Andres Veiel's BEUYS explores an oddly famous-yet-far-too-unknown post-WWII German artist

Joseph Beuys (pronounced boys, but with an "s" sound at the end, rather than a "z"), who lived from 1921 through 1986, was a kind of contemporary of Andy Warhol. Both men expanded culture's idea of what art could be, though Warhol -- in TrustMovies' estimation -- did this mostly for purposes of marketing, wealth and fame, while Beuys, whose vast interests and deep understanding ranged from politics, economics and history to the environment, culture, and education (he was, among all else, a very popular teacher), worked more from his desire to better humanity. And just maybe from a certain sense of guilt and reparation: Our boy flew planes for the Nazis during World War II.

In BEUYS, his new documentary about this artist/ philosopher/even (sort of) statesman, filmmaker Andres Veiel, shown at left, doesn't connect all the dots or hammer home a lot of theories. He simply lays out many of the facts of this unusual man's life and work and lets us do the connecting ourselves. It is a fascinating, strange and sometimes sad and moving journey Veiel takes us on, but it will, I think, make Joseph Beuys an art figure you will not easily forget.

Unlike Warhol, who usually said the least he could get away about almost everything (he knew enough to shut up and thus be "mysterious"), Beuys -- much more intellectual -- was not merely willing to but usually insistent upon talking about his work, along with politics, society and just about all else. ("What's the point of art if nothing comes of it?" we hear him ask.)

I don't know that the two artists ever actually met, but at one point rather late in the documentary, we're at some art event/party, at which Beuys (shown above and below) is supposed to appear, and we're told that Warhol was there, too, and was in fact looking to meet his German contemporary.

Making fine use of much archival footage, Veiel shows us Beuys as artist, teacher, leader and even idol, though he does not appear to have wanted much of that last one. He -- and his art -- were also challenging, in a manner that Warhol's never was. Beuys never produced room decor for modern sensibilites, and so was not marketable in the way that Warhol was, which is why he was never, then nor now, embraced by the ludicrous/sleazy art establishment so that his works might finally fetch millions.

And while Beuys was quite funny, always smart, and often charming, he also lacked that smug layer of irony and bad-boy persona possessed by someone like Maurizio Cattelan. Veiel gives us some of the artist's history and his estrangement from his parents, who wanted him to work in a local margarine factory. Still it comes a shock to suddenly see him in Nazi Youth uniform, and then flying for Germany in WWII. (A plane crash ended that segment of his life.)

We're with Beuys during his very depressed period post-art school, when he lived with and was cared for by his mentors, and then at his kind of rebirth as a performance artist, garnering fame and even an American tour. (The coyote moment here is a keeper.) Our boy even ran for election via The Green Party, and when you hear about the bizarre diversity of that party during its initial days and just whom it allowed into it, you will better understand its continuing dysfunction and uselessness.

The film ends with a reminder of what is probably -- no, certainly -- Beuys' greatest and most lasting work of environmental art. This is something that must have seemed then, for it does even now, way ahead of its time. After finishing this fine documentary, I felt a deep sense of gratitude to Herr Veiel and his crew. I'm very happy to have seen and learned so much about Joseph Beuys, and I suspect that -- unless you already knew it all -- you will be, too.

From Kino Lorber, in German with English subtitles (along with some English spoken occasionally) and running 111 minutes, Beuys opens in its U.S. theatrical premiere this Wednesday, January 17, at Film Forum in New York City. As of now there are only a few more playdates scheduled around the country (click here then scroll down to view cities and venues), but since the film is coming via Kino Lorber, there will certainly and eventually be a DVD release.

Matthias Schweighöfer's WHAT A MAN proves the comedy-doesn't-travel theory

Variety is fond of telling us that comedy rarely travels well: ours to foreign climes, theirs to us. The best example I've seen of this theory lately is the German movie opening this week, WHAT A MAN. Written and directed by its star, Matthias Schweighöfer (whose personality--on the basis of his work here, at least--could curdle milk), the movie would seem to be arriving in theaters maybe ten to twenty years late so far as its theme -- a fellow doesn't have to be super macho to be a man -- is concerned.

Herr Schweighöfer, shown at right, hangs one cliche upon another in his quest to assure us plenty of comedy and screwed-up romance, as that feel-good finale lines up in our sites. The filmmaker/star does get points for upending the usual race to the airport to catch his true love, and, in fact, the film's finale almost (but not quite) makes up for much of its previous missteps. The writer/director also does some amusing things with the ever-popular panda (below), though much else in this tired fun-fest seems to have been milked dry eons earlier.

The story, such as it is, has to do with a sweet elementary school teacher, played by Schweighöfer, who is clearly out of his element and woefully mismatched with a sexy, up-and-coming actress/TV personality (played by Mavie Hörbiger, below). How these two ever got together is the film's biggest mystery.

 
Almost from the starting gate we're privy to the fact that his female best friend (Sibell Kekilli, shown below, of When We Leave) would make a much better match, and so any suspense or surprise is pretty much drained from the outset.

But that doesn't stop our hero/filmmaker, who mugs his way through it all rather grossly. Plus, he drags us through what seems like endless and not particularly amusing situations in which he and we join a macho men's group (below),

go partying to meet the ladies (the movie's worst scene by far) and get involved with the very macho upstairs neighbor, played by the very macho Thomas Kretschmann (below, right).

None of this matters much, unless you are relatively new to movies and to rom-coms and so find it all spanking new. But, as I say, the ending has its moments and its charm, and so that may help bring you into the fold, as it were.

What a Man (from Fox International and running 95 minutes) opens today, Friday, November 30, in New York City at the AMC Empire 25, and in Queens at the Cinemart Cinemas in Forest Hills. It is also simultaneously opening in the Los Angeles area at the Phoenix Big Cinemas Dos Lagos 15, in Corona, CA.

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.

Florian Gallenberger's JOHN RABE: the real-life, World War II, good German

Old-fashioned epics in the biography/
history mode are so rare these days that a good one like the recent German film JOHN RABE (pronounced Rah-buh) is reason enough to send up an Annunciation flare. Written and directed by Florian Gallenberger (shown below, clutching his "Oscar" for Quiero Ser [I Want to Be], which won Best Short Film-Live Action back in 2001), the movie tells a tale (perhaps not the tale, but close enough for jazz) of a real-life German businessman who had the moral strength and courage, despite his being a huge Hitler-lover, to stand up for Chinese refuges during the slaughter that has come to be known as The Rape of Nanking.

If you're an inveterate movie-goer, you will probably already know about Herr Rabe from other recent films: Chuan Lu's Nanjing! Nanjing! (City of Life and Death) and the 2007 semi-documentary Nanking.  Here, however, we see a much fuller Rabe and understand better how important was his work for the safety of the Chinese people trapped in the city when the Japanese took it over in 1937.  The movie, I believe, telescopes time and and events somewhat (the entire film takes in but two months at the end of that year), but the effect only captures our attention that much more, pulling us strongly into the narrative.

The choice of events that Gallenberger shows us cements the time, place and importance of what is going on so absolutely in our psyches that I suspect anyone who views the film will always remember what happened here. And though the filmmaker sees to it that, yes, there are both good and bad Germans and Japanese shown, it is more than clear in this case that the Japanese were responsible for mass slaughter and atrocities for which that coun-
try, to this day, has yet to declare and/or take its full responsi-
bility  (Japan, meet Turkey!)  As genocidal as were the Nazi toward the Jews, this film makes it clear that the Japanese were equally so toward the Chinese.  (It's little wonder the film proved so popular in Germany: At last an entire -- and almost entirely successful -- movie devoted to a good German during WWII!)

Ironically, it was because of the close ties between Japan and Germany that Rabe, as a German, could manage to exercise some control and protection over, first, the Chinese workers in the Siemens factory in Nanking that he had charge over, and later up to 200,000 refugees. In the first attack we see in the film, it is by unfurling a huge Nazi flag (above), under which the workers gather, that Rabe is able to save their lives during an aerial bombing.

Gallenberger uses occasional newsreel footage along with his filmed narrative -- the coupling works quite well -- and his art director and set designers have done a yeoman job of creating the period of the late 1930s.  Occasionally, a scene will smack of "commerce."  As exciting as is the chase of the suddenly-Japanese-uniformed Chinese girl Langyu (played by the lovely Jingchu Zhang, above, right) into her girl's dormitory, when the commanding officer orders all the girls to strip naked, you can practically hear the voice of a producer whispering, "Find a way to work in some nudity, and I'll bankroll your movie."

Ditto the almost love story between Langyu and her young German Jew (Daniel Brühl, doing penance for his nasty Nazi of Inglorious Basterds).  Yet so involved do we become with these characters, all of whom are very well acted, I suspect you'll allow the events and performances to carry you along.  Among the fine cast, it's a partic-
ular pleasure to see Steve Buscemi (above, right) play a relatively buttoned-down role as an American physician practicing in Nanking, as well as the fine French actress Anne Consigny (above, left), as one of the strongest forces for good in this imperiled city, while Dagmar Manzel (below, left) is the steadfast and loving Dora Rabe.

In the role of Rabe himself, Gallenberger was lucky to have enticed the man who may be Germany's finest actor working today: Ulrich Tukur (shown above, right, and below).  You've seen him recently in roles quite varied -- from The White Ribbon to Séraphine and North Face. As Rabe, he is altogether different: quiet, self-effacing and only slowly rising to the challenge at hand.  What a marvelous actor this fellow is; he has you following his smallest change of thought and feeling without ever striking a false note.  If the rest of the cast and the story itself were not so commanding, Herr Tukur alone would make this film a must-see.

John Rabe, via Strand Releasing,  begins its theatrical run today, May 21, in New York City, at the Quad Cinema, on Long Island at the Malverne Cinema, and in Queens at the Kew Gardens Cinema. On June 4, the film will open in Los Angeles at the Laemmle Music Hall 3, the Laemmle Town Center 5 in Encino and the Regal Edwards Westpark 8 in Irvine.