Eugène Green's LA SAPIENZA proves a precise and thoughtful ode to the meaning of wisdom

Normally I publish my reviews in advance of those in our daily newspapers, but occasionally, as now, I forget to schedule the posting of a film seen a few weeks earlier, and so I am late in covering LA SAPIENZA, the new film (and the first of his I've seen) by New York-born writer/ director Eugène Green. Consequently I can suggest that you also read the very fine review of this movie by A.O.Scott in The New York Times, which should indicate pretty quickly if this is the sort of movie that appeals.

Precise is the first word that came to mind as I viewed this quietly beautiful, visually and verbally unusual movie by Mr. Green, who is shown at left. The filmmaker's precision in all he touches is extraor-dinary. Everything from compositions to dialog is choreographed in a most exact manner. Initially, this may seem off-putting. Yet so beautiful is what Green shows us, so precise is the dialog that comes from the mouths of all his characters that this produces a kind of pleasantly hypnotic effect -- and not one that puts you to sleep. Rather it quiets you and allows you to watch and listen to your fullest.

This "style," which is, if not totally different from almost any other film-maker I can recall, is at least pushed farther than most would dare to take it. In La Sapienza -- which translates into English as sapience (and I had to look up the meaning of this word to be certain) or wisdom/sagacity -- an architect (Fabrizio Rongione, above, right), who has refused all offers of working as a teacher and who is clearly estranged on certain levels from his wife (Christelle Prot Landman, above, left), a sociologist and perhaps a budding psychologist, too, has a kind of epiphany over the course of the film. The film, in fact, constitutes that epiphany.

The couple, mostly at his bidding, decides to travel to Italy so that he can complete a project he began years earlier on Italian architect Francesco Borromini. While there, the pair meets a younger couple, siblings played by newcomer Ludovico Succio (above, left) and Arianna Nastro (above, right, of The Solitude of Prime Numbers, click and scroll down), he about to study architecture and she a lovely young lady with a fainting problem.

Immediately we're faced with the push and pull of age against youth, the interests of each, and the knowledge and experience necessary for one set to rise to the level of the other. (The movie bears an intriguing relationship to another that opens next week: While We're Young, about which I'll have more to say soon.) In any case, the male and females separate here, with the characters played by Succio and Rongione going off on a Borromini trek, while Ms Landman and Ms Nastro stay behind and have quite an interesting time on their own.

The two men visit various architecture and also spend some time with a "friend of a friend" who introduces them to a younger and different set of folk who then connect the two (and us) to "modern living." Those quotes are necessary, for Mr. Green's idea of modernity acts as a kind of theme of its own, giving the film a bit of a goosing (yes, they go to a "club" and dance) but also a bit of a baseball bat with which to beat some sense into us about how awful this modernity really is.

The problem here is that most people I know can and do appreciate both the beauty and quietude of great architecture, as well as being able to sit down at their computer or at their tablet or cell and connecting with life in ways that do not have to be in-person or one-on-one. Some have even been known to go clubbing, as well as to the Met (Museum and Opera). There is a bit too much insistence on either/or to make the movie completely convincing. (Mr. Scott's review is especially interesting in its look at the personality and desires of the filmmaker.)

That said, La Sapienza offers so much beauty and so many thoughtful ideas on architecture, light, spirituality, psychology and relationships that it is worth the time of intelligent audiences worldwide. Besides introducing us to two beautiful young performers who may have further careers, the film does some lovely stuff regarding the relationship between the two women -- one of whom discovers more about her maternal instinct, while the other begins to understand herself better and can thus exercise more control over her own life.

There's a lot to love about La Sapienza, once you give over to Green's unusually formal and precise style. Take a chance on this one, which opened theatrically here in New York City yesterday, March 20, at the Lincoln Plaza Cinema. From Kino Lorber and running 100 minutes, the currently scheduled playdates around the country can be accessed by clicking here and scrolling down.

2nd annual SR SOCIALLY RELEVANT FILM FEST opens -- showcasing timely, issue-oriented films

The 2nd edition of New York's SR SOCIALLY RELEVANT FILM FESTIVAL opens this Monday, March 16 and runs  through Sunday, March 22, 2015 at several venues, including the Tribeca Cinemas, Maysles Cinema, The Quad Cinema and SVA. Offering timely and socially engaging films, some of which will have their world and U.S. premieres here, the fest will also include various tributes and industry panels. Films from some 35 countries will be screened at this not-for-profit film festival showcasing socially relevant film content, while raising awareness of social problems and current issues.

The festival was inaugurated last year by Nora Armani, shown at left, actor/filmmaker/Founding Artistic Director of SR, who created the festival in response to the proliferation of violence and violent forms of storytelling. Notes Ms Armani, “I strongly believe that the violence portrayed on our screens and in video games is responsible for the banalization of evil in our societies and the proliferation of violent forms of communication. Most films today encourage mis-representation, reinforce stereotypes and create an escapist passive attitude in youth and adults towards major social issues. In reverse, simply by focusing more on socially relevant themes, positive social change can be promoted through the powerful medium of cinema.”

This year’s lineup includes films that address a wide range of issues including gun control and police brutality, race relations and discrimination, violence against women and women's empower-ment,  LGBT rights, conflict in the mideast, the environment and climate change, the US economy and the oil rush, immigration and exile. The festival opens with the US premiere of the new Turkish/ German/French co-production COME TO MY VOICE (Were Dengê Min) by Hϋseyin Karabey, shown above, which will screen at CUNY Graduate Center, Proshansky Auditorium on March 16th, and is by invitation through the Festival. The film premiered at the Berlinale in 2014 and is sponsored by the German Consulate General in New York in partnership with SR Film Fest and MEMEAC (Middle East Middle East America Center) at CUNY Graduate Center.

Industry Panels will be held at the School of Visual Arts MFA SocDoc (136 W 21st Street, in Chelsea) and will address such issues as film distribution, storytelling and diversity casting. The Festival’s other sponsors and partners include Unifrance, The French Embassy Cultural Services, Cinema Libre Studio, MFA SocDoc School of Visual Arts, The Left Tilt Fund, Alouette Communications, IndiePix, Film Freeway, Final Draft, InkTip, The Candy Factory, Copenhagen Restaurant, Dailymotion, French Morning, Go Magazine, and a number of Industry and Media partners and supporters (see the festival's website for the full listing).

Screenings will take place at Tribeca Cinemas, 54 Varick Street, NYC; Maysles Cinema, 343 Malcolm X Blvd / Lenox Ave (Between 127th and 128th Streets); The Center for Remembering & Sharing (CRS), 123 4th Avenue near Union Square; and the Quad Cinema on 13th Street between 5th and 6th Avenues. To see the entire slate of films and/or to purchase tickets for this years' roster, simply click here.

Add to your must-see list Giuseppe Tornatore's gorgeous tale of obsessive love THE BEST OFFER

Have movies given us a more splendid story-teller than Giuseppe Tornatore? I don't think so. From Cinema Paradiso through The Legend of 1900, Malèna, The Unknown Woman and Baarìa, film after film is packed with everything I love about movies -- being able to lose myself in a story at once strange, wonderful and absolutely riveting and so gorgeously designed and photographed that each becomes an instant classic. Now we have THE BEST OFFER, yet another amazement from this beauty-besotted, quality-over-quantity artist.

Signore Tornatore, shown at left, has brought together a swell international cast for this English-language movie, each member working at top form and joining to make a near-perfect ensemble quartet. The milieu is the international art world, specifically the auction house owned by Virgil Oldman (a terrific Geoffrey Rush, below, center), a man who seems as remote from actual life and emotion as might be possible. Possessing an eye for art that is pretty extraordinary, Oldman has managed to run, over the years, a fine little scam, with the help of his friend Billy (Donald Sutherland), in which Billy helps sell paintings not worth all that much for higher prices, while allowing Oldman to acquire others that are likely to grow exponentially in value. Considered to be the expert in art evaluation, as well as the top auctioneer, Oldman is riding high.

Then he is asked to evaluate and handle the auctioning of the estate owned by an ultra-reclusive heiress, and bit by bit his life changes and expands -- as does that of the heiress.

In to this mix comes Robert, a young man whom Oldman often uses to repair watches and other mechanical items from the estates he handles. Robert is played by Jim Sturgess (above) in his most boyish, charming and winning mode. And if you know Sturgess' work, this is very winning.

The heiress, whom we do not see for some time, is played by Dutch actress Sylvia Hoeks, above, chosen no doubt for her beauty and exotic quality as much as for her acting skills. She delivers on all three fronts.

What Tornatore has given us is a mystery as much as anything else. But it is also very much a love story, and an obsessive one, at that. Oldman will do things and go places utterly new to his world, and we follow, entranced by the beauty and strangeness of it all. Performances could hardly be better, particularly those of Rush and Sturgess, and the visual delights here are simply non-stop. I hope I live long enough to see more of this filmmaker's wonderful work, and that he keeps at it long after I'm gone.

The Best Offer, via IFC Films and running not a minute too long at 128 of them, is available now on DVD (if any movie deserves the Blu-ray treat-ment, it's this one) but, oddly, not available via digital rental. Netflix really ought to have this one on streaming. It has garnered an IMDB rating of 7.8 from over 51,000 viewers -- which is nothing to sneeze at, movie fans.

AGNES VARDA: FROM HERE TO THERE screens free tomorrow at the FSLC and plays the SundanceNOW DOC Club in June

What is it that makes little Agnès Varda (below) such a nonstop delight? This whirlwind of energy and ideas and connections -- filmmaker, documentarian, artist, raconteur and widow of another fine filmmaker, Jacques Demy -- has a (relatively) new series of documentaries, made for and shown on French television back in 2011, and titled AGNES VARDA: From Here to There (Agnès Varda: de ci de là).

This utterly charming, nonstop fascinating series of five separate episodes, each running 45 minutes, will make its New York City debut tomorrow (Saturday. May 31) at and courtesy of the Film Society of Lincoln Center at 6pm in the Film Center Amphitheater, where it will screen free of charge. Tickets will be distributed one hour prior to performance time at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, only one ticket per person, and you can expect a line to form somewhat early. (If you miss its FSLC screening or live elsewhere around our huge country, the series will begin showing on the SundanceNOW DOC Club in June -- the best reason I can imagine to join this excellent documentary content provider.)

TrustMovies expected to watch only a couple of the five episodes before covering the series, but no --  that was not to be. Each segment is so accomplished and riveting in its quiet and unshowy manner, as it brings you up-close-and-personal to various artists, filmmakers and friends of Ms Varda that I couldn't wait to get to the next episode. In fact, I decided that there could not be a better way to start my day with with this series, so I watched one every day earlier this week with my morning coffee and oats. Each 45 minutes held me rapt and left me feeling terrific -- eager to begin my day. How much more can you ask of a documentary?

Varda's secret, I am guessing, is simply a matter of taste -- her own good taste and willingness to look at and be challenged by most anything/everything she views. The connections she makes are significant, and though I was unaware of most of the artists she covers, their work proved so interesting that there was not one I wasn't pleased to have brought to my attention.

In episode one, she tackles Chris Marker, and, as usual, anyone who tried this, vis-a-vis the late filmmaker, comes a cropper. As much as I love Marker's work, the man himself was so bent on keeping as much of himself and his own personality out of view that Agnès can only play around a bit to little avail (she does some cute things with Marker's cats) and then we move on.

Soon we're in Nantes with Anouk Aimée and Michel Piccoli for a celebration of M. Demy. Then we meet many more artists even more interesting than the mysterious Mr. Marker, though their work may be less so. We see collage, installations, singers, painters.  "I wonder what happened before that?" Varda remarks of a photo (above) we're just then viewing. And then she shows us an entire "before" video of these same people. She's such a little devil!

Manoel de Oliveira, whose Gebo and the Shadow only just opened here, turns up in this episode, too, telling us that "Reality is a dramatization organized by society." Interesting. He also notes that "Solitude is something I have no experience with," and then does a fine Charlie Chaplin impersonation and some splendid fencing (below), using his cane. What a guy! (What an 102-year-old guy! At the time, actually: he's now 105.)

Episode two takes us to Brazil, Brussles, Stockholm and Venice. In a Brazilian gift shop, Varda notes all the work on display and remarks, "You get a lot of hope for five Euros." We see again some of her marvelous work from The Beaches of Agnes. And then it's off to Brussles for a Magritte celebration! A highlight here is the woman journalist who comes to interview Varda. She is bald. Of course Agnès wants to know more about this, and so turns the tables and interviews her.

Episode three takes us to Basel, Cologne and St. Petersburg, where we see an igloo made of huge stones and then cathedral made of dried but quite edible pasta. Agnes eats it, with a bit of grated German cheese. There are potato images galore (above and below: that's Varda in a potato suit with the late Jonas Mekas). If she occasionally tells us things we either already know or could easily figure out (looking out at a city, she says, "Hundreds of thousands of people I don't know, and they all have their lives." Well, yes.), more often she'll come up with something swift, smart and fun.

Artist Christian Boltanski notes that "We all have our own dead child still inside us" (his morphing self-portrait goes from adult back to child). His wife, Annette Messager, is also an artist, whose work is perhaps even more interesting than that of her spouse. The two discuss their living situation in a sensible, thoughtful way, coming to terms with why we love who (or what) we do.

Episode Four takes us to Lyon for a 2009 art event. We begin with the Chinese and move on to Mr. Button, (Varda, above, has given that name to this artist she love). Then Varda returns to La Pointe Courte (the eponymous site of her first full-length film) and meets some of the men who played extras in that film, now fifty years later! We meet Jean-Louis Trintignant (below) and hear that famous actor read poetry and then speak quietly with Varda. We learn about fishing, too, and some odd facts: "Did you know that 90% of all fish are caught dead?"

The final episode takes us to Mexico, where the huge difference between the classes registers strongly. To Varda's credit, she bites the hand that feeds her (literally) by contrasting the enormous breakfast spread of food she is offered with the beggars and street vendors outside the four-star hotel where she is being housed by the film society that invited her there. The art we see is wondrous, however, and we also get a very interesting interview with Carlos Reygadas and a visit to Frida Kahlo's home.

The above are my highlights; you'll have your own. If you're already a Varda fan, you'll do whatever it takes to see this series. If you're new to the woman, this series -- from The Cinema Guild and running a total of three hours and 45 minutes -- is a fine place to make her acquaintance.

Philipp Stölzl's ERASED gives its cast--and its audience -- a speedy, thrilling workout

If you're looking for a nifty suspense thriller with a intelligently convoluted premise and some great action/fight set pieces, you could do a lot worse than ERASED, the new film from Philipp Stölz (shown below, the Bavarian filmmaker who earlier gave us the fine North Face and the just-OK Young Goethe in Love). An example of one of those internationally created, funded, cast and executed movies that actually works pretty well, Erased was filmed in and around mostly Belgium (with a little Montreal tossed in), using locations that are scenic and photogenic, as well as pleasantly different from the sort we most often get.

The film's original title was The Expatriate, which, once you know the story, proves a much better choice for both its meaning and irony. Undoubtedly the movie's marketing mavens decided that those extra couple of syllables in this fifty-cent word would prove too much for mass audiences to handle. So Erased it is, and erased (or nearly) are our hero and heroine. The former is played by the always reliable Aaron Eckhart (below), as, yes, an expatriate working in Belgium for a company that makes a very interesting product, about which a glitch has just been discovered.

Into Eckhart's care has come his somewhat estranged teen-age daughter, played with grace and grit by Liana Liberato (below, of Trust and Trespass). The movie begins with a gunshot and the trail of corpses the shooter has left in his wake. Something is stolen, then passed from hand to hand.

By the time, shortly thereafter, that father and daughter are running for their lives (below), the audience is piecing together plot strands like crazy, trying to figure out, as is the Eckhart character, what is going on and why.

Into the mix comes the lately-often-seen Olga Kurylenko (below, of Oblivion, To the Wonder, Seven Psychopaths) as a suspect ex-compatriot of Eckhart, and Garrick Hagon (further below, with Eckhart), as a naughty corporate head.

As the body count increases -- it's huge, for the bad guys are relentless and remorseless -- betrayals both planned and accidental occur, while father and daughter alternately spar and join forces to stay alive.

If the finale proves somewhat less exciting and worthwhile than what has come before, this is unfortunately par for the course of most of these international thrillers. On the plus side, I would say that Erased builds up enough good will and excitement during its first hour or so that you won't mind tagging along for the duration.

The movie -- from Radius-TWC and running 104 minutes -- is currently playing the L.A. area at Laemmle's Town Center 5 and will open this Friday, May 17, in Manhattan at the Village East Cinema and perhaps elsewhere. But, as it's been playing VOD since the beginning of April, you'll be able to gain access to it fairly easily.

Raoul Ruiz's NIGHT ACROSS THE STREET: the loveliest good-bye in the history of film?

To answer the question in the headline, if this is not the loveliest, most playful, profound and artful of good-byes, then it is certainly up there will the best of them. Having just removed the screener from my Blu-ray player and still a bit high from this filmmaker's quiet visual pyrotechnics and verbal poetry, coupled to the idea that we will have no more from the man -- born Raúl Ernesto Ruiz Pino and later known as the filmmaker Raoul Ruiz and even later as Raúl Ruiz -- who died a year and one-half ago, I probably should wait a bit before trying to write about this particular confluence of art and leave-taking, for fear that sentimentality will prove too strong a force. But as the film opens today, and I have promised to cover it, let's just... wing it.

NIGHT ACROSS THE STREET (an intriguing title that I cannot begin to explain: how is this different from night next door?) offers many of the same themes and styles that always seem to have attracted Señor Ruiz, among them exile and identity, present and past, young and old, life and death, the corporeal and the ghostly, the experimental and the surreal, and theory brought to odd life -- regarding film and just about everything else. Born and raised in Chile, Ruiz worked as a filmmaker until the U.S.-aided Pinochet coup, when he escaped to France, where he lived and continued to work over the decades. As I understand it, toward the end of his life, he returned to Chile to make this final film (plus a few others as yet unseen by us hoi polloi). I've only viewed maybe a dozen of his enormous output of 117 (both shorts and full-lengths), but it does seem to me that this "Night" is not only his best but in many ways the apotheosis of his oeuvre.

For one thing it is infinitely playful. Did this filmmaker's touch continue to lighten even as he grew older? It would seem so, as both this film and his penultimate work, Mysteries of Lisbon, are among his most playful without being quite so insistently confusing as some of his earlier films. (Or maybe I've just grown up enough to better appreciate him.)

Ruiz's last film begins with some aerial shots across landscapes and then seascapes. Then we're in a classroom (above) in which a professor attempts to teach his class of students -- young, older and very old -- how to see and hear with their eyes shut. Instead of beginning with something remotely normal and then morphing into the surreal and bizarre, we seem to be there already -- but in a more playful fashion than usual.

We meet our hero, Celso as both a boy and old man, and in bits and pieces come to learn something about his/their life and interests. We meet Beethoven, the real deal (see photo at bottom), or at least as Ruiz conceives him, and we even make a trip to the cinema with him (the composer is amazed, as indeed he should be). Time jumps all over the place, and so does the "reality" of some of the sets. Clearly, we're seeing our characters at times against obviously superimposed backdrops, and with some things simply drawn in (note the curtain on the window, above).

All this is just "there," for us to note or not. There is a wonderfully confused political discussion at a soccer game (above)  which to my mind reflects the politics of Chile, even today. And we're soon made aware of an assassination plot against our poor Celso, who is about to retire from his office job, where his seemingly oncoming dementia is worsening.  Or maybe he's simply preoccupied. (When we find out just who the assassin is, it's mind-bending.)

There's a large cast here, and most of them manage to remain light and nimble against what I can only describe as great odds of having to (and perhaps not able to) know what the hell is really going on. But they're game, and somehow, even if they don't quite understand, I think we finally can and do. This is Celso's life, in its specifics -- adventure in its literary form, with pirates (below, in background) and poetry jousting for pride of place -- but it is also, somehow, all of our lives. In contemplating his own mortality, Ruiz is showing us ours.

Just what are the facts of Don Celso's life? There don't seem to be many than are definitive or that we can hang on to. Yet history -- or maybe it's simply imagination -- appears to be repeating itself, but in a different mode. In the Ruiz world, a super-violent crime comes across as something almost wistful, a hint of the past wafting through the window like an aromatic little breeze. Well, anyway, no such thing happened, our hero assures us.

By the by, it is suggested that we're afraid of both staying and of leaving. Well, when leaving means something rather permanent, as here, of course we are. But that's humanity for you. Toward the end we learn how a camera is like the inside of a gun barrel (above) -- and this is one of the most wonderful visual effects I've yet seen. As is the symbolic meeting of the young and old Celso, below, which is simple and so very effective.

The movie can only make you think: My god, what a life this fellow Ruiz really had -- if only in his imagination. Night Across the Street never loses its unique playfulness, no matter how weighty the themes that are tackled. I don't see how the filmmaker could have gifted us with a more teasingly profound yet graceful good-bye.

Ruiz's movie, via The Cinema Guild, opens today, Friday, February 8, in New York City at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center. I don't see any other upcoming playdates, but surely some new ones will appear soon.

Photos are from the film itself, except for that of Señor Ruiz, 

which comes courtesy of Getty Images.