A MONSTER CALLS: In J.A. Bayona's visually resplendent film, a child handles grief and loss

Spanish filmmaker J.A. Bayona may never have made an out-and-out blockbuster, so far as American audiences are concerned, but he has also never made an uninteresting movie. From The Orphanage through The Impossible, onto a couple of episodes of the masterful Penny Dreadful (if you have not watched this series, one of the best-written to hit cable TV, you must: It's streamable now on Netflix) to his newest work, A MONSTER CALLS, the manner in which Bayona handles what seems to be his favorite theme -- children-in-trouble -- grows ever more masterful.

The filmmaker, pictured at left, combines knockout visuals with psychologically adept portraits of people in trouble, and the result is a movie that offers both special effects and genre thrills along with unusual emotional weight. His latest film, I would posit, is his best so far. And yet, I would also posit that it, too, will be no blockbuster. But it will intrigue and please -- on several levels -- most of the audience that manages to discover it. A Monster Calls is a beautifully conceived and realized tale of how a child learns to handle major and possibly devastating loss and grief.

In its handling of this theme, the film may bring to mind the recent remake of Pete's Dragon, and yet the two movies are very different. Bayona's is the darker and much more complex. It will give the children who see it plenty of impressive special effects to view, but it will also offer quite a challenge in terms of understanding the lessons that the titular monster imparts to the child.

That child, Conor (above), is played by a terrific young actor named Lewis McDougall (who made his screen debut just last year as Nibs in Pan), and the monster who takes him in hand and seems to have burst fully-formed from a giant old tree is voiced by Liam Neeson (below). It's a great combination, made even more productive and exciting by the extraordinary visuals Bayona and his team have created.

In addition to having to deal with the increasing sickness and encroaching death of his mother (another lovely job by Felicity Jones, below), Conor is bullied at school and is saddled with an absentee dad,

as well as a grandmother (Sigourney Weaver, below) whose cold demeanor seems to offer little comfort or help. The movie manages to combine its necessary "lessons" with enough visual pizazz, warmth, charm and energy to keep its slightly-too-long running time properly atmospheric and effective.

Will the film prove too much for younger children? Maybe. Older and/or more mature kids should find it worth the challenge and maybe even memorable. Adults may very well appreciate it even more.

From Focus Features, the movie opens nationwide today, Friday, January 6. Focus' web site for the film is no help in providing playdates, cities or theaters in which the film is showing. Click here for the Fandango site for the film and/or tickets.

SCN opens with Pablo Berger's (and Spain's Oscar-entry) BLANCANIEVES

A much more genuine "silent film" (if that's what you want) than last year's The Artist, Spain's entry into the Best Foreign Language Film "Oscar" race, BLANCANIEVES, 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.

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) into a Grimm stew of dark and delightful variations on the original and already dark fairy tale's themes.

If you didn't get the chance to see this film at Spanish Cinema Now (SCN), never fear. Cohen Media Group has picked  it up for U.S. distribution in early 2013; at its opening I'll have more to say about this very special film. For now let me just mention that you can indeed take the kids to see it -- so long as they can read the subtitles. While it goes into adult areas (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 amazing 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. You're going to have to open up a discussion with your kids about this 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 very occasionally capable.

Spanish Cinema Now has just begun. There is lots to come, so click here to see the whole schmear.

SCN: Lacuesta's & Campos' DOUBLE STEPS is a work of (documentary? narrative?) art; short interview with the film-making couple

What a treat, what a blessing, what an original is DOUBLE STEPS (Los pasos dobles), the new hybrid narrative/
documentary (is there any other kind these days?) that makes its Spanish Cinema Now debut this week (see end of post for screening times)! Together with Barcelona Before, which had but a single screening this past Sunday night, and about which I'll have more to say later), this film represents yet another Spanish "step" in fracturing what we've long thought of as the documentary form but putting it back together as filmmaking art. The movie it most reminded me of, simply for its sense of first splintering and then re-forming as something else, is Bombay Beach (from Israeli filmmaker Alma Ha'rel about a very unusual American community).

The work of the film-making twosome shown here -- Isaki Lacuesta (above, right) and Isa Campo (above, left: more about their most interesting and creative relationship appears in the interview below), the movie is ostensibly about French artist (born in Rochester, New York!) François Augiéras (click for images of his art here).  And yet, like everything in Double Steps the film doubles in and out upon itself and is, in the end, as much about the art and the subject of that art as it is about the artist.

It is also purely narrative: Everything we see, I believe, has been created for the film -- with no archival footage, nor talking heads atop "real" people. And yet, by the end of the film, the feeling that remains is one of "documentary" because some deeper sense of truth -- about art/history/culture/people/place -- has taken shape here. In its way, the movie is also a kind of post-modern bio-pic, because it takes the usual elements of movie biography, stands them on their head and then kicks them into oblivion.

Whoops: Did I say "by the end of the film."  Confession:  TrustMovies did not actually see the end of the film. After 80 minutes of this 90 minute work, the "screener" he was given to view ceased to function, and no amount of diddling would make it continue. So he will have to show up at the end of one of the public screenings and see what he missed.  Whatever that might be, what he did see was enough to convince him of the film's veracity and the talent of this unusual movie-making couple.

Though I do not enjoy giving away a lot of plot, let me tell you something of what you can expect here. This is a tale of art lost and found in the desert, of uncle/nephew love and betrayal, of exotic/erotic interaction with a culture of albino Africans (evidently there's quite a component of homosexualty/homoeroticism to Augiéras' work), and a love story of a boy a girl and a record (45 rpm). The film is a kind of road trip, as well, mysterious, colorful and full of doubles. "There lies the secret of the double steps," we are told at one point. These have two meanings, it seems: hiding your footprints in the desert, and inventing someone identical to you and having him travel in your name.

Are you mystified? Well, take a chance, anyway, and see this strange movie that's experimental in the most wondrous of ways. It plays as part of SCN at the Walter Reade Theater this Thursday, December 15, at 7pm, and again Tuesday, December 20, at 2pm.

****************

Meeting the adorable twosome of Isaki Lacuesta and Isa Campo was nearly as much a treat as was their movie. Looking barely out of their teenage years (they certainly have the energy and enthusiasm of teen-agers), they're actually in their mid-thirties and have been together -- living and working -- since high school. How's that for an enduring relationship?! In the following short interview, TrustMovies appears in boldface and Isaki and Isa in standard type.

I have only seen about eight of the SCN films so far, but it seems to me that yours is definitely the most artistic of the bunch, and the most challenging.

Isaki: That’s the problem. And it was on The Condemned, too.

Did you both work on The Condemned as well as on this film?

Isaki: Yes, we both worked on Los Condemnados, and she is the scriptwriter of both films.

I would never have imagined that the same people did both movies. 

(They both laugh. Then a translator joins us.  And Isaki explains…)

We understand English quite well, and we speak it a little bit but… (he shrugs)

(To Isa) As I was telling Isaki earlier, I watched almost the whole movie and was really enjoying it and really concentrating because there is so much going on. Then ten minutes before it was over, it stopped, and I could not get it to play, no matter what I did. 

Isa: Maybe you can see it in the screening?

I will.  I’ll go back and watch the last, maybe, 20 minutes. I would think that something like this would be so challenging to conceive and then to write. There’s so much “double-ness in it,” as it weaves back on itself and all over the place. And it’s so fascinating.  A kind of work of art. And I say that with some hesitation because when you say “art,” people stay away in droves.

Isaki: We thought it was a very classical way of storytelling. Not like the 19^th century, realistical way, but we thought more about Cervantes or Laurence Sterne and his Tristram Shandy.

Of course!

Isa: Their way of storytelling was very free and very crazy…

Filmmakers don’t do that anymore much.  Maybe like Bryan Singer did in The Usual Suspects. But most movies are content to just tell a very simple story very simply. But you went back for your inspiration to the old-timers. Classic!

Not only that, because with this kind of storytelling you can alter it and change the subject at any moment and this keeps the interest of the viewer.  Like in a normal conversation, you can change the subject at any moment. So why is this not possible in a book or film?

Yes. Why not?

Why not?

So you now show us that this is possible in a film.  Have you both worked together on other films besides these two?  Are you more than just writer and director. I mean, are you… uh… friends?  Or are you…

(Isa smiles) Yes, we are a couple.

Ah!

Isa: And I am also at the shooting of the film.

That’s interesting. So do you argue sometimes about things.

Isaki: Always. All the time! She also works with the actors, too.

Like…? Explaining to them, getting them to do things you want them to do?

Isaki: Yes, and continuing to write because screenwriting arrives right until and even through the shooting.

Isa: And it keeps going. Every moment it is possible to change the scripts.

The Condemned took place in South America, right? But where? 

Isa: In Peru.

Isaki: We shoot in Peru and Argentina.

But it was more about Argentina than Peru, right.

In the film there is no name of a country or a city.

There isn’t?  I didn’t remember that. (Apoligies to the filmmakers: In my review of the film I said it was set in Argentina.) That was deliberate…? Because the same stories occur all over?

The same ones are told from country to country.

It’s interesting to me that each year at SCN, we get more and more Spanish Civil War movies. It’s a subject that seems to be limitless, bottomless.  I understand that some younger Spanish filmmakers are tired of it and want to move on to other subjects.  Yet it seems to be so much a part of the fabric of the country. But now you have elected a right-wing President. What is that about?

(The translator explains my last question -- and Isa says) I think it is a global thing.

Isaki: Yes all Europe is like that now. It is a terrible mistake. 

People never learn.

But the alternative was not so nice, either.

The left-wing alternative?  (They shake their head, yes) Just like here.  Obamsa is no big left-wing alternative, either.  Is there anything you wish that journalists would ask you but we never do?

(They laugh)  Yes. There are never concrete questions.  We never speak about concrete questions like how we have made this particular sequence.  Just general questions or subjects.

Well, if I were a filmmaker, I’m sure I would ask you about the filming process or angles or cameras.  But as an audience member, as somebody who sits there, and with your movie just tries to follow it, even to try to understand it all, because it is such as challenge.  For that, we can only speak in generalities. Maybe, if I saw it again, I could probably ask more specific questions.  I saw Nacho’s film again (Extraterrestrial), and I got more out of the second time. Your film, I could probably watch it six times and keep learning.

Isaki: We like to think that people would watch it twice.

Isa: Or more.

Yes, the first time our eyes will on the subtitles so much of the time we really cannot see everything. 

Yes, that is a problem.

Even though you don’t think you miss anything, of course you do.

Isaki: Well, even when I was a journalist I never asked concrete questions.

Ah, so you didn’t either. Then I won’t feel too bad. Tell me how to spell your names so I get it right. 

Isa: Isabel Campo.

OK and Iañki?

Isaki. It is Isaki.  But in fact, my real name is Iñaki.  Because my family is from the Basque country. But I change my name for Isaki.

Really. Why?

Because now, Isabel, she is in my name.

Oh, god -- that’s so sweet!  How long have you been together?

20 years.  (My mouth drops open, and they laugh.)

Really?  You don’t look nearly that old!  Since elementary school, I guess?

No, since high school. 

But you look so young.  That is so wonderful to think that relationships can last.

It’s also very hard.

I’m sure it is, but you are still here. 

We are 36 but we met at 15.

Well, whatever you are doing, keep it up. And, oh, yes -- tell me what  you are doing next.

We are working on a feature film.  It is about a faker. 

A fakir?

No, about an imposter.  And we are also working on a comedy for TV.

A feature-length movie or an hour-length program? How long?

A series.

Wow!   Oh, good. That way this can support you for awhile so can make other movies like Double Steps.

It was not just an economical idea. I realty want to make comedy. To break the stereotypes around me. Everybody says that I am this very strange filmmaker who makes films for nobody.

Not true. You made one for me, at least!

Isa: The comedy is about a Spanish singer who is famous, Albert Pla. 

Isaki: He is fantastic.  He made a movie called Airbag, a very big comedy from the 90s.

Isa: So these will be our new projects.

(We get the high sign that our time is up, and so we thank this absolutely charming, talented team for its film and its time.)

SCN: With EVERY SONG TALKS ABOUT ME, Jonás Trueba nicely nails young/dumb love

The first time TrustMovies encountered the work of Jonás Trueba, it was two years ago when this young filmmaker acted as co-screenwriter on his father Fernando's film The Dancer and the Thief (a movie of which TM was not overly fond). Fernando bounced back with last year's SCN offering Chico and Rita, and now Jonás has given us what I suspect is, for him, a much more personal movie about a young man's attempts to come to terms with love and loss and some kind of acceptable life. It's called EVERY SONG TALKS ABOUT ME -- and if that title doesn't nail the exquisite narcissism of youth, what would?

Trueba the younger, pictured at right, has made a smart choice of his leading man in the person of Oriol Vila (below, who played the young mole placed by the police in the theatrical troupe in last year's Paper Birds). Senor Vila possesses an adorable face (atop a handsome body) which he can scrunch up into all sorts of annoyed (and, yes, annoying) grimaces until you sometimes want to shout, "Hey fuckhead: Grow up!" Well, yes: He's trying. And Vila and his character Ramiro are so real and often so funny/
silly that he finally wins you over.

As does his former-but-still-in-the-picture love interest, Andrea. She's played by Bárbara Lennie (below, left), from the 2009 SCN's The Condemned and currently part of The Skin I Live In. Ms Lennie is an actress of such quiet possession that she makes a rather perfect foil for Vila (and the other cursory ladies -- charming, all of them -- who flit in and out of his life and the film).

While some of my compatriots, most of whom reflect an older audience, groused a bit about "these kids and their ridiculous concerns," I can only suggest that they -- and you -- think back to their/your own youth and contemplate for a moment. Weren't we all pretty damn ridiculous and self-involved? If you manage this, for even a few moments, I think you'll find yourself smiling and more than willing to accompany Ramiro on his quest.

Should you tag along, you'll be treated to a simply smashing finale: one of the most wonderful combinations of visuals, dialog and music that I've wintessed in years. This is a breathtaking scene that grows and crests until, with utter fervor, it explodes. Bravo, Señor Trueba: You've achieved something special!

Every Song Talks About Me screens twice during Spanish Cinema Now at the Walter Reade Theater: Saturday, December 10, at 6pm and Wednesday, December 14, at 1:30pm.

SCN: Carlos Iglesias' ISPANSI! tells a Spanish Civil War tale we haven't heard

Last year SCN offered one of those rich, wonderful stories of the Spanish Civil War -- Paper Birds (Pajaros de papel) that showed us something different and bracing, even if it was decked out in melodramatic (but fine) style. This year's selection that best fits that bill is the terrific movie by and starring Carlos Iglesias -- ISPANSI!, which I am guessing is Russian for "the Spanish!" and which tells a story I had never heard -- about the hordes of children sent to Russia for their safety by the anti-Franco Republicans during the Civil War. What a tale it proves to be, and how splendidly has its writer/director/lead actor Iglesias (shown below) managed to create and execute it.

The filmmaker tosses us into the thick of things immediately, introducing characters we will only slowly know and understand. He then backtracks to the past, showing us how they got into this strange place, and then carries them forward into, well, you can hardly imagine the ins and outs and ups and downs you're about to experience. Though this is a tale of children, Iglesias wisely makes it a love story, too -- but one that take ever so long to flame. For quite some time we don't even know that it is, or will be, a love story. Yet by the time it  explodes, we are already completely in its grasp.

That the love story is between a Republican worker/fighter and a upper-class woman from a Franco-phile family makes it all the more bizarre and vital, and the two actors -- Iglesias and Esther Regina (above, right,and from last year's The Consul of Sodom) could hardly be better.

What the movie tells us, among many other worthwhile things, is how pure, physical attraction can pave the road to a relationship that will change what we might have imagined were unchangeable basics of character and class.

Iglesias takes us from the Franco forces to the Russians to the Germans and back again, as our small party grows smaller as it escapes, barely, from one bad situation to another, with some lovely, much-needed respite now and then. We see and hear the wealthy of Franco's Spain (two photos above, and the one below) as well as near-poverty of post-war Russia. And we feel the loss of a child that, despite all else, never heals.

This is a rich, often very beautiful-to-view movie, filled with great characters and a cast of remarkable actors who can bring them to life. It's got history, politics, love, death, sacrifice and just about everything else that makes a memorable, old-fashioned blockbuster. While watching the film, I could not help but wonder if, in its way, the movie might have gone some distance in uniting today's Spain. Except that the populace just elected another right-wing regime, so perhaps it is being united in the wrong direction. Once again.

I don't know that this film has any U.S. distribution yet, and it's playing only once during Spanish Cinema Now: Friday, December 9 at 1pm at the FSLC's Walter Reade Theater. So if this kind of movie is your cup of tea, do not miss Ispansi! 

EXTRATERRESTRIAL: Nacho Vigalondo's loony, loving sci-fi surprise opens SCN

Think there's not much new in the "space invaders" genre? Think again. Nacho Vigalondo, the young Spanish filmmaker who a few years back brought us the mini-budget but maxi-creative sci-fi thriller TimeCrimes, is back this year with Spanish Cinema Now's opening night selection. This is a wonderfully goofy, funny and inventive movie that takes a very real and imposing invasion from space and turns it into a kind of McGuffin, a red herring that allows this clever and ironic writer/director to explore once again, Spanish style, those eternal verities of sex, love, honor and commitment while making us gasp and laugh, wonder and chuckle. One neat feat of moviemaking is EXTRATERRESTRIAL!

Señor Vigalondo, shown at left, is a man who makes the most of his resources. And while the budget here is a lot bigger than it was for TimeCrimes, it's still small potatoes by most movie-making standards. And yet the filmmaker creates a truly marvelous world in which invaders land (or at least hover), the populace is evacuated (except, of course, for the few characters who plays into the scenario) and... action ensures. Yet that action becomes more and more about everyday occurrences -- jealousy, envy, what's-for-dinner -- rather than the usual "escape-the-aliens" routine. It takes, I would suggest, immense balls to even try something like this -- let alone bring it off as well as does Vigalondo.

How the filmmaker interests us in this, rather than in what we expect to be interested in, is what makes the movie such a little treasure. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe this is the first such topsy-turvy film in the invaders-from-outer-space genre, and as such, as well entertaining the hell out of audiences receptive to something different, is going to be remembered in times to come. For Vigalondo's use of tennis balls alone, the movie is memorable.

Vigalondo has cast his little "game" with a more-than-game cast, and everyone delivers the goods. In the lead role of our just-a-guy hero, Julián Villagrán (two photos up and below) is terrific -- going through change after change, trying to adapt to the invasion of his planet and then of his heart, as he grows closer to the young lady whom he has recently screwed but knows almost nothing about. Played by Michelle Jenner (above) -- quite the little performer who also stars in this year's SCN movie Don't Be Afraid -- this crackerjack actress is practically unrecognizable visually and emotionally from one role to the other.

The film's remaining three characters (small cast!) are handled by Miguel Noguera (as a TV newscaster with a lot of problems), Raúl Cimas (above, with firearm) as Jenner's boyfriend, and especially Carlos Areces (so amazing in last year's SCN hit The Last Circus) as Jenner's next-door-neighbor, the ironically named Ángel. Among his many skills is Vigalondo's ability to subtly foreshadow and then build on it. I won't say anymore -- except that the film's final conversation is delightful: a kind of message about how to live, to perform and maybe even to make movies. And the last shot is simply glorious: a beautiful, low-key, deadpan hoot-and-a-half.

Extraterrestrial will screen twice only during SCN: Friday, Dec. 9 @ 6:15 pm and again Thursday, Dec, 15 @ 9:00 pm. But (he says, with hope in his heart), surely some smart/art distributor will take a chance on this one and give us a larger, longer chance to catch it.