Mick Jackson and David Hare's DENIAL proves a crackerjack courtroom thriller, British style

Courtroom drama -- from Witness for the Prosecution and Twelve Angry Men onward (and probably backward, too) -- so often deal with murder and retribution that when one such as DENIAL turns out to be all about a libel suit, the excitement level may appear to be rather low. Of course, if you count the approximately six million murdered during the Holocaust -- an event which the movie's antagonist (played with relish-y perfection by Timothy Spall, shown at left on poster, right, and two photos below) insists never happened, then that level gets a good goosing upwards.

When that movie also happens to have been written extremely well by David Hare and directed most efficiently by Mick Jackson (shown at left), the results are riveting. Mr Hare, one of Britain's finer living screenwriters and playwrights, has based his screenplay on an actual case tried in the British courts and brought by would-be historian David Irving against American historian, author and teacher Deborah Lipstadt, who in one of her books called Irving (among other things) a "Holocaust denier." He is all that and more (much less, actually).

Because Mr. Irving brought his suit against Ms Lipstadt and her British publisher in London, it must be tried according to British law, so for relatively sophisticated American audiences, at least, this will give the movie added interest and surprise. What is and is not allowed, and what this means to the defense and prosecution, make the film consistently interesting, and Mr. Hare has provided just enough of the personal and the detailed to keep us caring about all the protagonists without ever descending into the crass or melodramatic.

Playing Ms Lipstadt is that fine actress Rachel Weisz (above), who brings out her character's strength, sass and intelligence supremely well. Weisz makes us understand and appreciate Lipstadt's refusal to ever engage in debate with any Holocaust denier. Really: Would we also waste time debating with someone who insisted the earth is flat? She will however call these people out on their poorly perceived "facts."

Her two British attorney's -- one who does the behind-the-scenes work, played with stern but amused rigor by the increasingly versatile Andrew Scott (below and to the left of Ms Weisz); the other, who appears in court to do the fancy footwork necessary but also does his homework regarding background, played with great depth by the grand and capacious actor Tom Wilkinson (above) -- work hard to keep Lipstadt in check.

She wants to testify, and she wants Holocaust victims to testify, too (as do they themselves). As do we, initially, but one of the movie's strengths is how well it finally convinces us that this would not only be unnecessary but damaging to this particular case.

If you followed Lipstadt's career (that's she, below, with Ms Weisz) and/or the somewhat famous trial, you'll know the outcome here. Even so, the film succeeds, scene by scene, in keeping us glued. It also calls attention to the ever increasing times that our world is confronted with Holocaust deniers. In the words of a certain famous bread commercial, "You don't have to be Jewish..." to find this denial offensive, stupid and utterly reprehensible. As the Holocaust recedes in history and memory, we'll need consistent reminding to keep much of the world -- from Islamic states to the Neo-Nazis -- from either deliberately "forgetting" or twisting history to its own ends. Movies like this one provide that reminder, and they do it damned well.

From Bleecker Street and running 110 minutes, Denial -- after opening earlier in New York and Los Angeles, hits theaters in South Florida tomorrow, Friday, October 14. Here in Boca Raton, it plays the Regal Shadowood 16 and the Cinemark Palace 20.  Next Friday, the film expands to many more cities across the country. Click here then scroll down to find the theater and playdate nearest you.

Don't-Miss DVD & Blu-ray: Italian master Paolo Sorrentino THIS MUST BE THE PLACE

A movie that came and went with amazing speed and near-silence, THIS MUST BE THE PLACE -- from that Italian master of cinema, Paolo Sorrentino, who has given us Il Divo, The Consequences of Love and The Family Friend -- is another strange, beautiful and not-so-easily categorized movie that lingers long after its credits have rolled. Giving Sean Penn what may be his best role ever (one in which he holds back quite beautifully, rather than letting loose and boring us all too soon), the movie also gets terrific performances from its entire ensemble.

Signore Sorrentino, shown at right, is a marvelous stylist. All four of his films that I've seen are extraor-dinarily beautiful to view, each in its own manner. Each also stars a fine actor playing the role of an odd, obsessed and solitary man, successful in his own world and at his own game but not so much anywhere or with anyone else. Mr. Penn. below, has a quiet field day here; he seems a to be channeling simultaneously some strange combination of the most subdued modes of both Gene Simmons and Quentin Crisp, and he is utterly remarkable at it. This is an extraordinarily brave performance on Penn's part because, once we get quickly past his bizarre appearance, he remains so quiet and subdued that we begin hanging on his every word and tiny movement. The reward: seeing an actor of great intelligence and fierce focus giving his all to a most bizarre role.

Penn, above, plays Cheyenne, an ex-rocker who has withdrawn to his estate in Ireland where he lives with his loved and loving companion (the always fine Frances McDormand, in the penultimate photo, below) and maybe a daughter (a oddly lovely Eve Hewson, below), never plays music, and seems to concentrate only on making money via the market.

When his father suddenly dies back in the USA, Cheyenne learns that the old man was a Holocaust survivor who had been a victim of a Nazi guard, whom Cheyenne then takes upon himself to find -- and kill. Along the way he hooks up with everyone from the war criminal's relatives (among these, a granddaughter played by Kerry Condon (below), to a big-time Nazi hunter (Judd Hirsch).

This sounds a bit crazy and it plays even more so. Yet it also plays perfectly into Cheyenne's character and Penn's performance -- he is both funny and endearing: two qualities I've rarely encountered in this actor since Fast Times at Ridgemont High -- as well as into all the other characters our hero meets along this odd road-trip.

Now, about the extraordinary beauty of this film: From the opening credits -- in a lovely script and dayglo chartreuse -- to the composition and gorgeous colors strewn about the filmmaker's canvas, this is an experience not to be missed. (If you can at all view this film on a Blu-ray disc, do.) Yes, that's David Byrne, below in white, playing himself and contributing some wonderful music to the movie's soundtrack.

Much has been made of Michelangelo Antonioni and his creative "color" work on Red Desert, but I must say that this film has, for me, sets the new standard of what creative use of color can bring to a motion picture.

The film has lessons to impart, I think, but it teaches with a tender, sometimes ironic hand. And the change that occurs, while it takes on quite a physical presence in Mr. Penn, has an after-life that may have you thinking about the film at odd times, once your first viewing has ended.

This Must Be the Place, from The Weinstein Company via Anchor Bay Entertainment, is now available on DVD and Blu-ray, for sale and/or rental, and other currently favored forms of viewing (VOD, streaming).  Take a chance, film buffs, and discover the wonders of Paolo Sorrentino -- if you haven't already.

Agnieszka Holland's IN DARKNESS, Best Foreign-Language Film nominee, opens

There is a scene at the beginning of award-winning filmmaker Agnieszka Holland's new yet-another-look-at-the-Holocaust movie, IN DARKNESS, that has already stamped itself on my permanent memory: A group of women run naked in slow-motion through what seems like an open space in the middle of a forest. The time must be early morning, as the barely-daylight colors are muted blues and grays against  the dark green of the trees and the lighter green of the grass beneath them. Their pale white bodies are impressively voluptuous -- large hips and full breasts -- but we can't enjoy this because, from what we can see of their facial expressions, they are in terror. Then we see the German Nazis, guns at the ready, chasing them. We don't witness the massacre; we hear it, and then see the women's sprawled bodies on the grass. As I say: etched in memory for all time. This single scene, in its weird combination of beauty and horror -- Picnic on the Grass meets The Scream -- is all we need to place the film firmly in the realm of memorable Holocaust movies.

With this scene, Ms Holland (shown at right, and who has given us her share of fine films over the years) nails the awful "special-ness" of the Holocaust -- the horror, humanity and inhumanity all rolled into one -- so that we don't need our noses rubbed much further in atrocity. Not that this movie is any kind of lark. No, it tells a narrative tale based on a true event, of a Polish man who helped a small group of Jews survive the death of almost all their friends and families by hiding them in the sewers under the city of Lvov, where he worked in sewer maintenance.

This man, Leopold Socha, memorably played with a fine combination of Christian entitlement and greedy sleaze by Robert Wieckiewicz (above), only very slowly warms up to his hostages, who've agreed to pay him all they have. One of  the movie's arcs is that of a man changing enough to discover his humanity via that of the "other." His sweet, sometimes sassy wife seems more understanding than he early on, as she reminds him, to his surprise, that Jesus was a Jew. But even she, very well-played by Kinga Preis (below), has terrible misgivings when she learns what he is doing.

The movie's other arc belongs to those Jews, hidden in the dank, sloppy grime of the sewers, having to give up everything to hold on to what's left of life. In one devastating scene, a wife must watch and hear as her husband makes love to his mistress just inches away from where she and their daughter are/were sleeping. Just as Leopold becomes more human, these people seem in danger of completely losing their humanity. So much happens to these "refugees," in fact, that much of it would seem unbelievable had not Ms Holland and her fine cast (including Benno Fürmann and Maria Schrader) made it so immediate and involving.

Upstairs, meanwhile, Leopold, his wife and daughter entertain an old pal (who is now one of the prime Nazi helpers) as he orders a sewer search to find any remaining Jews. Other incidents pile up -- the most suspenseful of which involves that Nazi symp, Leopold and his too-talkative daughter -- making us tremble and fear that we can stand no more (this is the feeling that all genuine Holocaust movies ought to provoke).

If you know history, you'll know the outcome -- but not the specifics that Holland and her writer David F. Shamoon (from the book by Robert Marshall) have provided. These glue us to the screen so that when at last that literal light at the end of the tunnel appears, you'll know you've lived through something. What happens, who survives and who does not provides both the suspense and excitement of films like The Poseidon Adventure but also some important history and food for thought.

While I can sympathize with the belief of A.O.Scott in his NY Times review that the fact that the film "is touching, warm and dramatically satisfying" is -- given the subject matter -- exactly its problem. But no: In Darkness is much more than touching, warm and dramatically satisfying. It is also dark, ugly, horrifying and not always predictable. If it makes a couple of slightly more melodramatic choices than it might have, given all it does right, this is forgivable.

The friend who saw the screening with me found the movie well-done but said that he was tired of seeing countries such as Poland, from where the film comes, trying to co-opt the Holocaust. I understand what he means, but since Leopold Socha existed and did pretty much what the movie has him doing, we have to give that country credit for producing at least a few "heroes." Plus, what we learn from the end credits reduces some of Poland's good marks in the hero department.

Will In Darkness win Best Foreign-Language Film? Possibly. A Separation is more unusual and nuanced -- plus it's from Iran, so it would seem particularly gracious of the American Academy to bestow such an honor on that country at this particular time. We'll see. Meanwhile, view the movie and judge for yourself. After its one-week qualifying run in both cities toward the end of last year, the film opens, via Sony Pictures Classics, this Friday, February 10, in New York (at the Angelika Film Center and the Lincoln Plaza Cinema) and in Los Angeles on February 17 at Laemmle's Monica 4-Plex, Town Center 5 and Playhouse 7.

The 19th NYJFF opens at the Walter Reade with Ludi Boekens' SAVIORS IN THE NIGHT

Nineteen years already? Amazing. That's how long the increasingly popular New York Jewish Film Festival has been entertaining/
awakening us. This year's program, opening tomorrow at the Film Society of Lincoln Center's Walter Reade Theater, offers a total of 32 features and shorts from 13 countries. Among its delights are two films I have seen, along with many that I haven't, so I'll tell you now about the opening night attraction, making its debut tomorrow, Wednesday, January 13 -- for two showings only: 1 pm and 6:15.

SAVIORS IN THE NIGHT (Unter Bauern) tells the true (movie-style, anyway) tale of a German farm family in Westphalia who, as much by happenstance as anything else, takes in a Jewish family (mother and daughter) and helps place the father on a nearby farm, risking its own demise in the process. We've seen this sort of thing before, most importantly in the amazing documentary Hiding and Seeking, but here, in a narrative form, we're allowed to discover all that a group of good writers (basing their work on the book by one of the actual participants, Marga Spiegel) and director Ludi Boeken
can build from reality.

"I served in WWI and was awarded Germany's Iron Cross for bravery," the narrator tells us at the outset.  "25 years later my country wanted to kill me." From there we're pushed quickly into hiding along with the family of three.  We meet their "saviors," some of whom (the farmer's wife, above) would rather not be, and then we watch them come 'round, however haltingly, to doing the right thing.  It's not easy, as this area of Westphalia is Nazi-ridden, with families asked to spy on themselves and others.  Oh, yes: and the daughter of the savior family, shown below, has a crush on the town's Nazi-youth leader.

Along the way we discover the perils of saving one's Jewish star, rather than destroying it, and other fine points of living-in-hiding under false identity.  While there are scenes of ratcheted-up sus-
pense, as must happen, it seems, in these Holocaust narrative films, the moments you are more likely to remember come by sur-
prise: the recognition by one of the women in a neighboring town, of our heroine, followed by the even greater shock of realizing what is going on -- and of what one's untimely recognition might do.

The acting is uniformly good, with the major plaudits going to those in the major roles.  Shown at right is the very beautiful Veronica Ferres, who plays the "saved" mother, Marga Spiegel.  (The old woman seated next to her, whom we see during the end credits of the film, is the real Marga Spielgel.) Martin Horn is excellent as the farmer dad who sets the saving in motion, and he is more than well-supported by Lia Hoensbroech, who plays his daughter, and Margarita Broich, as his wife.

As I say: two performances only, and -- though the film would seem to be a good candidate for art-house commercial release -- you can't count on any U.S. distribution.  Go, if you can.  I'll have more to come on this festival in the days that follow...