of the class and how the others interacted with these five. You can't have it all, of course, not even within a two-hour framework of this film's two-hour running time.

On the same bill with the full-length documentary is a seven-minute animated short entitled WHEN I HEAR THE BIRDS SING by Trine Vallevik Håbjørg, with animation by Øyvind Tangseth and Ms Håbjørg. Using simple animation that suddenly turns gorgeous, colorful and inspired, the soundtrack offers up snippets of interviews with children of the Côte d’Ivoire in West Africa who were left homeless and/or nearly killed during the violence that followed the 2010 election. They talk of their ambitions, as well as of their travails. In its simplicity, style and beauty, the film is a small but sublime accomplishment.

From Icarus Films and in Dutch with English subtitles, Miss Kiet's Children opens tomorrow, Wednesday, December 13, at Film Forum in New York City for its U.S. theatrical premiere, and then on Friday, December 15, at Laemmle's Music Hall 3 in Los Angeles. 

Gardeners, arise! Rosie Stapel's gorgeous doc, PORTRAIT OF A GARDEN, is your new must-see

Who'd have imagined that spending 98 minutes (that span a full year) inside the incredible garden on a large estate in The Netherlands could provide such pleasure and interest? For anyone who is a gardener, or loves gardening, TrustMovies should think that PORTRAIT OF A GARDEN will be a "must." Even for someone like me, who hasn't tended a garden since around age eight, the movie proved captivating. It is certainly one of the most beautiful visual and philosophical looks at the productive collaboration between man and nature to find its way onto film.

The filmmaker, Rosie Stapel, shown at left, is a relative newcomer to the documentary field, though she has worked in art departments, on production design and as an art director for nearly two decades. Though this is her first film, as director, producer, cinematographer and editor, she has very skillfully woven together visuals, conversations and ideas into a tapestry that takes us through a full year in the garden, beginning in January, 2013. Winter has set in, yet there is, as always, plenty to do, and her film's two protagonists, who, we see constantly at work -- Jan Freriks, the 85-year-old pruning master (shown below, left), and Daan van der Have (below, right), the estate's owner and gardener -- must get that job done.

The movie may put you in mind of that little-seen gem, A Little Chaos, directed, co-written by and starring the late Alan Rickman, and not only because some of the vegetation here is descended from cuttings from the palace garden of King Louis XIV, but many of the rules of pruning used in this garden date back to that time period, as well.

The pruning master and the gardener have a number of conversations throughout the film, and these are pertinent not only to the garden but to the lives we're living today, and to the way the world is changing. The film's subtitle, Everything Has Its Time, turns out to be applicable not just to the pruning and harvesting -- of which we see much -- but to our world outside that garden, as well.

Unless you are yourself a gardener or are very well-acquainted with a multitude of fruits and vegetables, you will not have seen so many varieties as you will here. While we don't learn all that much about any single one of these, the very act of seeing them and knowing that they exist proves its own reward.

What we do learn is something of the character of the two men we spend most time with: Daan and Jan. The former tells us early on, "To have a beautiful garden, you have to have a very strong desire -- and also be able to deal with the fact that this desire will never be fulfilled." Learn to love what is beautiful and special, he advises, rather than feeling only the frustration. The old-timers have a dry sense of humor, too. "I wish I were 60 again," says Jan. "You mean really young," answers Daan.

Along with all the pruning, and eventually the copious harvests (really something to behold!), we learn some interesting history (fifty years ago, folk spent nearly half their income on food; today it's more like 10 percent) and even a get a recipe or two (fish fried on a fig leaf will capture a delicious taste in the skin). We watch as apprentices are trained, mildew hits the grapes, and seasons change from (seemingly) barren (below) to verdant and lush (at bottom).

By year's end you will have experienced a garden as beautiful and fruitful as any you're likely to see -- by a filmmaker we are sure to hear from again -- and soon, I hope.

From Grasshopper Film, in Dutch with English subtitles, Portrait of a Garden opens this Wednesday, October 26, in its theatrical premiere for a one-week-only run at New York City's Film Forum. It will then play The Screen in Santa Fe on November 18, Time & Space Limited in Hudson, New York, on November 27, and then the Cleveland Museum of Art in Ohio, come February 5, 2017. Click here (then click on Where to Watch) as the weeks go by to see if further playdates/cities have been added.

Dutch deadpan in Alex van Warmerdam's very dry hit-man comedy, SCHNEIDER VS BAX

Remember Borgman -- that dark, Dutch, sort-of-variation on Boudu Saved from Drowning (and other what-to-do-about-the-trashy-tramp movies)? Alex van Warmerdam, the writer/director of that strange, cunning little film is back again with another bizarre, deadpan, dark comedy-of-menace titled SCHNEIDER VS BAX. It arrives this coming week on DVD, and if your taste runs to this sort of thing, the movie is a good example of this sub-genre.

Mr. van Warmerdam (shown above, right, and at left) also co-stars in the film, as he did in Borgman, and his gruff, low-key, macho presence is quite right for both his role and the film. He handles the screenplay and dialog with ease, and his direction ropes his entire cast onto the same page and style, making the most of this kind of deadpan, at which you often don't know whether to laugh or wince. (You'll probably do both at once.) The filmmaker has created a cast of characters that you may find it hard to warm up to, but this is fine, since some of them will not survive the trip.

The tale here is of a pair of hit men, evidently quite good at their jobs, who -- for some reason which we never really learn -- have been pitted against each other by the fellow who gives them their assignments. Van Warmerdam plays Bax, and another actor from Borgman, Tom Dewispelaere  (below), plays Schneider. Neither character knows the other, and though they fairly quickly learn that their boss is playing them against each other, they still evidently feel they must kill that other in order to survive.

Bax gets a surprise visit from his grown daughter (Maria Kraakman, shown below and further below, who is very good in this role) and then from his father -- both of whom complicate his life and reactions -- while Schneider becomes involved with a pimp and whore who equally complicate his assignment. How this all works out managers to be very dark, often funny, and even surprising. You will imagine that you know what is going to happen here, but I can tell you with some certainty that you will be wrong -- in at least a couple of important instances.

Coincidence does occur, and certain scenes seem a tad incredible, and yet so bleak, bizarre and weirdly funny is it all that, somehow, credibility is maintained -- if barely. Simply for the scenes between Bax, his father and daughter, the movie manages to rivet you in its own, special, this-can't-be-happening-but-oh-my-goodness-it-is manner.

In its odd way Schneider vs Bax turns out to be a kind of very late coming-of-age tale -- and a pretty good one, at that -- even though it is not clear for quite some time just who it is that's doing the coming.

From Film Movement and running a fairly sleek 96 minutes, the movie arrives on DVD this Tuesday, October 25 -- for purchase or rental.