NYJFF: The Adlons' MAHLER on the COUCH pairs the composer with Alma -- and Freud

A fine choice for the NYJFF's opening night (opening afternoon, too), MAHLER ON THE COUCH, from the father/son film-making team of and Percy and Felix O. Adlon, is admirable for a number of reasons. Primarily it will -- due to its cinematic smarts, humor and energy--help rid us film buffs of memories of that ridiculous, 2001 attempt, Bride of the Wind, to provide a movie about Alma and Gustav Mahler. Interestingly enough, what the two films have most in common is one important actor -- Johannes Silberschneider -- who, in Bride, played the role of Alma's earlier love, her piano teacher Alexander von Zemlinsky, whom Alma gave up to be with Gustav. In Couch, Herr Silberschneider (shown below, right) graduates to the great man himself. And a damn good Mahler he makes.

The Adlons (shown at right, with Felix on the left) begin their movie with a charmingly imagined meeting between Mahler and Sigmund Freud (according to Freud's journals, a meeting actually took place), in which the composer, who has already cancelled two earlier meetings, now tries -- after Freud asks him his first personal question -- to wiggle out of this one, too. The daddy of all shrinks, however (played quite well by Karl Markovics, below, right) won't let him off so easily. The proverbial -- and titular -- couch is not used initially. Instead the two men walk around the grounds and then into town, as Mahler relaxes into reminiscing. Whereupon flashbacks appear, and keep appearing throughout, coupled to direct addresses to the camera by a number of subsidiary characters from Alma's mom and dad to Gustav's sister and others, as they fill us in on everything from history to gossip.

All this handled with a surprisingly light touch and enough humor and wit, particularly in the scenes between Mahler and Freud, to keep us amused and entertained, as we slowly enter the not-so-happy lives of this fabled pair. The filmmakers keep their cameras moving, ever alert for details of the active life, especially in the scene of Alma's and her mother's first visit backstage at the opera house. Later we watch a musicale, below, in attendance at which are the most prominent exes of both Gustav and Alma. Again, there is boundless energy and life on display.

As to the veracity of much of what we see, "Are you making this up?" Freud asks Mahler at one point in a flashback sequence, and so the Adlons very cleverly hedge their bets. For if the master questions the story, we don't have to. As the flashbacks grow longer, the time spent with Freud grows less. Initially, we miss this; finally, as we're pulled ever farther into the lives of Alma and Gustav, we don't.

As good as is Silberschneider as Mahler, newcomer Barbara Romaner (at left) is ever better as Alma. Romaner brings all the complications of a real woman to the role: She's needy, smart, sexual, selfish, ambitious, loving and wild. We see her initially as the lover of Walter Gropius (played by Friedrich Mücke, below). This is the affair that appears to bring on Mahler's need for therapy, but it is Mahler's letter to Alma, early on in the relationship, that acts as the catalyst for her change and growth. In it, he tells her that it is his work that counts; hers is paltry. He needs a wife. The movie is feminist simply by virtue of being true to its time.

We've also seen, in so many earlier films, the artist in the doldrums of composition, the pangs of composition, as the composer is surrounded by reams of blank or wrong-headed pages. But here, given to us in the midst of all else -- sexual passion, therapy, death, music and more -- it works anew. Perhaps the most moving scene is Alma's simple declaration of herself as being in, a part of, Mahler's music. By the finale, you'll realize that, above all, the film is a kind of love story. And a good one. It's a good bio-pic, too.

Mahler on the Couch, screens at the Walter Reader Theater opening day of the NYJFF, Wednesday, January 12, at 1 and 6pm. Click this link for the entire NYJFF program and for online ticket purchases.

NYJFF: Kevin McNeer's long-gestating documentary STALIN THOUGHT OF YOU

The near-irresistible title of Kevin McNeer's documentary STALIN THOUGHT OF YOU -- back in the days of the infamous, mustachioed dictator -- would have sent politically-aware Russians (along with any of us who knew current events) running for the hills. The recipient of Stalin's thoughts and the subject of McNeer's fascinating if necessarily incomplete documentary is one, Boris Efimov, a talented political cartoonist who, along with his journalist brother Mikhail Koltsov (who was the editor of Pravda for a time), caught the attention of Joseph Stalin early on. This became, for one of them, at least, his road to glory. For the other? Not so much. (Why these two related-by-blood brothers have different last names is one of the fascinating details explained in the film.)

Born in 1900, Efimov was already 103 years old when McNeer, shown at right, began filming in 2003. By 2008, when the ancient gentleman died, having reached 108, the filmmaker has managed a number of interviews with the cartoonist, who (up until 2006, at least, when the filming seems to have stopped) retained much of his brain function and was able to recall with surprising facility and speed the memories of his life from the 1920s onward. McNeer asks Efimov questions, and the man answers, sometimes with surprising honesty and perspicacity. A sheep-like fellow who, despite his great talent, never made waves of any kind, Efimov lasted out The Czar, the Revolution, Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Gorbachev, Yeltsin and was surviving even Putin, when he finally bit the dust. This continued success -- for a man who was prominent, "political" (this description cuts two ways) and in the public eye nearly his entire life -- has got to be some sort of record. Particularly in Russia.

Efimov, shown above in his younger years, had to have been crafty -- give him that. McNeer gives him a lot more, some of it rope with which to hang himself.  That Efimov does not is due as much to the history of Russia, and how its people survive, as to anything else. Much of the film is narrated by Boris himself, as he tells of the decades gone by. McNeer pipes up with questions from time to time, and historical footage from the various periods also make up much of the film. This footage -- which includes Boris and Mikhail in their early years, but only Boris in his later -- are particularly fascinating, as they come from the Russian State Film Archives and have not been much seen, I think, by Americans.

The most interesting part of this history, by far, is that devoted to the Spanish Civil War -- from the Russian perspec-tive. Brother Mikhail (shown at left), before he fell from favor, was sent to Spain as one of the top Russians-in-charge, and what we learn here should fuel yet more fire regarding what Stalin wanted out of this war and just how important were the Communists in the fight against Franco. From the time of Stalin's earliest purges, Efimov was asked to create political cartoons (one such is shown at bottom) against men both at home and abroad, from Trotsky and Lenin to Hitler and Eisen-hower -- some of whom he and his brother thought to be decent and innocent. How he managed to do the dictator's bidding and still live with himself comes up again and again during the movie.

Toward film's end, the cartoonist (shown above) goes to the studio of a younger and successful artist and sees the man's caricatures of the famous -- from Khrushchev and Kennedy to Castro and even... Putin.  "What do you think?" the artist slyly asks Efimov about his drawing of Putin.  "Was this done with 'love'?" There is a very long pause, during which it seems that all of the older artist's 104 years might be passing in front of his eyes.  "No," he answers at last. Do we detect a bit of shame in his eyes? Hard to say. Whatever, this fellow's life and career prove a gold mine of interest and oddness, of history, negotiation and concession.

Stalin Thought of You will screen at the Walter Reade Theater, Wednesday, January 12, at 3:30 and 8:30pm. See the entire NYJFF program listing here.

The FSLC & The Jewish Museum's NYJFF -- 20th edition -- opens Wednesday, Jan. 12

The Jewish Museum and the Film Society of Lincoln Center join their usual forces to present the annual  New York Jewish Film Festival (NYJFF, this year in its 20th incarnation!) at the usual three Manhattan venues -- the Film Society’s Walter Reade Theater, The Jewish Museum itself, and The JCC, beginning this Wednesday January 12 and continuing through January 27, 2011. This year's fest includes 36 features and shorts from 14 different countries. Of these, 31 will be premieres -- world,  U.S. or New York -- and, as usual, will provide a diverse global perspective on the Jewish experience, past and present.

How diverse? How's this: From Yoav Potash’s documentary Crime After Crime that takes place in nearly-present-day Calfornia to Avi Nesher's narrative movie The Matchmaker set in 1968 Haifa, which has been nominated for seven Israeli Academy Awards. The former, above, depicts the legal battle to free a California woman imprisoned for over a quarter century due to her connection to the murder of the man who abused her. She finds her only hope for freedom when two attorneys – one of them an Orthodox Jew – step forward to take on her case. The latter, below, introduces us to Arik, a teenage boy growing up in Haifa who gets a job working for a matchmaker who promises to get you what you need, not what you want. This Holocaust survivor has an office located in a seedy neighborhood in the back of a movie theater that shows only love stories and is run by a family of seven Romanian dwarves.

Don't know about you, but I'd call these two movies pretty diverse. And they're just a start. As usual with the yearly NYJFF, the line-up looks terrific on paper and if the program's two-decade history acts as any guide, it will prove so upon viewing, as well. As of today, I've seen only two of the films, both worthwhile: Stalin Thought of You, which I'll report on soon, and Lilly Rivlin's lovely, informative Grace Paley: Collected Shorts (below), which I reviewed during last year's San Francisco Jewish Film Festival (that review is here.)

In the days to come I'll see as many of the films as I have time for and cover them at this blog. To view the entire NYJFF program, and maybe order tickets, click here.