Haiti's history meets teen romance in Bertrand Bonello's nitwit flick, ZOMBI CHILD

I've been a fan of the films of Bertrand Bonello (shown below) for years now -- Nocturama and Saint Laurent are my favorites -- so it gives me no pleasure to report that his latest, ZOMBI CHILD, is an embarrassing, unadulterated piece of crap. Unless M. Bonello is simply having us on? If so, he's managed to con most of our critical establishment, no great achievement considering the current state of movie criticism. It is not that his film has no real scares, suspense or thrills, as do most films with the word zombie (or, as here, zombi) in the title. Nor that instead of those usual attributes, a filmmaker has skewed his work toward intelligence and politics, economics, and history. Robin Campillo managed all that just about perfectly in his zombie movie, They Came Back (Les Revenants).

Here, the history of Haiti, colonization, teenage infatuation, zombie love and other subjects bounce off each other repeatedly without ever making much of a connection -- intellectually or emotionally. It takes over an hour before that connection finally arrives. And once it does, the movie just grows stupider.

TrustMovies is sorry, but it is simply not enough to toss in everything you think you know about these subjects and then expect this to somehow coalesce. You've got to make your tale resonate in an edifying manner so that your characters seem at least a tad important, maybe even believable. Bonello utterely fails at this. Plus, he's unusually sloppy (our Haitian zombie forgets to move slowly, once he's washing himself in the river).

The movie, despite its intellectual pretensions, does not even qualify as subtle or smart, for it is simply exposition piled upon more exposition, until it arrives dead on its feet -- in a way that puts to shame its own zombies.

Toggling back and forth between Haiti in the 1960s -- as one of those zombies is created to join others in the sugar-cane work force -- and an elite girls' school in present-day France, where the entitled white students form cliques and discuss boys, music and sorority nonsense, deciding whether or not to allow a new black student to join, Zombi Child moves along at the pace of the old-fashioned undead. To and fro we go, from Haiti to France, with things occasionally broken up by a nightmare or a flesh-eating fantasy. Come on, Bonello, we know you can do better than this.

Even the film's minimal special effects are cheesy -- black eyeballs yet?! -- while the finale offers up the most embarrassing use of Rodgers & Hammerstein's You'll Never Walk Alone to ever hit the screen. It makes even the ending of the movie Priest seem unduly reticent.

I am tempted to call this film a piece of intentional camp. But, no, I know in my heart that the camp here in unintentional. More's the pity.

From Film Movement and running 103 very long minutes, Zombi Child hits DVD and digital today, Tuesday, May 19 -- for purchase and, I would guess, rental. Your move.

Vital, joyous and as important as life: Kief Davidson and Pedro Kos' BENDING THE ARC

What a thrill, a joy, an unexpected amazement it is to see a new documentary that addresses (other than global warming) one of the most important subjects in our world today -- the right to health care for all human beings -- and does this is a manner that first makes you sit up and take notice and soon has you glued to the screen in wonder, and then in tears -- of thanks -- for the good work the people you've met have done and are continuing to do. If you can sit dry-eyed through BENDING THE ARC, I shall be very surprised. Boy, do we need this movie now!

As directed by the team of Kief Davidson and Pedro Kos (shown above, with Kos on the right) and written by Cori Shepherd Stern, the documentary covers some 35 years, during which its protagonists -- we begin with just three of them; today there are many more -- who've formed a group called Partners in Health (PIH) slowly bring some decent health care to the general populace of Haiti and then go on to Peru, where they help solve the problem of Multi-Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis, eventually help bring relief from AIDS to developing countries, and finally move to post-genocide Rwanda, where we watch and marvel as a fine health care system is developed.

The three (then) young people who form this group are (shown above, from left to right) Jim Yong Kim, Ophelia Dahl and Paul Farmer. We see the steps along the way in each of the situations they encounter and so become aware of, not simply the problems -- plenty, of course -- but how each is tackled and (in some form) surmounted. Initially we may find ourselves thinking, "Oh, some more do-gooders," but soon the good that they are doing countermands most other concerns. It's real. And it counts.

When the movie becomes the most personal, showing us individuals suffering from TB and then AIDS, along with what happens to them, it also hits hardest and strongest. Also powerful and anger-provoking are the near-constant attempts by academics, politicians and the medical profession, as well as the powers that be, internationally (initially, The World Bank is one of these), to undermine the PIH accomplishments, rather than embracing them and helping foot the necessary bill.

The documentary is full of excitement, suspense and surprise, as well as peopled with memorable  characters whom we grow to care about and hugely appreciate, especially some of the patients (shown above and below) to whom PIH ministers and saves, or not, along the way.

Unlike the very lightweight and close-to-embarrassing doc that opened last week, Prosperity, Bending the Arc makes no claims that its protagonists can save the world. It simply shows us what can be accomplished by smart, caring people who keep trying. What happens to these three is interesting, of course, but in the case of Mr. Kim, it is rather amazing and thrilling -- bringing a much-needed change to one of the world's most powerful organizations.

The titular "Arc" here is that metaphoric "arc of justice," which philosophers of the kindly sort tend to see bending very slowly toward justice for all. While it is difficult, under current American (not to mention much of the rest of the world's) leadership, to even remotely believe in this possibility, Bending the Arc, against all odds, will convince you that this is indeed happening.

My one caveat with the movie is that nowhere does it mention the probable problems that crop up when dealing with dictatorial governments in places where your group needs to provide help. What special arrangement had to be made, for instance, and what was "skimmed off the top"  by government officials? Of course it would not prove helpful to further endeavors to even bring up this subject, I suppose. Just as this sort of thing becomes the price of "doing business" in a corrupt country, it is undoubtedly also the price of doing good. Still, one can't help but wonder how the negotiations worked.

From Abramorama and running 102 minutes, Bending the Arc -- a shoo-in, I would think, for an Oscar nomination -- opens this Friday, October 6, in New York City at the Village East Cinema,and then the following Friday, October 13, in Boston (Sommervile Theater) Los Angeles (Laemmle's Monica Film Center),and Washington DC (Landmark's West End Cinema). On Friday, October 20, it hits San Francisco (Landmark's Opera Plaza) and Berkeley (Landmark's Shattuck Cinemas). If you're interested in arranging a screening for your community, click here then scroll down.

DVDebut: Barbara Kopple's doc, HOT TYPE, looks at The Nation's 150-year history

Readers of The Nation (TrustMovies is one of them), America's longest-running progressive magazine that celebrated its 150th birthday last year, will have no doubt already perused the very large, print copy of that anniversary issue. But they -- and I hope movie-goers and documentary lovers who've appreciated over the years the work of Barbara Kopple -- will not want to miss the new documentary, HOT TYPE: 150 YEARS OF THE NATION, that made the festival rounds in 2015 without securing a theatrical release and now comes directly to DVD, thanks to First Run Features.

Ms Kopple's movie -- the filmmaker is shown at left -- isn't quite hagiography (who doesn't like The Nation, except Republicans, of course), but it neither does it cast a critical eye. It celebrates, and rightly so, while giving us a pretty good look at the history of the magazine, its purpose, and especially at many of the people -- writers, editors, publishers (current and ex) and interns -- who labor for the cause.

We come away from the film with much less of a fully-digested meal than we did from reading that super-packed anniversary issue -- but still satisfied that we've sampled some tasty hors d'oeuvres, while meeting a few of the intelligent, interesting and talented folk we read regularly.

Chief among these are the Editor & Publisher Katrina vanden Heuvel (above) and (now) Executive Editor Richard Kim (below, who proves the most adorable and charming thing in the movie -- even if he does delay those deadlines). We spend some time with ex-Publisher and leading Nation light from earlier decades, Victor Navasky and writer Amy Wilentz, and especially with the group of young people who were interns the year that Kopple filmed.

The Nation treats its interns with respect and caring, and a number of them stay with (or return to) the magazine later for full-fledged jobs in journalism. While it proves great fun to finally put a face and body to the people we read regularly, Kopple also takes us from the current Texas drought to the earlier one we called The Dust Bowl, from Joe McCarthy to Scott Walker, from The Depression to the Occupy Movement, which is covered by Mr. Kim ("It's not the DNC, where it's all 'scripted'," he says.)

We hear from folk like Rachel Maddow who explains why The Nation is so important, and we learn a few things about how -- in this time of declining readership and print newspaper and magazine closings -- this particular example of journalism is managing to hold on. Reaching a new and younger audience is key, and the magazine is, like so many others, still trying to figure that out.

The movie, despite its political nature, is buoyant and engrossing as it pops all over the map -- off to Haiti three years after that major earthquake hit (above), and fighting against Republican cutbacks in North Carolina (below), where, in the film's most moving and emotional scene, one young woman explains how the people who "have" are working with and for the people who "have not," the wealthier supporting the less so.

We end by taking one of those semi-famous Nation ocean cruises, which look like fun (and are maybe consciousness-raising, too). I'd certainly go on one myself -- if I could afford it. Meanwhile, this fine little documentary hit the street on DVD a week or so back via First Run Features and is available now for purchase and, I hope, rental. (You can save it now to your Netflix queue, though why the company does not actually have it yet is anyone's guess....)