Pablo Berger's Snow White bull fight opens: BLANCANIEVES proves a real Spainish silent film, and TM has a short Q&A with Berger

TrustMovies has seen BLANCANIEVES twice already (a third watch is not out of the question), so he stands by his earlier assessment of this rich-in-so-many-ways movie. The below is an extended version of what he published when the film opened last year's Spanish Cinema Now series from the FSLC. What we have here is a much more genuine "silent film" (if that's what you're looking for) than last year's Oscar-winning Best Picture.

In fact, Spain's entry into the Best Foreign Language Film "Oscar" race is the real thing, all right, succeeding both as an homage to "silents" and -- because of its ambition and insight, not to mention what movies are capable of technically these days -- a truly new creation all its own. (The fact that Blancanieves was not even short-listed for the "Oscar" says less about its quality than about the inability of the Academy to distinguish art from enjoyable, if self-reverential, kitsch -- particularly where certain other "silent films" are concerned.)

Retelling the Snow White fairy-tale while giving it a decidedly Spanish spin, writer/
director Pablo Berger (who, nearly a decade ago offered up his only other full-length feature,
the great Torremolinos 73), combines the customs of Spain (bullfighting, anyone?) with the story's own identifying objects (a wicked stepmother gloriously played by Maribel Verdú, above, who seems even better on that second viewing) into a Grimm stew of dark and delightful variations on the original (and already dark) fairy tale's themes.

Senor Berger, shown at right, has stocked his film with so many ideas, all at the service of his story, that his film -- if it were more in-your-face and he were not such a sleight-of-hand director -- becomes, if not exactly a critique then more a gentle reminder of things like Capitalism, child abuse, the Spanish heritage of everything from dance to bullfighting, the power of media and the utter gullibility of the populace, among its many subjects. The filmmaker also gives us "the other" in the form of those famous dwarfs, below, who here appear as a coalition/family of mini bullfighters. The way that Berger weaves together themes from the old story, along with those that are new and distinctly Spanish, is a treat.

By the way, you can indeed take the kids to see this film -- so long as they can read the subtitles. While the movie occasionally goes into "adult" areas (Wicked Stepmom's into S&M!), it does so fleetingly and "tastefully," as becomes a silent movie. And it is consistently suggestive rather than coarse in its visuals (the gorgeous black-and-white cinematography is by Kiko de la Rica of The Last Circus) -- never more so than in its amazingly beautiful, sad and mysterious final scene.

Here, Berger takes a magnificent leap, and what has heretofore been a lovely retelling of an old tale transforms into... oh, god, so many possibilities that I must see the film again to re-discover. (That's what I said before I saw the film a second time. Now that I have, damned if even more possibilities haven't opened up  -- which I ask the writer/director about in the Q&A below.)  You're going to have to open up a discussion with your kids about this final scene and what it means. But it'll be worth it. You'll all learn and grow and be made aware again (maybe for the first time for those kids) of what movies are only very occasionally capable.

Blancanieves, from Cohen Media Group and running 104 minutes, opens this Friday, March 29, in new York (and the Angelika Film Center and the Paris Theatre) and in the Los Angeles area (at Laemmle's Royal and Sundance Sunset Cinema. I believe there will be a further rollout, but these are the only playdates I could find, as of now....

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TM's recent talk with Blancanieves' writer/director Pablo Berger (shown just right of center, above) took place at the offices of Cohen Media Group, when the filmmaker was in town. Berger seems a very gentle and intelligent family man (he's married with kids -- I think he told me two), whose prematurely grey hair offsets his quite youthful and unlined face. In addition to being a filmmaker who doesn't film that often (two full-length movies and one short in 25 years!), he has a Ph.D. and has taught here in NYC as a professor of management, as well as having successive careers in a publicist and music producer. A kind of Spanish Renaissance man, he could undoubtedly handle a number of other jobs, too. But we're glad he's made his movies. If you're unfamiliar with his sensational Torremolinos 73, stick it on your must-see list for an amazingly funny, real, surprising look at Spain toward the end of the Franco regime. (The link above is to my talk with actor Javier Cámara about the film)

In person, Berger is gracious and accessible, and this little round-up would be longer than it is, had TM not forgotten, in one of his increasing senior moments, to bring his pocket recorder with him. So, instead, he scribbles away as Berger speaks. TM first explains to the filmmaker how much he loves Blancanieves, and particularly the way in which it sort of leaves, at the finale, the more regular world of storytelling, to becomes something quite else. He then tells Berger that he has watched the film twice and is still wondering about/musing on that strange ending. (I have taken the liberty of quoting as best as my notes would let me, below, even though I did not have my recorder. In the short conversation that follows, TM appears in boldface and Berger in standard type. )

Your ending seemed to includes ideas on everything from capitalism -- That sleazy character of the bullfight manager (played by José María Pou, above) to whom our heroine signs away her life, so why would not someone as famous as this lady bullfighter end up as an attraction in a carny show -- as a kind of Lola Montès? Boy, I wish Andrew Sarris could have seen this movie! -- to feminism: Does that tear indicate that the girl is saddened not to have found her prince, or sad because the prince turns out to be only the most handsome of the dwarfs? Or maybe she is realizing that this carny show, and only this, will be here new role/career in life?)

(Berger smiles.) You have understood things. But the meaning here is open to interpretation. It's up to you. To each viewer.

Hmmm...  Some viewers, I think -- and I am sometimes among them, though not so much here, with your film -- want more guidance.

I always feel that, in addition to everything else in the movie, there must be something mysterious to make it special: some sort of surprise. To me, movies are an act of love. A kind of time travel.  They include a thick layer of emotion, plus humor and surprise. They are like your children.

That's how many artists feel about their creations.

Really: I believe they are like your children because they have the same DNA!

(We laugh.)  Well put. I can hardly think of two films more dissimilar than Toremolinos 73 -- which shows us a slice of Spain toward the end of the Franco regime, in which you used, in addition to Javier Cámara and Candela Peña, that great actor Mads Mikkelsen -- 

He is a fine actor. And so very versatile.

-- and now Blancanieves. How did you come to this one?

I always loved fairy tales as a kid, so that led naturally to this film. My father was a ship's captain, and he was a great story-teller. He always told us stories that would begin in reality but then he always added his own fictional elements to them. All this inspired me.

Yes, and now you have inspired us. This may be a little soon to ask, since you don't make movies all that often: Do you have any idea -- movie-wise -- what you might do next?

Well, I have now two different scripts ready to go ahead.

What are they about, and which do you think you'll do first?

I don't want to go into detail about either of them, as everything is so uncertain at this point. But for me, the test always is this: Would you be happy if this one were your final film?

Wow. That notion certainly separates the men from the boys.

(We get the word from the publicist that our brief time is up, 
and so I thank Señor Berger for his time -- and his 
two very different and very fine films.)

SCN finale : the Shortmetraje program, plus a round-up & wrap-up for this year's series

The Film Society of Lincoln Center and Instituto Cervantes' annual event Spanish Cinema Now came to an end over a week ago, but TrustMovies is still trying to catch up and juggle postings covering new films opening here in New York City with this tasty series that combined new movies from Spain and a retrospective of films (one of which is below, and yes, that's our own Edmund Gwenn in The Rocket from Calabuch) by the late Luis García Berlanga. At the press conference at Instituto Cervantes that opened the series this year, one of the most memorable comments from the podium was this: "Spain has no oil; culture is our oil." Indeed.

The "culture" viewers take away from this singular series each December is always varied and meaningful. And while Spanish film and Hispanic film often share a language, there are enough differences between Spanish Cinema Now and, say, LatinBeat (the FSLC's annual late-summer series of new Hispanic films) that most viewers would seldom confuse the two. For this year's SCN, between the scheduled press screenings, the few "screeners" made available to the press and the public screenings, TrustMovies managed to see all but one of the new films (due to the last-minute scheduling of Ventura Pons' Year of Grace).

It seems to TM that this year's series -- despite some wonderful, must-see new movies (Extraterrestrial, 23-F, Barcelona Before (above), Double Steps) and the Berlanga retro, of which he saw five of the ten films -- disappointed somewhat. Whether this was due to lower quality of the new films overall (and this, due perhaps to the current and continuing economic situation in Spain) or to TM's own slightly depressed mood these days (weeks, months), he cannot say for certain. There were also fewer films to be seen this time. The 2009 SCN series, for instance, hosted 18 new films, this year there were 15. (One of these -- Black Bread -- was first shown in last year's series, and another -- José & Pilar -- is actually a Portuguese movie, so this brings the count of new Spanish films down to 13.)

The Spanish Civil War and its after-effects (above, from 23-F) were on display as keenly and interestingly as ever this year, and the series managed, as usual, to include some art films (Double Steps, The Waves, along with the mainstream-tasteful (Ispansi!) and mainstream-not-so (Torrente 4). Filmmakers with their own distinct voices were on display, too: Otero's Crebinsky and Trueba's Every Song Is About Me (below). Just going over these film again brings them back with a jolt of pleasure and a smile. As usual, even with a slight dip in quality/quantity, Spanish Cinema Now is one of the special delights of the year -- one that I wouldn't and couldn't bear to miss.

And now to Shortmetraje, the yearly program of short films from Spain (which also, overall, seemed a little less exciting than usual), discussed below in the order in which they were shown:

Dying Every Day / Morir cada día
Aitor Echevarría, 2010, Spain; 11minutes
In a very short time, this filmmaker dissects a dysfunctional family over dinner, bringing to the fore all sorts of veiled unpleasantness. We've been here before (and so, I think, have a number of full-length Spanish films) but Echevarría and his very good cast capture these individuals with gravity, humor and panache.

Stereoscopy / Estereoscopía
Xacio Baño, 2011, Spain; 12min
The Eye kind of thing -- done short-film style, and very nearly as good as the full-length (original version, not the dumb American remake). Strange, disconected, original visuals (left eye/right eye) accompany this tale of a fellow who gets someone else's eye and begins seeing things. The ending manages to be about as shocking but surprising as anything you could image. This one's just lovely (in a very sad way), and filmmaker Baño should be heard from again.

Gentlemen / De caballeros
Adrián Orr, 2010, Spain; 17min
Watching this film about a barber and his clients (I hadn't read anything about it prior to viewing), I thought it was a narrative, albeit with a documentary style and structure. But it's not. It is evidently pure documentary. The talk, as you might expect in a all-male barbershop, often turns to sex and the differences between the sexes, but 17 minutes with the barber and his clients proves a bit boring after awhile. Though the movie certainly has its moments, I might have wished for different clients, or maybe a different day on the job.

Birdboy
Alberto Vázquez & Pedro Rivero, 2010, Spain; 12min
The one animated short this year offers a simple but creepy and original style to go with its dark subject matter: industrial accidents, environmental despair, nuclear holocaust, among other things. In a world where, increasingly, everyone is becoming "the other," birds, mice and fish begin to change before our (and their own) eyes. The use of masks is telling, as are so many of the little touches here. This one's quite good, so remember the name Birdboy -- and if you ever notice it playing on cable or elsewhere, catch it. Vázquez and Rivero's little film definitely belongs in a animated anthology.

Beds / Camas
Manuela Moreno, 2010, Spain; 10min
In this quartet of bedtime/sex stories, we meet four couples and their rooms and beds. Nothing much new, or all that interesting here, But it's short. And that's Raúl Arévalo, above, and anything that features this talented and ubiquitous actor is worth watching.

The German Pavilion / El Pabellón alemán
Juan Millares, 2009, Spain; 14min
In this very interesting little documentary, we learn that the great French photographer Eugène Atget thought of his own photography as showing "the scene of the crime." This makes filmmaker Millares begin to look at other photos as such, including those of the 1929 Universal Exhibition of Barcelona, at which Mies van der Rohe unveiled the famous German Pavillion. Is there some mystery hidden here? Millares says yes, then no, then maybe -- in his somewhat over-reaching and under-budgeted documentary that fascinates, all the same.

My Friend / Lagun mina
Jose Mari Goenaga, 2011, Spain; 12min
Male friendship gets an good going-over in Goenaga's narrative short, as Ekaitz and Román meet in a hostel during their holidays and vow to be friends -- but with quite a different meaning attached to the word on both their parts. Or so we learn as time goes on. This themes and these characters could easily be expanded, I think, to make an interesting and worthwhile full-length feature.

A Shitty Boyfriend / Un novio de mierda
Borja Cobeaga, 2010, Spain; 4min
The funniest of the shorts is also the shortest, as a girl gets a surprise visit from her ex, and we learn just exactly to what the title of Cobeaga's film refers -- and how some women ought to be spanked for settling so easily. This could have been one of the stories in Camas (above), and it would have made that film a little more interesting and original.

SCN: DON'T TOUCH THE DEAD, KID explores families and funerals in the 50s

Reminiscent of two other relatively recent Hispanic movies about families and funerals, DON'T TOUCH THE DEAD, KID (Los muertos no se tocan, nene), from the 70-year-old Spanish director José Luis García Sánchez (shown below), may remind you of both My Mexican Shiva and Nora's Will -- except that the time frame is 1950s Spain rather than present-day Mexico, the religion is Catholic rather than Jewish, and the cinematography is nicely old-fashioned black-and-white.

References to James Dean and other 50s icons pop up periodically, as the film tracks the day that the great-grandpa of a barely-bourgeois family kicks the bucket, and a reunion of sorts occurs for the outcast, black-sheep daughter with her dad and sister. This daughter brings along her déclassé hubby (below, right) and their street-smart son, and the two sets of families, featuring four generations, mix it up. Also involved are a maid or two, and several workmen who appear during the day, most especially one that is installing the family's very first television set.

Though the movie is rife with anger, suspicion, neglect and confu-sion, there's a gentleness to Señor García Sánchez's treatment that helps the material come into its comic resonance. At times it seems almost sweetly nostalgic; at other moments it's ready to lacerate the hypocrisy of Spain's Catholic Church under Franco.

Preview

Along the way we learn about everything from bullfighting to how to place dentures into a dead man (below). If, by the end of its 90 minutes, the movie seems like it ought to have been slightly funnier, nastier, sadder and richer, well, maybe so. It's certainly not bad, as is, and the talented and game cast, including Carlos Iglesias (above, left), from this year's Ispansi!) does a bang-up job -- especially Mariola Fuentes (above, right) as the family's very savvy maid.

The film played twice at this year's Spanish Cinema Now, but so far as I know, it has not yet been picked up for U.S. distribution.

SCN: Enrique Otero's CREBINSKY combines silent-film clowning with cows, icons & war

Galicia, one of Spain's most beautiful areas, adds the scenery, notable actors Sergio Zearreta and Miguel De Lira offer the clowning, Patricia de Lorenzo (as a character called Loli Marlén) does a nifty, low-end and brunette version of Marlene Dietrich, while nasty Germans and asinine Americans frolic around the outskirts, and a cow -- the real and enduring love interest in the movie -- disappears. All of this (taking place during WWII, 'natch) is whipped into fairly acceptable shape by filmmaker Enrique Otero, who co-wrote the film with his co-star De Lira.

CREBINSKY, the name of the film and (I think) of the family that inhabits it (which is currently down to two brothers, mom and dad having been eliminated via tree), is a vehicle for, most particularly, whimsy -- a state of being that many movies aspire to put their audiences into but few effectively manage. Señor Otero, shown at left, comes close enough periodically for his film to qualify as a contender, though at times it seems like whimsy run rampant, complete with tinkly, silent-film music to cue us into obeisance. This is especially true when the Germans or Americans come into play, with the latter's commanding officer played by that great Spanish actor Luis Tosar (below), here sporting a not-so-hot American accent that probably wowed Spaniards but will leave most Americans scratching their head.

The treatment of WWII as pictured in Crebinsky may not be as lowly as, say, Hogan's Heroes, but it comes off as just this side of silly, nonetheless. But because the film is set in WWII Spain, a country that went Fascist but managed to keep itself, supposedly, above the fray, the picture is not as much black-and-white as it is all shades of gray, many of them pretty dark.

The plot, such as it is, manages to give us the history of these two brothers and their late family, while showing us what's happening right now -- which is the loss and then the finding of their precious cow, with side trips for the traveling musicale performed by Loli Marlén and her manager, and the search by the Germans for one of their lost flyers and the Americans, personified by submarine Captain played by Tosar.

Too heavy-handed by half, the film still manages to entertain and occasionally surprise, thanks for the performances of its two leads, De Lira (above, right) and Zearreta (above, left), that very special cow (below), Tosar, the actors playing Germans, and all the rest. I should imagine that filming this movie was lots of fun. And about half of that fun is passed along to the audience. Whether it will be enough will be up to each individual member.

The FSLC's Spanish Cinema Now ended its 14-day run at the Walter Reade Theater yesterday. I'll cover the remaining movies and program of short films in the days to come.

SCN: Santiago Segura's TORRENTE 4 -- a dose of in-your-face, Spanish mainstream

Yup, there were a number of walkouts, particularly during the long and generally lifeless "prison" segment that makes up the middle of TORRENTE 4: LETHAL CRISIS, the latest addition to the most successful movie franchise in Spain's history and certainly the most unlikely film choice for many of the folk who frequent the FSLC's Walter Reade Theater. Fortunately, the movie comes to life again for the finale with a set of -- yes! -- car crashes and explosions (and humor) that manage to outdo a lot of what we've already seen. What may keep you in your seat, however, is the long, hilarious and possibly most tasteless opening sequence that yours truly has ever viewed.

The creator of all of this -- he wrote, directed and stars in the film: eat your heart out, Clint Eastwood -- is a fellow named Santiago Segura (shown left), whom many of us will remember from last year's SCN in the also very funny but much more interesting films El Gran Vasquez and The Last Circus. Señor Segura is a Spanish treasure of sorts, another actor (like Javier Merino from yesterday's post) who doesn't mind showing himself off in sometimes the most grotesque and unflat-tering poses. Well, he's a comedian (and a fine one), and grotesque is part of the game these days. As the title character, José Luis Torrente, Segura (below, in character) plays a crappy ex-cop, now an equally bad private investigator, who finds himself working as part of a security force at a wedding involving one of Spain's richest and most powerful families.

The wedding reception scene that opens the film is one for the books: a maybe 15-minute, can't-believe-your-eyes-and-ears gross-out during which one thing tops the next until you know this movie can't go any farther. And then it does. Granted, this scene would be hard to top, or even keep up with, but Segura doesn't even seem to try during that long middle section in which we all go to prison. (Even here, however, he manages a whopper of a visual involving, yes, a shower, a bar of soap, and, oh, my....)

What Segura does, and does very well, is give us his reprobate Torrente as a man without a single redeeming quality (except that he's so damn funny). A Fascistic, Communist-hating, queer-baiting, no-manners pig in every way, Segura (and his satire) goes after everyone and, when it works, leaves the injured parties barely gasping for breath. (Much as he hates gays, of course, Torrente is still more than willing to engage in a little mutual masturbation.)

In prison this aging slacker gets involved with a priest (above) and a cute martial arts kid (below), and there's a soccer game between prisoners and guards and of course the de rigueur prison break. But because most of this is already old-hat and because, as writer and director, Segura doesn't bring much new or interesting about it to the table, this probably accounts, as much as anything, for those walk-outs during the screening. While mainstream audiences can live with (hell, they delight in) oft-told jokes, oft-seen situations, and general repetition, Walter Reade audiences usually demand a bit more. Hence the film's huge success on the home front and less at Lincoln Center. (That said, there were a lot of loud guffaws from those of us who remained in our seats.)

It's no coincidence, I think, that the Warner Brothers logo (with As Time Goes By on the soundtrack) leads us into the film. The studio that brought the world The Hangover and its sequel seems determined to prove that, in its national and international search for an entryway into our pocketbooks, funny, taste-free films will always do the trick.

SCN: the Ibarretxe brothers' comedy about life & movies, AN ALMOST PERFECT WORLD

A sweet-natured comedy about bank robbers, film-making and a very overweight screenwriter, AN ALMOST PERFECT WORLD is a kind of constant goof on movies, life and letting go. It's a lot of fun, off and on, and it might have been more so were the two brothers who wrote and directed the movie more disciplined and focused. On the other hand, those very qualities might have put the kibosh on the twosome's free-ranging interests and their ability to pack into this 88-minute movie so much bizarre enjoyment.

The product of the imaginations of Esteban Ibarretxe (shown at left) and José Miguel Ibarretxe (shown below, right), the film is nothing if not movie-conscious. The references to films, classic and contemporary, together with a plot that owes much more to movie imagination than to real life, make this a film that will appeal primarily to those who love movies beyond all else and who possess a memory full of events, characters and dialog from their vast catalog of film and genres. An Almost Perfect World draws from the film-about-films genre, the love story, the outsider-makes-good tale, the bank heist comedy and more.

What distinguishes the brothers' film is not so much their borrowing and genre-jumping but more the wit, style and chutzpah with which they manage this. Among so many pos-sible examples, the best is probably the film's ending. TrustMovies suspects that these two movie-loving movie-makers didn't even have an ending for their film. At least, not a really great one, you know? So what they do is pan over to a guy reading a newspaper, the headline of which is one of the great non-sequiturs to appear in a modern day movie. Then they follow this with another pan to the subject of the newspaper headline, neither of which have anything to do with real life but are oh, so, of the movies. All this, by the way, has less than zero to do with anything we've seen in the film up to now, but it's wonderful nonetheless. That is, if you're a movie-lover. And maybe have a soft spot for old B-movie horror hits that feature Leo G. Carroll.

Mostly though, An Almost Perfect World deals with its very funny/sad and very overweight hero, played by an actor -- Javier Merino -- whom I have not seen in more than a decade, since one of my favorite films from the Spanish Cinema Now history, Visionarios. Merino is quite something, using his amazing girth in ways that most heavy-set actors on this side of the Atlantic would not let themselves get near. But he does it all with such surprising grace and fluidity that we can watch without feeling too embarrassed.

The lead bank robber, a character who takes a brotherly liking to Merino's, is played by the great Spanish actor Antonio Dechent, a more-or-less staple at SCN over the years. Dechent, shown above in a police line-up that is among the film's many funny moments, has often displayed an intriguing combination of humor & menace, and these are served up again -- and very well -- in this film.

The rest of the cast is up to snuff, with a comic actor known as Javivi doing a very funny job as the "fake" Italian author whose novel Merino must adapt for the screen. This novel leads to some amusing fantasy moments (like the one above) complete with priests, nuns, guns and whips. As I said, the movie is all over the place. But should you find it someday on cable or (we should be so lucky) DVD, you should -- movie lover that you are -- get quite a charge out of the film, which played only once, this past Sunday evening, at the FSLC's Spanish Cinema Now.