DVDebut for Valerio Miele's his/hers fantasy/memory tale, RICORDI?

RICORDI? translates from the Italian to the English question Remember?, which seems a most appropriate title for this 2018 film about memory, desire, fantasy and lost love. Early on, one character proclaims: "Memories lie -- making things that were bad seem good. Otherwise life would be unbearable."

Fair enough. And that seems to be the point (one of  them, anyway) that the writer/director of this film -- Valerio Miele (shown below), whose terrific Ten Winters  was shown at the FSLC's Open Roads festival of new Italian films some years back -- is making here.

From the moment that Miele's two leading characters, known only as He and She, first meet (below), we experience their view/memory of both the setting and the mood of this meeting, and their recall of these two things could hardly be more different.

She sees it all as a happy, lovely, brightly colored meeting, whereas he experiences the whole thing as something darker -- exciting maybe, as he's clearly quite attracted to her -- but as an event more than little tinged with the glum.

And is there any other actor who plays glum better than Luca Marinelli (above, left, and below)? I doubt it. This actor has one of those unusual hangdog handsome/ugly faces over which the camera consistently creams. Marinelli can play tragic (The Solitude of Prime Numbers), comic (Let Yourself Go) and just about everything in between.

His co-star, the lithe and lovely Linda Caridi (below and at right, two photos up), has a happier job of playing, for awhile at least, the more positive, glass-nearly-full member of the duo. He likes and encourages this, if only to balance out his own negativity, and so their relationship blossoms and even appears to grow.

But memory, though encouraged, also intrudes, and we learn that her life has been anything but idyllic, even though she would rather recall it that way, while his, if not nearly as awful as we'd imagine, has had plenty of low points -- mostly due to his own behavior. Late in the film, he observes, "It's not our fault. It started ending when it began." Well, yes, but doesn't everything, including life itself?

Memories, it turns out, are not quite the same thing as character, and finally, that is what's most missing from Ricordi? He and She prove to be a little too generic to pass muster. They're not one-note, exactly. But they are barely more than two: They're up or they're down.

The memories we see here don't finally coalesce into full or interesting human beings. What saves the film, however, are its often gorgeous visuals. The locations are memorable -- from the seaside (above) and an underwater swim (below)

to the sunlit woods (below) and the several fascinatingly appointed apartments, homes and general architecture seen throughout the film. Finally, it's these visuals, rather than the people, that carry us along.

Giovanni Anzaldo, below, does a nice job playing -- depending on whose viewpoint -- the third wheel, best friend or other man in our duo's relationship. Still, as artfully constructed as is Ricordi?, real, fully-rounded people are what's missing from this otherwise interesting, often beautiful, but incomplete movie.

From Distrib Films US and released here via Icarus Home Video, the film hits the street on DVD this coming Tuesday, April 14 -- for purchase and/or (eventually) rental.

A joyous, moving, surprising gift, Pablo Solarz's THE LAST SUIT enchants and delights

There's no way to know, I think, as THE LAST SUIT (El último traje) begins, and an old and infirm grandfather gets into a very funny and bizarre conversation with his favorite grand-daughter, just where in hell this movie could possibly be heading. Before long it turns into a road trip, peopled with a host of wonderful characters brought to life by a splendid cast. At heart, though, it is a family saga/memory piece, by the finale of which, you may find yourself, as did I, in a puddle of quiet tears that have been absolutely earned by every moment that has come before.

Made by Pablo Solarz (shown at left), the movie boasts a filmmaker who has had quite an interesting history so far --  from the lovely little surprise, Intimate Stories (which he wrote), to A Husband for My Wife, a script that has been made into a film three times already, in three different languages: Spanish, Italian and Korean.

With The Last Suit, which works beautifully in every one of its many aspects, and which Solarz both wrote and directed, I suspect that this relatively young filmmaker may have a hard time topping himself. If he does, TrustMovies dearly hopes he will still be around to see the result.

What makes this movie work so well is how filled it is with empathy and compassion. This is neither overdone nor all that apparent for awhile, however, because its main character, Abraham Bursztein, played by that crack Argentine actor Miguel Ángel Solá, above and below, who is so damned perfect in the role of the nasty-but-needy grandpa that, were this an American movie, he'd be an immediate shoo-in for an Oscar nomination (and probably the award itself).

If Solá alone were all the film had to offer, it might be enough, so thoroughly has the actor nailed the infirmities and obscenities of old age, rolling them into a performance that -- via its combination of wit, humor and glum reality -- keeps you at bay even as it forces you to enter and finally empathize with the life of this man.

Fortunately, Abraham either meets or is surrounded by character after character who may initially seem gruff and unpleasant (and who would not be when confronted by a guy like this?) but who, once some understanding of the man and his need kicks in, warms up and comes to his aid. This would include the young fellow (Martín Piroyansky, at left, above) unlucky enough to be seated next to Abraham on a plane,

and the hôtelière (Ángela Molina, above, left) from whom he tries to con a "reduced rate" on his hotel room. What a pleasure it is to see one of Spain's great actresses on view here -- and singing, too! Best of all maybe are two characters our not-quite-hero meets along the way who come to his aid in ways both expected and quite not.

The lovely Julia Beerhold plays a German woman of the post-WWII generation who tries with all her might to both heal and make up for the sins of the past. (See the wonderful documentary Germans & Jews for a further and deeper exploration of this.) How Ms Beerhold's character honors Abraham's wishes proves memorable indeed. His last helper, a hospital nurse played beautifully by Olga Boladz, above, is the final enabler in bringing to a close Abraham's journey.

Along that journey, memory plays a major role, and Solarz's ability to infuse his images (as above) with the same beauty and compassion he feels for all his characters is rather extraordinary. Is The Last Suit sentimental? You bet. But the sentiment here is so earned and welcome, and the tale told so filled with humor, surprise and deep feeling that the result is a road trip very much worth taking, while Mr. Solá's performance is an absolute don't-miss.

From Outsider Pictures , in Spanish with English subtitles, and running a near-perfect 86 minutes, the movie opens this Friday, March 23, here in the South Florida area. In Miami, look for it at the AMC Aventura and Tower Theater; in Palm Beach County at the Living Room Theaters, Boca Raton; the Movies of Delray and Movies of Lake Worth; and Cobb Theaters' Downtown at the Gardens in Palm Beach Gardens. Will thisw onderful movie play elsewhere around the country. God, I hope so. I'll try to find information on or a link to further screenings, as this becomes available.

MEET WRITER/DIRECTOR PABLO SOLARZ AT THE BELOW EVENTS 

Wed. March 21, 7:00pm
Latin America, Jews and Historical Memory: A Panel Discussion 
The panel will look at the Jewish communities south of Miami, the differences among generations there, and the relationship between historical memory and constructing the future.
Panelists (in addition to writer/director of THE LAST SUIT Pablo Solarz) include: Valeria Cababié- Schindler, Adjunct Professor of Religious Studies at Florida International University and a native of Argentina; Silvio Frydman of the Greater Miami Jewish Federation, a photographer whose work has documented the March of the Living, and who was born and raised in Argentina; Miriam Klein Kassenoff, Director of Holocaust Teacher Institute, University of Miami, and Education Specialist, Miami-Dade County Public Schools;  Panel moderator is Jenni Person, Founder of the pioneering Jewish cultural organization Next@19th and Managing Producer of MDC Live Arts
 Location: MDC Live Arts Lab, 300 NE 2nd Avenue, on the ground floor of Miami Dade College Building 1, entrance at the NE 1st Avenue plaza. Parking is free in MDC Building 7 Parking Garage A at 500 NE 2nd Avenue, or for a fee in other adjacent parking garages and on the street
Thursday, March 22, 7:00pm Film Introduction and Post Screening Q&A  MDC’s Tower Theater, 1508 SW 8th St, Miami, FL 33135
Friday, March 23, 7:30pm Film Introduction and Post Screening Q&A Where: Movies of Delray, 7421 W Atlantic Ave, Delray Beach, FL 33446
Saturday, March 24, 12:30pm & 3:00pm shows Film Introduction and Post Screening Q&As  Movies of Delray, 7421 W Atlantic Ave, Delray Beach, FL 33446
Saturday, March 24, Evening shows Film Introduction and Post Screening Q&As  Living Room Theaters on FAU Campus, 777 Glades Rd, Boca Raton, FL 33431

FÉLICITÉ: Alain Gomis' DRC-set character/ culture/music study opens in theaters

You'll undoubtedly be taken -- and almost immediately -- with the face, body, and soon the voice of Véro Tshanda Beya, the woman who makes her acting debut in the title role of FÉLICITÉ, the new movie from French filmmaker Alain Gomis.

Ms Beya is, by any standard, quite a woman, and for awhile at least, she is enough to keep us on track in this combination character-and-culture study set in the city of Kinshasha in the Democratic Republic of Congo, aka the DRC or sometimes the DROC.

M. Gomis, shown at left (this is the first of his several films that TrustMovies has seen), strikes me as someone given to creating an impressionistic, rather than a solidly grounded, linear and easily-read creation. His movie begins at a Congolese indoor-outdoor night club at which our heroine is a singer.

Her face, so expressive that you want to read it like a map, sits atop a body seemingly made for amour. The snippets of dialog we hear from the crowd at the night club involve everything from sex to politics to the economics of everyday life.

The next morning, however, Félicité is seen haggling angrily and determinedly with a repairman regarding why her refrigerator -- only just repaired -- has ceased to work again. From every interaction in which our girl is involved, she comes across as proud, poised, fierce and independent.

Until that is, she is informed that her teenage son Samo -- a character (played by another newcomer, Gaetan Claudia, above) we did not until now even know existed -- has been in an accident and may die. Suddenly all has changed and Félicité spends most of the rest of the film racing around trying desperately to raise enough money to get Samo his necessary operation.

Health care in the DRC might make you grateful, momentarily at least, for our own here in the USA, and as we watch our heroine beg, bargain and get stolen from (she must bring in the police regarding the latter matter), you'll be put in touch with what, from all we view here, passes for Congolese bourgeois life and culture. The lengthy scene in which Félicité meets with someone whom I am guessing is the town's big-shot criminal is scary, degrading and quite powerful.

In between all this, Gomis inserts something like dream/fantasy/maybe memories sequences that finally grow repetitive and don't tell us much more than we already know. And then there are the music scenes, both in the club and with a group that seem to be either rehearsing and performing elsewhere. The press information on the film explains that the music acts as "a secondary script that transports us through Félicité's journey" -- a double journey, actually, "through the punishing outer world of the city and the inner world of the soul."

If only any of this seemed at all organic. Instead the movie clunks along from reality to memory to music and back again in an all-too-obvious and repetitive routine. Love enters the picture, too, as Félicité must finally give over some of that independence, even as young Samo seems to be finally coming around to health and maybe even a touch of happiness.

You may have more patience for this unusual film than did I. Its leading lady is certainly something, while the supporting performances seem believable, as well. I suspect that the main reason I could not warm up to this movie more easily is because the culture of the place simply seemed too foreign in too many ways. If there are actual rules in place here in the DCR -- economic, legal, social and more -- I couldn't begin to figure them out. 

From Strand Releasing and running too-long at 124 minutes, Félicité opens this Friday, October 27, in New York City at the Quad Cinema and in Atlanta at the High Museum of Art. On November 10 it opens in Los Angeles at Laemmle's Music Hall 3. To see all currently scheduled playdates, theaters and cities, click here, then click on SCREENINGS and scroll down. 

The Holocaust: a beautiful, contemplative view in Marina Willer's doc, RED TREES

Marina Willer, shown below, the director and co-writer of RED TREES, is a designer by trade, and this skill is on view almost constantly in her new documentary about her father, Alfred, and his boyhood in Czechoslovakia during World War II, which has been expanded from a shorter film Ms Willer made earlier. This Jewish family, we learn in the course of the movie, was one of only twelve in Prague that managed to survive Hitler's and his Nazi's onslaught that resulted in the Jewish Holocaust. Alfred's memories are given voice by the late Tim Piggot-Smith.

Willer's film is foremost a visual treat, with some ravishing scenes of everything from foliage to factories shown in stunning color and/or composition. The filmmaker, shown at left, has taken her title from her father's childhood experience in discovering that the was color blind: He drew his trees in red rather than green.

In addition to the great beauty of her film, Red Trees is distinguished by its contemplative view of Holocaust memory, as well as by its originality. I can think of few films on this subject that come at it from anything like this perspective. (The great narrative film, Fateless, has a contemplative quality, but its engine is powered much more strongly by drama, incident, anger and compassion than is the engine of this film.)

In fact, this contemplative quality -- together with writing that occasionally seems more than a bit obvious and the viewpoint of the narrator (above) that is never questioned though it elides much and leaves out ever more --  finally turns the film into something less incisive and compelling than it might have been. Marina explains that, for years, she had not known about any of her father's history because, as did so many Holocaust survivors, he preferred to hold so much of it inside.

We understand how and why Alfred's father was kept alive by the Nazi -- his skills in chemistry was of use to the Germans -- but not how Alfred himself managed to stay alive. Since literally everyone else Jewish who was connected to the pair -- friends, family, co-workers -- were murdered or committed suicide, Alfred was certainly one lucky young man. (Perhaps we missed some of the heavily-accented English dialog along the way.)

There are a number specific details I garnered from the film that I had not known previously. Among other restrictions, Jews were not allowed to drive, so that family had to rid itself of it automobile. All along the way, Alfred ticks off one after another victim of the Holocaust, without giving us much detail of anything or anyone. He has already told us several times, "You learn not to look." Then finally he adds, "but you never forget."

Interestingly, the movie itself does little except look -- at the great beauty and/or fascinating design it finds all around and even in memory. But it never really probes, leaving us with a narrator who may or may not be particularly reliable, though he is certainly interesting. Eventually, post-war, the family relocates to Brazil, a country the filmmaker extols for how diverse and welcoming it is. Diversity? Yes. Equality? Not so much.

From Cohen Media Group and running a relatively brief 82 minutes, Red Trees opens this Friday, September 15, in New York City (at the Lincoln Plaza Cinema and the Quad Cinema), in Los Angeles (at various Laemmle theaters) and elsewhere. To view all currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters, click here and then scroll down.

Time, memory, mortality, character converge in Michael Almereyda's MARJORIE PRIME

It's the future, right, so this must be sci-fi? Yes, but writer/director Michael Almereyda has more on his mind than space ships, aliens, replicants or time travel. His latest film (his last one, the personal-history/documentary, Escapes,  just opened a few weeks back), MARJORIE PRIME, is more concerned with the way we use the latest technology we're given, and then -- as in Spike Jonze's wonderful Her, and the British TV Black Mirror segment, Be Right Back -- goes just a few steps beyond where we currently find ourselves and into quite a new world. This world looks a lot like our own, yet allows us to do so much more -- the end results of which are both helpful and maybe not so. With new technology comes new challenge.

In my last review of Mr. Almeyerda's work, I noted how empathetic this director, pictured at right, so often is. Here, that empathy extends to the "Prime" of the title (there are, it turns out, a number of these). A "Prime" is a kind of holographic creation of a recently deceased person, whom those left behind -- wife, husband, daughter, whoever -- can use to assuage the grief, guilt and any of those many feelings/problems that remain unresolved once a loved one has died. The first Prime we meet in the film is Walter, Marjorie's late husband, embodied here by actor Jon Hamm (shown at left, above and below), as a younger version of the man. Marjorie herself (played by Lois Smith, shown at right, above and below) is now aged and suffering from off-and-on dementia.

The film's other leading characters are Marjorie's adult daughter (Geena Davis, below) and her husband (Tim Robbins, further below), who clearly have mixed feelings about this use of a Prime, even if, as it does indeed appear, this is helpful to mom.

Almereyda, who both wrote and directed, gives us movies that are always intellectual feats. This one is just such a film -- and even more so than usual, I would say. It is supremely elegant and quiet, full of discussion about the uses and mis-uses of memory, along with how it works. Characters' memories allow us to see flashbacks of certain important moments, as well as to better understand the ongoing relationship between these four people, one of whom, Walter, exists almost only as a Prime.

Along the way, two other characters also become Prime, which makes for some surprise and further investigation (of mortality and grief, among other things). In Jonze's Her, the "machine" develops feelings, personality and much else that we might call human. Almereyda's Primes seem to do so, as well, but on a much less obvious scale and manner.

While the filmmaker and his creations are subtle and never push for our sympathy, they do empathize with our human feelings and failings -- and very well, too. Yet the film itself is rigorously unsentimental.

The performances are striking, intensely specific and deeply felt. The ensemble works beautifully together, keeping us ever on our toes as we watch and listen intently, calibrating who these people are -- both humans and their Primes -- and how much the latter are becoming, or at least mimicking quite beautifully, the former. All the actors are terrific, but Mr. Robbins, ever under-rated, is as good here as I have seen him.

The movie's final scene is one of great beauty, sadness, and surprise. You will wonder at it in both amazement and acceptance. Almereyda, like Jonze, seems non-judgmental (hence, perhaps, his great empathy), and unlike Black Mirror's Charlie Brooker, he does no finger-wagging. In any case, he has come up with one of the most unusual films of the year -- a must-see, I think, for thinking audiences.

From FilmRise and running 97 minutes, Marjorie Prime opens this Friday, August 18, in New York City at the Quad Cinema, in the Los Angeles area at Laemmle's Playhouse 7  and Monica Film Center, in San Francisco at The Roxie, in San Rafael at the Smith Rafael Film Center, and in Arlington, MA, at the Regent Theater.  The following Friday, it will open in another ten venues. Click here (then scroll down) to view all currently scheduled playdates, theaters, and cities.

AMNESIA: Marthe Keller stars in the versatile Barbet Schroeder's latest surprise

Say what you will about the career of Iranian-born, raised-in-African-and-South-America, studied-at-the-Sorbonne director, writer and often producer, Barbet Schroeder, but this hugely versatile and usually successful fellow seems to be able to make movies both documentary (Terror's Advocate) and narrative, the latter in multitudinous genres -- from More to Maîtresse, Barfly, Reversal of Fortune and now his latest addition, an intimate little drama of past, present, guilt and sound, entitled AMNESIA.

Mr. Schroeder, shown at left, certainly chooses interesting projects, as a quick scan of his IMDB resume will prove. His latest, the bittersweet story of a German expat woman in her senior years coming to terms with her past, also gives this senior-years filmmaker (he'll be 76 next month) the opportunity to explore things like guilt, courage, memory and retribution.

For his lead actress and star, Schroeder is fortunate to have a woman who seems to have grown ever more beautiful and able over the years. That would be Marthe Keller, shown below and further below, who plays a character named Martha, about whom we know almost nothing as the film begins. By its end we've learned plenty.

Though set on the uber-photogenic island of Ibiza (in the 1990s), Amnesia deals more with Germany than with Spain, where a German fellow named Jo, played by the current face and body of young Germany, Max Riemelt (below, of The Wave, Free Fall and the often silly but lots of fun Netflix series Sense8), moves in nearby the gorgeous house occupied by Martha and begins what becomes a fast friendship.

Jo has come to Ibiza to work on his music, as well as (or so he hopes) perform as a DJ in a local club (named Amnesia), and soon we and Martha are listening to his music, learning a little about him, and watching as this May/November friendship grows.

Martha is keeping a lot of secrets, and the closer our pair grows, the more we and Jo learn about this lovely, buttoned-up lady. Those secrets involved Martha's past, as well as Germany's, and when Jo's mother (Corinna Kirchhoff), second from right, below and grandfather (played by the great Bruno Ganz, below center and two photos down, the face and body of an older Germany) come for a visit, the shit -- quietly and understatedly -- hits the proverbial fan.

Much of this movie is devoted to sound -- Jo's music, and the quiet, lovely conversations between him and Martha -- and the secrets, those of Martha as well as the grandfather, are revealed simply via talk. This makes the movie much less melodramatic than it might have been in the hands of other filmmakers and/or cast members.

Instead, we are forced to slowly and quietly confront what we see, hear and learn, and then make what we can of it all. There are no villains here, only people who had to make urgent, sometimes horrible decisions, resulting in guilt that leads to a kind of forced amnesia.

And yet the movie, thanks to its simply gorgeous location scenery and its even, thoughtful tone, is never difficult to endure. In fact, it is a genuine pleasure to see and hear Ms Keller in a role that makes such fine use of her skills. Ditto Mr. Riemelt, and the rest of the small cast.

Especially well-done is the very genuine and loving relationship that develops between Martha and Jo and which, though we do not see its consummation, becomes a momentarily physical one, too, I suspect. This sort of thing is tricky, but it handled here about as well as can be.

Mr. Schroeder, as co-writer (with Emilie Bickerton, Peter F. Steinbach and Susan Hoffman), frames his story as mostly flashback, with its opening and closing segments set a decade hence. This works well, too, giving us both closure and a lovely sense of necessary continuity.

From Film Movement and running just 96 minutes, Amnesia opens theatrically this Friday, July 21, in New York City at the Cinema Village, and will then hit several other cities in the weeks to come. (It opens in South Florida at the Coral Gables Art Cinema on Friday, August 11.) Click here then scroll down to view all currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters. For those of you not in or near the cities where the film will open theatrically, it will simultaneously be available to view on July 21, via VOD.

Note: Barbet Schroeder will be at the opening night 

screening at New York City's Cinema Village this

Friday, July 21, to introduce the film and do a Q&A.