Scenes from a marriage, French-style, in Nicolas Bedos/Doria Tillier's funny/moving/ surprising MONSIEUR & MADAME ADELMAN

The remarkable -- and remarkably entertaining -- French film from 2017, MONSIEUR ET MADAME ADELMAN, seems to me all the more so for never getting a theatrical release here in the USA. Instead it is arriving straight-to-DVD via Icarus Home Video and Distrib Films US and is very much worth seeking out.

What's more, it bears quite a noticeable comparison to another recent film that I shall not name here, for fear for giving away a major spoiler. It is also better by leaps and bounds than that not-to-be-mentioned movie, which, if you've seen it, by the end of Monsieur et Madame Adelman, you will probably cry its name aloud. A creation of the film's director, co-writer and leading actor, shown at far left, Nicolas Bedos (son of Guy Bedos), and co-writer and leading actress, Doria Tillier, shown near left, the movie tracks, over two very solid hours, the four-decades-plus relationship of this eventual husband and wife, with all the ups and down one might expect -- plus quite a lot more that one might not.

The film begins at the end, as our heroine sits down for an interview with a journalist regarding her life with her late husband, a famous Prix Goncourt-winning writer, of whom she was probably his fiercest critic. From the almost schoolgirlish crush she has on the guy, through a very oddball sort of seduction via, first, his best friend and then his older brother, Sarah Adelman achieves just about all she sets her sights on, along with other things she'd perhaps have preferred not to.

Her man and budding writer, Victor (how he comes by her last name proves one of the many delights of this film), is actually nowhere near as interesting as his wife, which, by the end of this unusual movie, becomes one of the more pertinent points of discussion about M. & Mme. Adelman.

Oh, he is plenty interesting enough, as portrayed by Bedos fils, yet this movie makes clear that he is also, somehow, a kind of creation of Sarah who, from the very first, refuses to see him as he is but rather as the person she wants him to be. But then don't so many of us, when "falling in love," see someone quite other than the person standing right in front of us? We're just not maybe so single-minded and insistent as Sarah.

While the film takes the usual course -- respective families, work, success (above), parenting (below), middle age and beyond -- how all these play out is not so much the expected. (The couple's first-born child: whew!) And being a French film, we're also given a tad more philosophizing and food-for-thought that an American counterpart might offer.

The movie's awash with humor, often of the dark variety. It is also a grand romance -- in its oddball way. And a "history" of sorts. Psychiatry/therapy play into things, as well, with the gifted Denis Podalydès in the role of Victor's shrink. (The film's "take" on Judaism is unusual, too -- a welcome change from so much else we've seen.)

Where M. & Mme. Adelman is going and how it gets there is as surprising as is most else about this film. It will leave you, I think, with very mixed feelings. Which, TrustMovies suspects, is exactly how these talented filmmakers would want you to feel.

From Distrib Films US via Icarus Home Video and running 120 minutes, the movie hits the street on DVD this coming Tuesday, March 12 -- for purchase and/or rental.  Do check this one out!

Oh, granny! Tom Fassaert's Dutch doc about his problemed relatives, A FAMILY AFFAIR

So much is made these days about the often "tenuous" link between truth and whatever new documentary is currently under the critical microscope -- see Nuts, Cameraperson and Kate Plays Christine for three prime examples: two excellent, the other not so -- that when an old-fashioned, point-your-camera-and-try-to-get-the-whole-story appears, it almost seems fresh and unique. Such is the case with A FAMILY AFFAIR, in which Dutch filmmaker Tom Fassaert attempts to get his paternal grandmother, Marianne, who now lives in South Africa and has reached the ripe old age of 95, to come clean about the past.

Mr. Fassaert, shown at right, dispenses with anything "meta" or even much that is discursive. And don't look for clever animation to help fill the time and increase your enjoyment. The filmmaker explains at the opening what he is after and why, and then he simply goes for it. But since what he is going for is the deep secret that appears to be hiding within that grandmother, you can expect to enter a certain very dark region known as "family." When Mr. Fassaert's father was just a young boy, his mother, Marianne, placed him and his brother in a children's home, occasionally visiting them but in reality more-or-less abandoning her two children.

Both grew up highly problemed. Tom's father (shown above with his mother in later years) worked around those problems as best he could, providing a home and a help to his son, Tom. Tom's uncle, dad's brother René, was not so lucky and remains, to this day somewhat mentally at sea. Down the years, the relationship between Tom's dad and Tom's grandmother has remained rocky -- very off and on, stop and start.

So when Tom receives a request from his grandmother to come and visit her in South Africa, he jumps at the chance, turning on his camera almost immediately. Family albums -- in both Holland and South Africa -- are unearthed and combed through (granny was a fashion model back in the day) and the camera stays on grandmother as much as possible with occasional forays into dad and René and a few even farther outliers.

It does not take long, however, before Tom (and we viewers) realize that his granny (below, in her glamor curlers) is not going to be forthcoming on her own. She won't be forced to reveal the past, and so she'll have to somehow be cajoled. "The truth is subjective," she tells us early on. "You'll never find what you're looking for, even if you try." A near-complete narcissist who lives only to look good, granny is a piece of work you won't easily forget.

The more we learn about her and the history of Tom's family, the more awful the woman appears to be. There's a will (and the changing of inheritors), and an autobiography to be written (with a change in the ghost writer along the way). Grandma would rather flirt with her grandson than give up those secrets easily, and so the film, too, takes its sweet time. Yet it is never boring because we keep learning new bits and pieces, while seeing grandmother and her two sons more fully.

Finally, you might even find yourself with a kind feeling or two for granny (though these hardly outweigh the damage this thoughtless, selfish woman has done). The press release for the film promises a big "reveal," which turns out to be, in our current times, something relatively minor.

By the film's end, though, we've been shocked and moved and made to once again understand how difficult it is to get to the bottom of things. And yet Mr. Fassaert has managed to do his job in a way that seems about as honest and truthful as possible. He probes, gently and then more forcefully, but backs off when he must. Personal and painful, the movie goes about as far as it can.

The secret at the center of it all -- how could you do this to your children, and why? -- is never fully answered. The mystery of "family" remains just that. But once again, as with all good documentaries on this subject, the door has been opened a crack wider and we've seen something special and different, enticing and disturbing, that we can now add to that memory book of oddball families we have known.  Some of us might also realize that our own family could easily be included, too, even as we feel gratitude that ours is not nearly as oddball as what we've seen here. (That's Tom, above, in his somewhat younger days.)

A Family Affair -- supposedly released via Abramorama (but good luck trying to find the film on its web site), spoken in Dutch and English with English subtitles -- opens tomorrow, Friday. September 16, in Los Angeles (at Laemmle's Music Hall) and New York City (at the Cinema Village). Elsewhere? Don't know, but one hopes to see this doc make its DVD and/or digital debut soon.

A great film finally hits USA screens -- Edgar Reitz's HOME FROM HOME: Chronicle of a Vision

First released around the world in 2013 but only now seeing its U.S. theatrical debut (thanks to Corinth Films), HOME FROM HOME: Chronicle of a Vision is the work of a German filmmaker -- Edgar Reitz -- not so well known in the USA, probably because much of his work (like that of another under-seen German filmmaker, Dominik Graf), has been made for German television. Herr Reitz, shown below, is the filmmaker best known for the Heimat series (and its offspring). TrustMovies has not seen that very lengthy, three-pronged, multi-part endeavor, but now, having viewed this film, Heimat is on his list.

Home From Home itself runs over three and one-half hours, but before you decide to take a pass, let me say that this is one great film: rich in theme and characterization and done in an old-fashioned story-telling manner (but using up-to-the-minute technology) to produce something that will rivet you visually, intellectually and emotionally from first scene to last. As both director and co-writer (with Gert Heidenreich), Reitz knows how to grab us immediately and hold us fast throughout.

His dialog and story, narrated by its protagonist, Jakob Simon -- played with a fine combination of sweet naivete, strength and almost idiot-savant intelligence by newcomer Jan Dieter Schneider, shown at left -- are offered up in a manner that is beautifully rendered: literary, often flowery, full of specifics, yet sounding real and of-its-time, artful and rich in ideas. (It's a pleasure to read the fine English subtitles.)

Visually, Home From Home is spectacular. Anyone who appreciates sumptuous black-and-white cinematography should have a field day here. Further, all this is occasionally leavened with moments of sudden color that adheres to certain objects: a molten red horseshoe, blue wall, orange geode, brown eyes and the like.

Initially, this may remind you of that too-much moment of red tossed in toward the end of Schindler's List. But, no: this use of only-now-and-then color occurs often enough throughout -- at moments and with objects of some importance to the film -- that it lends a kind of mythic quality to a story that is indeed that.

Home From Home is a film about coming-of-age of an exceptional young man under exceptionally trying circumstances, and it is also a tale of a country, a people, experiencing the need to expand and emigrate, perhaps for the first time in its relatively young history. Occurring in the mid-1800s, it takes place in a small German town, where everyone knows everyone, and in fact may even know everyone in the next town over, as well.

We have father/son conflict and mother/son love, brother-to-brother competition, a banished sister, adventure, incipient sexuality, the joy of learning, the drudgery of work, near-death and death itself. Moments happen, from the hugely important to the mundane, and they are all part of the wondrous tapestry Reitz has fashioned, as our hero Jakob, with his fascination for Brazil and its natives and their language, grows from boy to young man in the midst of a German town that is re-created about as well as any time and place of two centuries past that film has so far given us.

The rest of Reitz's cast is equally fine; each family member or friend comes to fully rounded life. (Look for a lovely few moments from Werner Herzog, too, in a small but pivotal role near the movie's end.) It is so unusual to find a film this old-fashioned in its depiction of a family saga yet thrillingly current in its technology and thematic concerns. This is a wonderfully humane work, as well: Reitz, while understanding the economic and class disparities present, does not go out of his way to find villains to pillory. Just getting on with the life of the time is difficult enough.

Another top-notch example of the Corinth Films catalog, Home From Home, after appearing yesterday at the San Joaquin International Film Festival Autumnfest, will open in New York City for its U.S. theatrical premier at Anthology Film Archives for a one-week run this Friday, September 11. It will the hit Hartford, Portland (OR), Cleveland and Scottsdale in the weeks to follow -- and maybe more cities, once word-of-mouth begins. Click here then scroll down to view all currently scheduled venues and dates. Note: The director and his star will be available for a Q&A following weekend AFA screenings in New York. Several of Herr Reitz's other films will screen alongside Home From Home. Consult the AFA schedule for details .

Chico Colvard's moving shocker FAMILY AFFAIR is exactly that -- and in so many surprising ways

Since viewing, via Netflix streaming, FAMILY AFFAIR, the all-about-my-dysfunctional-family documentary by Chico Colvard, TrustMovies has been thinking about the film ever since, wondering why -- among many other topics for discussion -- this 2010 movie has not received wider acclaim and much more popularity. It is a remarkably brave endeavor, for both the filmmaker and his many family members, who contributed to the documentary with their honest and straight-forward interviews about a subject that is not all that often discussed, and certainly not with the truthfulness and attempt at genuine understanding that is found here. The film is about family violence and incest, where these comes from and how they move from one generation to the next (we see four generations here).

The reason, I suspect, that Family Affair is not better known, is that it's simply too strange, surprising and complex in what it shows and tells us about a subject that is usually handled in the most broad, obvious, single-note and knee-jerk manner. The tale the film tells, while it may seems stagger-ingly "original," is probably not unlike many others out there. The difference can be found in the details, of course, but also in the deci-sion of Mr. Colvard (shown at left) and his siblings, father and other relatives to not only "spill the beans" but then to try to figure out what those beans add up to and why they turned out the way they did.

Now, Chico Colvard, it should be said straight out, is no psychologist. Nor is he any brilliant filmmaker. He is simply a man who has tried the best he can to bring to light the story of his family. His "best" turns out to be plenty good enough, for this movie will stay with you and, if you watch it with others, provide reams of discussion. When Chico was ten years old -- with thanks, he feels to the old Chuck Connors TV show Rifleman that he loved watching -- the boy took a gun belonging to his father and shot one of his sisters several times in the leg. This was not any kind of "anger release," it seems, but more an accident in which the boy misunderstood the reality of a gun (and just one more reason, though the movie does not state this, for better gun control).

The incident, which drew the police to the home, also brought to light the father's violence and sexual abuse of the three sisters (Chico himself was not abused physically nor sexually). What happened after, and why -- to the children's mother (a white German woman the black father had married while in the military service abroad), to the children, and to the father himself -- is riveting and rich in history, social and otherwise.  What has happened to the extended family, meanwhile, is every bit as odd and amazing. Or maybe not, when you stop to think about what family means and how much so many of us want it in our lives, come hell or high water.

How the people we see here have accommodated "family" -- through abuse, guilt, payback and self-hurt, among other reactions -- makes for one hell of a story, fractured as it is. Colvard himself can't make complete sense of it, understand or even empathize totally with the many different viewpoints we see and hear. Who -- save an all-seeing, all-knowing deity -- could? But he gives all this to us, raw and undigested, and simply asks that we try to understand. The great amazement and strength of this 80-minute movie is that somehow we do.

Family Affair -- a don't-miss documentary -- is available now via Netflix streaming. Miss it, and you will miss one of the more unusual family stories of our times.

Sarah Polley's STORIES WE TELL: an objet d'art deep with meaning, feeling and justice

We're viewing more and more of what some of us call hybrid documentaries these days, films that, among other unusual combination, sometimes offer up an actual, real-life situation while using actors to fill in the past and some of the blanks that come from characters either deceased or unwilling/unable to "perform." Sarah Polley's hugely moving, surprising and entertaining STORIES WE TELL is one such film, and it is also the best yet in this new/old genre. (Flaherty's Nanook of the North, from 1922, was supposedly one such hybrid.)

What makes Ms Polley's film so special (that's she, shown at right) -- and also, it seems to me, so exquisitely Canadian -- is her search for decency and justice, along with "truth" and all the facts and fiction involved in arriving at that truth. Polley has long been a lovely actress and one of my personal favorites. She's not the most beautiful or revelatory or shocking or unusual. But she's always honest: one of those in-the-moment performers who doesn't hit a false note and is perfectly happy to give you truth without the trimmings that might make it easier to digest. To offer three quick examples, which you really ought to see if you haven't, check out her work in Last Night, Go and Splice, for starters. Then move on to The Sweet Hereafter, Guinevere and The Secret Life of Words for further verification. Toss in Beowulf & Grendel and No Such Thing for good measure and a little odd fun. Really, any of her films double as proof of the pudding.

As a filmmaker, Polley has made three excellent movies: her Alzheimers-themed Away from Her, the love-and-infidelity tale Take This Waltz, and now, her best yet. With each film she has grown more courageous -- in terms of her themes and how clearly she addresses these -- as well as more stylistically innovative. And she has kept, in fact increased, her intelligent skepticism (a quality she also brings to her acting) so that her audience cannot count on anything too safely simple.

Stories We Tell has to do with parenting and parentage and will, I think, rivet anyone with a real interest in the vagaries of both. In Polley's family (she was the youngest child), she grew up with jokes about her red hair and her lineage. But these were only jokes until, after her mother died, she began to explore the situation further. What she and we learn is, as with so many family stories, at once funny, moving, surprising and -- thanks especially to the filmmaker's insistence on being as fair to everyone involved as possible (for me, and despite the Keystone Pipeline, this is what makes her movie so "Canadian") -- especially kind, honest and often very funny.

We meet Polley's (very) extended family, dad (above in the past, and below in the present), brother and sisters, and other relatives, friends and co-workers. We meet mom, via (I think) old footage and an actress, too, as we do many of the other characters, who come to life as both their real selves and actors who play them in an earlier time. Yet so seamlessly has Polley written and directed all this, with such terrific editing (Michael Munn) and cinematography (Iris Ng) that not only do we follow the byways and oddities on view, we become more and more involved emotionally and intellec-tually with her story and all the people who buzz around and in it.

At one point, the filmmaker explains how important it is to her that each voice heard is also heard in a way that honors his or her viewpoint (I'm paraphrasing, but I believe that is what Polley wants).  This is certainly not an easy task, especially in a tale this involved and that includes so many people with their own "take" on the matter. And yet I think that she actually achieves her goal. And it is this that makes her movie additionally astonishing.

As you can see, I am not going into detail about revelations offered here. It has been said that every family has its secrets; true, but the secrets here you need to experience and discover for yourself. At the end, as the credits roll, we get yet another surprise. A humdinger, in fact, and while it almost seems that the filmmaker is teasing, maybe testing, us with something that's a bit cheap, this further revelation actually underscores yet again how difficult it is to arrive at "the truth." Ms Polley has come about as close as possible, though, while doing justice by and to everyone involved.

Don't miss Stories We Tell, which could as easily be titled Lies We Tell (and I do not mean this in a nasty way, as denial is as large a part of the lives of most of us as is love and need). The film, from Roadside Attractions and running 108 minutes, opens this Friday, May 10, here in New York City at the Lincoln Plaza Cinema and & the Angelika Film Center, and on Friday, May 17, in Los Angeles at The Landmark, and in other cities as well. You might try clicking on the film's web site to learn if and where the film is playing near you.

DVD/Blu-ray/Streaming debut: Don't miss Giuseppe Tornatore's masterpiece BAARÌA

Single-handedly making streaming a necessity (unless you've got a Blu-ray player: in which case, order the movie that way), the recent addition of BAARÌA to DVD/Blu-ray/streaming capability is something for which great gratitude is called. The latest from Italian filmmaker Giuseppe Tornatore (Cinema Paradiso, The Unknown Woman and other fine films), this modern masterpiece -- and I do not use that word lightly -- takes us to the writer/director's home town of Bagheria (for which, I am guessing, Baarìa is a kind of nickname) over a period that spans more than three generations.

Tornatore, shown at right, takes a major risk with this film by making it move so fast via very short scenes that often fly by and seem to last only long enough to provide content without any accompanying depth. This proves not true, however; that depth arrives as the movie grows and builds, and we become hugely involved with the three generations of the Sicilian family whose story is told here. Even the subsidiary characters take on surprising weight, and the movie's real themes -- class, Italian culture and mores, the uses of politics and the importance of family -- come quickly to the fore and stay there, accumulating both power and force.

The photography (Enrico Lucidi) is ravishing, the town and sets and accouterments are often eye-popping, and the lead performances from mostly unknowns (on this side of the Atlantic, at least) are stellar and on-point.

The movie begins in the time of Mussolini (above) and continues through to nearly present-day (below).

Tornatore uses a small child on an errand to begin his film, with a scene of running through the town faster and faster -- and then, in a feat of breathtaking beauty and surprise, lifts us-- and the film -- into the heavens and to an overview of life that it grasps and holds onto throughout.

Toward the end the filmmaker manages to combine present and past into a single unity that seems both bold and heart-breaking. He uses ancient customs -- broken eggs -- to herald events and even gives us a sweet look at how early Sicilian home cooling systems worked (at left). Tornatore uses place and character so keenly and poignant-ly that brief moments shown early come back to haunt us with surprisingly effectiveness.

We see and hear much about Italian political parties -- Communists, Socialists, Christian Democrats, reformists and more -- with the icing on the cake provided by one family, the father of which explains its voting process, guaranteed to render all votes useless.

This is the second time I've seen Baarìa; the first was two years ago when the film made its USA debut as part of the FSLC's Open Roads series. (Sadly, it never received a theatrical release here in the USA.) I found watching it again as riveting as the first time, with the overall mark it made as strong as ever, even though many specific scenes seemed new. I suspect the film will become one of those I will watch again every few years, experiencing its joy and pain anew. You should see it at least once.

Baarìa, at a speedy and gorgeous two-and-one-half hour length, is available now for sale, rental or streaming via Amazon, or for rental and streaming at Netflix, and for rental at Blockbuster.  I imagine you can find it elsewhere, too, but these three sources should give you a good start....

The photo above are from the film itself, 

except for that of Signore Tornatore, 

which comes courtesy of Exposay.com