German whimsy about France: Angela Christlieb's URVILLE opens at the AFA

"A poetic dream voyage along the boundaries of fiction and documentary" is one way that its press materials describes URVILLE, the 2009 film from Angela Christlieb.  Because Ms Christlieb also co-directed a film that TrustMovies treasures (Cinemania: a double-edged testament to crazy New Yorkers and the cinema-obsessed), I may be treating her new film more kindly than I otherwise would, for it struck me as the height (no, depth) of pointless European whimsy about... what, for Christ's sake? Maybe Utopia. Or maybe not. As director, writer and editor, Ms Christlieb (the filmmaker is shown below) must shoulder the praise (or blame) for this very odd film that seems to see Urville as an imaginary construct, but also -- since three actual villages in France bear this same name -- as a real place with real people, who are visited by our plucky filmmaker and her crew.
They do not enchant.

This lack of enchantment is not the fault of the villagers but more about what they are asked (and not asked) to do. The filmmaker seems to have set her mind on exploring what isn't, rather than what is, so everything we see and hear melds into one big, silly cacophony. Why are we here? I don't mean this in any existential sense, but rather, why has Christlieb decided to romp from village to village to village and back, while bab-bling on about a bunch of faux statistics that serve to bear out a non-theory about an imaginary town? You got me.

Along the way there are some delightful, if extraneous, moments (well, come on: the whole movie is extraneous): pigs eating some delicious-looking loaves of French bread, which I hope were at least day-old), cows gazing out at us fondly, the mayor (shown at bottom) of one of these Urvilles playing with his dogs. These moments may be funny, or pretty, or sweet. But they, like the movie they inhabit, are all over the place.

We spend (too much) time with one fellow dressed as an Indian (above), who evidently enjoys running for public office (and, so far, losing), and his "squaw" (or is that term out of favor these days?). And no, that squaw is not a certain past President, pictured in cutout form, above.  Our Indian simply likes to carry Clinton around with him. (The squaw is shown below, from quite a distance.)

As the randomness builds, eventually the movie seems to coalesce around the idea of death. But no, this, too, dissipates. "People in Urville," the narrator -- a rich-voiced Maud Piquion (is this the Berlin gallery owner, perhaps) -- tells us, "are not afraid of death."  Well, good for them. Of course, she might be referring to the imagined Urvillians rather than any of the real ones. Who knows? Who cares? I guess you can tell that TrustMovies just didn't "get" this film, which certainly does not bear comparison with much else that he's seen. (Points for originality, then?  Hmmm....)

You may have better luck. And if you want to try that luck, Urville opens Friday, October 15, at Anthology Film Archives. Check out its day-and-hour screening schedule from the AFA calendar here. You'll find directions to AFA here.

Peter Joseph's ZEITGEIST: the Movie & its Addendum make powerful, pointed--if Utopian--viewing

When, a few months back, TrustMovies received a request to take a look at a film called ZEITGEIST: THE MOVIE, he said, sure -- send it. And there it sat on his fireplace mantel (where he keeps his "To Watch" pile) for a long while. He knew practically nothing about the film -- which is often the case: maintaining as close to a tabula rasa as possible strikes him as beneficial to both movie-maker and viewer. When he finally stuck the DVD into his player last Saturday morning, so impressed (with reservations) was he that he spent four hours-plus viewing Z-The Movie and its companion disc ZEITGEIST: ADDENDUM with which he was even more impressed (and about which he had even more reservations).

Can you embrace a documentary even as you are resisting its "overkill" touch? This question crops up time and again, especially during the beginning and end of both films, though, as we shall see, these offer quite a bit more than a documentary double bill. It's more like a call to arms -- especially Z-Addendum. Many of the visuals in the early and late sections of the two films are so obvious as to be boring, and the filmmaker's use of repetition -- repeating words or phrases ad infinitum (complete with an echo chamber!) can be grueling. Well, it's sometimes a heavy hand that renders the truth. A possible truth, at least -- because the first of the films deals at length with what many will term "conspiracy theories" that includes 9/11, Vietnam, WWII and even WWI (remember the Lusistania!).

The first part of Peter Joseph's film (though, according to an argument on Wikipedia, this is not the filmmaker's real name) tackles organized religion and wrestles it to the mat by showing us how, in religious myth after religious myth, a "virgin birther" comes along, grows up, teaches the masses and is killed -- only to rise from the dead. Uh-huh. Yet Mr. Joseph's (I believe it is he -- shown below -- who narrates the film) history of religion and its leaders proves genuinely interesting and thought-provoking.

Part two of the film uses some of the that same idiot repetition to uncover that 9/11 was an inside job. If you have watched other of those 9/11 conspiracy films (as I have), you'll have a difficult time discounting all of what is being said. By now any halfway intelligent adult should know that our leaders are, time after time, war after war, as deceitful to their own people as they are deadly to whomever is being "fought." So what? Because both of our politics parties, as these films make clear, are beholden to the greater "money" party, we can hardly expect to change this overnight, if at all. More of that repetition occurs. How stupid does Joseph imagine his audience to be? Very. At one point (in the second film, I believe) he compares us to sheep who no longer even need a sheep dog to keep us in line. I agree with the guy. We too often are exactly that.

Part three, by far the most interesting section, offers a history of who owns our government. Joseph takes on the banking industry (the interest rate, money supply, loans and debt) and then the IRS (at this point the film comes perilously close to some of the more crackpot ideas of Libertarianism). Throughout his film Joseph relies a great deal on the use of snippets from Network, the 34-year-old collaboration of Sidney Lumet and Paddy Chayefsky -- a prescient movie if ever there was one -- and these bits made me realize anew why I watch so little television.

What is often left out of all this, however, is any sense of psychology: Freud, for goodness sake.  Governments do not exist in a vacuum but are the extension of their people, whose need for power and adulation, coupled with an enormous ability for denial and hypocrisy, has produced the world as we know it.  The moral here, which Joseph spells out toward the conclusion, is that "a continually fraudulent Zeitgeist is output via the mass media, religion and the education system to keep us in a distracted, naive bubble."  Yes.

The filmmaker's finale, however, seems itself almost religious, though not your standard Christian, Jewish or Muslim variety.  Instead, it's a philosophy based on -- ready? -- love.  Oh, please.  If you plan to watch the two Zeitgests, I would suggest fast-forward-
ing past the beginning and skipping the epilogue, too.  But watch and listen with full concentration to Parts I, II and III.  You'll want to argue with Joseph from time to time, but compared to most of the pap we're fed, I suspect you'll feel rather nourished by the film.

Zeitgeist: Addendum, released 15 months after the first installment, is in widescreen format, while Z: The Movie appeared in TV-size mode. After another unnecessarily arty/farty opening, Joseph concentrates on our monetary system, the Federal Reserve, inflation, and currency debasement.  Following his theses and arguments is a real pleasure; this guy is smart.  He uses a number of talking heads in the second film, one of which is a fellow who calls himself an economic hit man who used to work for our government.  He tells us about the USA's involvement in destabilizing governments from Iran (in the 50s) to Guatamala, Ecuador, Panama, Venezuela, and Bolviia's recent water-for-sale scandal.  At times, you'll be reminded of Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine, at others of V for Vendetta or the latest James Bond film. (We even hear from the late Jim Garrison: yikes!)

Following this we get an interesting take on techno-
logy, which leads us to the heart of the matter: The Venus Project and the attempt to go from a Capitalistic, profit-based society to a resource-based society.  While The Venus Project immediately strikes me as Utopian, Joseph does offer, via words from the project's initiators Jacque Fresco and Roxanne Meadows at least a raison d'etre for the undertaking.  His discussion of alternative energy -- wind, solar and especially GeoThermal (which I knew little about) is worth hearing.

Joseph then covers emergent and symbiotic aspects of natural law, stressing our "interconnectedness."  How might all these new ideas come about?  Peaceful protest is one way, and the filmmaker even offers a list of things you can do to bring about change: Start by moving your bank account -- should you bank with the big (nefarious) three: Citicorp, Chase or Bank of America -- to another bank.  But who's to say that within months, due to some new merger, you won't be right back with the big boys again?

TrustMovies recommends watching these Zeitgeist films.  Each is more than worth your time -- and you'll learn a lot.  Mr. Joseph's venting against the profit motive does not seem hypocritical, either.  These are perhaps the first and only films, after the viewing of which, I have seen on-screen: "Duplication of this educational film is granted and encouraged for non-resale, education purposes only.  Not-for-profit public screenings are also encouraged and require no permission from us." 

You can legally download and watch Zeitgeist: The Movie and Zeitgeist: Addendum by clicking here (then scroll down)  Further, there's a worldwide event planned for March 13, 2010: Z-Day. 
Click here and then click on this event for further information about what's happening in your neck of the world's woods....