IL FUTURO: a Roberto Bolaño work comes to the screen, adapted by Alicia Scherson

From the few short stories TrustMovies has read by the late Chilean prize-winning author Roberto Bolaño, it's clear that the guy had an interest in and appreciation of movies, so I do wonder what he would make of IL FUTURO, the new film that Alicia Scherson has adapted and directed from Bolaño's 2002 Una Novelita Lumpen? Though I have not read that "little novel," from what I have read of Bolaño, it seems to me that Ms Scherson has captured in her own visual style some of the author's mixture of the real and the surreal, along with the accompaniment of odd feelings that occur as you are reading the work of this strange and rather wonderful writer.

What happens in the film is perfectly believable, in its odd way, yet you feel that you have also entered some kind of dream state. How Scherson (shown at right) does this visually has a lot to do with her cinematography (the cinematographer is the gifted Ricardo DeAngelis, who began his career shooting the extraordinary Man Facing Southeast!). Here the planes that we see, which ought to be giving dimension and depth, are somehow flattened into a single, dimensionless level. Though distance is lost, the flat perspective gives off a wondrous sense of the otherworldly, while remaining "real."

This visual sense fits nicely into the story of a South American brother (Luigi Ciardo, above, left) and sister (Manuela Martelli, above, right) of high-school age (she older than he) who are suddenly orphaned while in Spain and must stick together and somehow make their life in this new country. A tale like this could go in so many directions, but Bolaño/Scherson turn it into something quite real on one level but into the fantastic on another.

The girl must work to bring in enough extra income to take care of them. The boy begins cutting school and hanging out at a nearby gym, from which he brings home a couple of "friends" (Alessandro Giallocosta, above, left, and Nicolas Vaporidis, above, right.) These are unsavory types, all right, yet both seem a little different from the usual aging delinquents. But then, so are sis and bro.

There's a odd/kindly social worker, too, who is helping, more or less, the kids to keep on track. Into the mix comes a old actor and muscle man, now blind but still wealthy (Rutger Hauer, in one of the best roles he's had in a long while), whom sis is ordered to "befriend" and then find the "safe" in his apartment. Nothing goes quite according to plan, and all is seen through that continuing surreal gaze.

Mixing thriller tropes with film noir, love stories, children in jeopardy and the just-slightly-fantastic, Scherson juggles her balls deftly. How you react to this will depend somewhat, I think, on your acceptance of art movies -- films in which content and style are quite different from what you would get via something mainstream. You'll have to be willing to allow your sense of reality to expand a bit, as you question and wonder and surmise.

Yes, this is an "art film." But why not? Bolaño was an artist, and so, it seems, is Ms Scherson. Il Futuro, which of course means The Future (but we don't want to mix this one up with Miranda July's recent movie), a Chile/Italy/Germany/Spain co-production, distributed by Strand Releasing and running 94 minutes, opens this Friday, September 6, in New York City, exclusively at the IFC Center and will eventually open in the Los Angeles area on November 1 at Laemmle's Town Center 5 and Playhouse 7.

Jem Cohen's well-praised MUSEUM HOURS opens in Los Angeles at Laemmle theaters

TrustMovies missed the New York City debut of MUSEUM HOURS, the new film by that highly independent, American-by-way-of-Afghanistan filmmaker Jem Cohen, so he is happy to have caught up with it in time for its Los Angeles premiere. The only other film he had seen by Mr. Cohen -- yes, he's a man, even if his first name, Jem, may throw you a bit -- is Benjamin Smoke, a very odd combination of the ramblings of an AIDS-infected fellow who has some very fine music to share. Still Cohen, shown below, has made some 45 films, even if a majority of these are shorts, so he appears to be a name to reckon with. Museum Hours should add greatly to that reckoning.

Basically, the film tells two stories that, for a time, become one. They are those of a museum guard named Johann (Bobby Sommer, below) -- at the (from the looks of it here) quite impressive Kunsthistorisches Art Museum in Vienna, where the selection of paintings by Bruegel, among others, is wondrous -- and a middle-aged Canadian woman, Anne, visiting her ill cousin in Austria whom she has not seen in decades.

When she arrives, Anne (Mary Margaret O'Hara, below) finds that her cousin has lapsed into a coma. With little money and a lot of time on her hands, Anne goes to the museum where she meets Johann on his job, a conversation ensues, and an odd, quiet friendship begins.

I don't recall thinking this so much about Benjamin Smoke, but with Museum Hours, the quality that most shines through is discretion, a refusal by the director and indeed of his two main characters to barge into anything. They keep their distance (though they are courteous, even direct when necessary) and so does the director, with his camera -- gliding some times, stationery at others -- that takes its sweet time even pulling in for a close-up on these two.

Even when the movie's single "event" takes place, this discretion finds an outlet that is all the more moving for not being in our face. Even so, we do learn quite a bit about these two, most of it discursive, though it still adds up to "character," as we've come to understand the word.

In the film's most "actionful" scene, a tour guide, beautifully played by Ela Piplits, at right, challenges her group of art tourists to find the real subject in various Bruegel paintings. They do, with her help -- all except for one fellow (an American Republican, one suspects), who keeps insisting that a painting's title is its real subject, despite the several excellent hints from the guide of other possibilities the painter may have had in mind. This scene bursts with intelligence and real art appreciation, the kind that informs and makes us aware of the part that history and era -- the painter's and our own -- play in that appreciation. This scene could be taken out intact and played on YouTube as an object lesson on the work of Bruegel.

Just to be clear, Museum Hours is very slow-paced. You'll need to come equipped with your own set of standards and an appreciation of art, museums and personal histories to fully engage with the film. Yet the rewards are just as great.

From a charming fantasy switch from nudes-in-art to nude onlookers to Cohen's ability to capture peasant faces in life, just as Bruegel did in art, the movie quietly "rocks." Then, near the finale, the filmmaker lets us look at life in the way we look at art -- not in the ham-fisted manner of a Warhol but of someone who appreciates both and can distinguish them from each other -- but who can also turn the one into the other.

Museum Hours, from The Cinema Guild and running a lengthy 108 minutes, opens this coming Friday, August 16, in the Los Angeles area at Laemmle's Royal, Playhouse 7 and Town Center 5.
To view all currently scheduled playdates, with cities and theaters, click here.

YOU AIN'T SEEN NOTHIN' YET: M. Resnais' playful masterwork to open in the L.A. area

When the latest film from that French giant of cinema, Alain Resnais, opened here in New York City at the beginning of this month, it received the usual, mostly sterling reviews that this fellow tends to collect (80% positive critical consensus on Rotten Tomatoes, with 70 % of the audience liking it). Yet the film -- rather deliciously titled YOU AIN'T SEEN NOTHIN' YET -- played but a single week at the Quad Cinema in Manhattan, then beat it out of town. The attendance was not, shall we say, staggering -- and nothing like it would have been back in the 1960s and 70s, when foreign films were in their heyday.

M. Resnais, shown at right, is now 91 years of age, and he just keeps cranking 'em out -- on a schedule, these days, of a film every three years. He's no Woody Allen (in terms of output, or most any other way) but this achievement remains pretty impressive, particularly since his films (with maybe the exception of I Want to Go Home, which, over-the-top as it is, offers some bold fun) are remarkable, intelligent, surprising and varied. You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet (from here on to be known as YASNT) is all of these things -- and a good deal more. Combining techniques from theatre and film, the movie actually joins the two at times, distilling a particular kind of artifice that, I suspect, no one does better than the French.

The story, such as it is, involves a famous (and imaginary) playwright named Antoine d'Anthac (played by Denis Podalydès, shown at bottom, center) who had suddenly died. His last request is to the set of real actors, famous French men and women who have supposedly worked with and for this guy. They meet at his castle-like home high on a hill, where they learn that he has instructed them to critique a new production of his play Eurydice (actually the play by the famous mid-20th Century French playwright Jean Anouilh, together with material from another of his plays, Cher Antoine ou l'amour raté, with which I am not familiar).

These actors comprise some of the cream of the French stage and film scene, and because they all have played parts in this play previously, now, as they watch the young cast auditioning for the right to perform the play again by presenting a filmed rehearsal, the older crew begins to perform the play themselves -- with great relish and enthusiasm. Except they are far too old for the roles now. And yet, how very well do they perform them!

Anouilh's play is a retelling of the Orpheus and Eurydice legend, but, ah, what a grown-up version of the myth we have here! It's moral, thought-provoking, moving, and fiercely intelligent as it nails everything from the male's destructive jealousy to the female's need for love at any cost. And in giving us an Orpheus and Eurydice shown in youth, middle age (Lambert Wilson and Anne Consigny, above) and the senior years (Sabine Azéma and Pierre Arditi, below), Resnais plays with age, theater, film and performance in quite wonderful ways.

Anouilh's play is also about death, the fear and the embracing of it, as well as about life and the fear and embracing of it, too.  (It gives that amazing actor Mathieu Amalric, below, the opportunity to play a superbly intelligent version of Hades, and he seems absolutely born to it.) In all, this is a wonderful work, combining that special French combination of drama, philosophy, romance and artifice. The film, in fact, should send audiences back to the original source.

Meanwhile, we have YASNT to content us. And if this short review makes the movie sound rather special, exotic and for sophisticated tastes -- it is. Being conversant with the classics will help, and if you are initially put off by the artifice, know that, as it moves along, the film grows stronger and more surprising and meaningful.

Resnais' set design of very theatrical rooms adds to the artifice, and his use of split screen  is absolutely first-rate, making the differences between the various Orpheuses and Eurydices shine all the stronger. TrustMovies is delighted that in Los Angeles, the film -- from Kino Lorber and running 115 minutes -- will be opening this coming Friday, July 5, at three venues: Laemmle's Royal, in West L.A., the Town Center 5 in Encino and the Playhouse 7 in Pasadena. Click here, then scroll down to see all currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters.

Catching up with THE MASTER: Anderson's Oscar-nommed movie makes Blu-ray debut

It looks good, that's for sure, although it does not actually look quite that good. (Maybe the 70mm version appeared deeper, darker and more delicious?) In any case, THE MASTER -- the much-talked-about, would-be artistic blockbuster that disappointed at the box-office -- hits the street on DVD and Blu-ray this coming week, where film buffs can get their fill, maybe for a second time, while the hoi polloi (if it can be convinced to take a chance) watches, curls up its nose and then scratches its collective head. Not enough "action."

Though it does not identify Scientology by name, the movie -- written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson (shown at left) -- drops enough hints and uses enough techniques similar to that cult so that most media-friendly folk will soon under-stand what kind of game the titular  "Master" (played oh-so-well by Philip Seymour Hoffman, below) is running and upon what it is based. The movie might just as easily have been titled The Pupil (or maybe The Disciple) as it concentrates more on the character of the hugely problemed man (a most interesting performance by Joaquin Phoenix, further below) who, by chance, comes into the sphere of this master and finds himself growing attached to and led by this charismatic charlatan, even as the supposed master is being seduced by the charms of his not-quite protégé.

And? Well, that's pretty much it, so far as plot/content is concerned. Lots of little things happen along the way, many of them interesting in their manner, and it adds up to... very little. But all very well photographed and acted -- and even, maybe, written -- line by line (if you don't try to make anything of the whole).

We move -- via Mr. Phoenix's character, Freddie -- from the latter days of World War II (above) through work as a department store photographer (below) to the lettuce fields of California.

Characters neither change nor grow (Mr. Phoenix, unfortunately, looks the same age from first to last, though quite a bit of time has passed), and one fat cliché of a scene (below) with an army psychiatrist may bring to mind the punch line of that old joke where the patient tells his shrink: "Don't call me sex-obssessed: You're the one with the dirty pictures!" There is also a terrific scene with a fine Laura Dern in which the master and his "philosophy" are unmasked rather thoroughly, if subtly.

This scene is given the same weight as just about everything other else in the film and so registers neither strongly nor weakly: It's simply there. This seems to be the modus operandi of Mr. Anderson, and it both commendable (for people who don't like the heavy-handed) and risky because, halfway along, the movie begins to plod and continue that plodding until its nearly two-and-one-half hours are up.

Along the way we meet the master's ever-loving and watchful wife: a fine Amy Adams, above, left, with Jesse Plemons, center, as his son and Ambyr Childers as his daughter, at right, above. Then there's that utterly bizarre scene in which some supposedly vital writings are removed from a cave in the desert, below. And...? Don't ask, dummy. That's simply it.

I am glad I saw The Master, if only to keep up with what Mr. Anderson is doing. But the awe in which so many of our critics regard the film, is, to put it mildly, misplaced. Perhaps it is best to conceive of the movie, rather than a mere slice-of-life, as a great, big chunk-of-life. What to actually make of it, however, is utterly up for grabs.

The movie, from The Weinstein Company, hits the street on DVD and Blu-ray this coming Tuesday, February 26.

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.

Ami Canaan Mann & Don Ferrarone's TEXAS KILLING FIELDS opens theatrically

Texas is back in the movie news again -- after last week's fiery Incendiary -- and once more, from the view we see of the state, it's a place you wouldn't want to visit. And certainly not reside in permanently. TEXAS KILLING FIELDS, the new film directed by Ami Canaan Mann (from a screenplay by Don Ferrarone, according to the press notes, that has been around for ten years now) is an artful, unsettling take on the way-overdone serial-killer format that manages to offset the ugliness (though, believe me, the film is plenty ugly) with enough humanity to make the experience more than worthwhile.

Ms Mann, shown at right, is the daughter of noted filmmaker Michael Mann. But before you mutter "more Hollywood nepotism," I think you ought to first view her film. She pulls us in initially via some great opening visuals: nature shots with a sense of menace to them, thanks in no small part to the atmospheric music credited to Dickon Hinchliffe. By the time we meet the many human beings that people the film, we're primed for the problematic.

From the cops who come to the investigation in a rather roundabout manner -- played by Sam Worthington (above, left), Jeffrey Dean Morgan (above, right) and

Jessica Chastain (above) to possible suspects like the tatooed creep played very well by Jason Clarke (below), there's no one here with a lock on "hero" -- though Mr. Morgan comes closest to the prize.

Everyone in sight, including the wonderful Chloë Grace Moretz, below (who makes good on the promise shown in Kick-Ass, much better than she did in the fumbled American remake of Let the Right One In) is simply working through his/her own hell, while trying to do the job -- whether it's saving, killing, pimping or just surviving. We learn the stories of all these characters haltingly, as we move along, and we also slowly piece together the plot itself. Ms Mann and Mr. Ferrarone are not given to over-explaining, which makes the movie all that much more challenging.

The police work, as shown, is rough and tumble and sometimes simply on the wrong track, not unlike, I would guess, real police work. But very unlike what we see over and over on various TV series in which the good guys just seem to get it right -- while giving us more-than-ample exposition and explanation.

Here, we have several stories conflating and upending, in which families do some very unloving things and police must assume their most protective role. There are loose ends all over the place -- again, rather like life -- but where and when it counts, the filmmakers come through beautifully. The loveliest scene, a family dinner to which Ms Moretz is included manages to move us without coming close to jerking a tear; the finale, too, is clipped and barely verbal, but it tells us just what we need to know.

Ms Mann has coaxed or perhaps simply given her actors their rein, and by and large the film is full of crackerjack performances. Ms Chastain, above, with relatively short screen time, comes through once again. There is little, it would seem, that this actress cannot do. Mr Morgan, below, is indelible in his decency, courage and confusion. Only Mr. Worthington, shown at bottom, can't quite manage to loosen up enough to let us see much of what might be going on inside him. This works to some extent because we understand that this is why his relationship with Ms Chastain's character (yes, they were an item) came to naught. Still, I wish this guy, as an actor, was not so continually closed up.

In the supporting cast -- really, the entire movie seems like a large ensemble piece -- each role is handled well, especially those of the actors who play Ms Moretz's family members (Sheryl Lee, James Hébert and Stephen Graham) as well, as those who play characters in the extended black family, one of whom appears to be a prime suspect. Ms Mann's movie draws on documentary techniques, but of the artful sort (like this week's Bombay Beach) rather than the more standard stuff. Consequently her movie apes life a lot more closely than has done almost any other serial killer film I can can recall (including, in fact, Zodiac).

Texas Killing Fields is certainly not perfect, but it's an auspicious near-debut (Mann's first full-length film, Morning, appears to have hardly been seen, outside of Greece!), so she should be quite proud of her accomplishment. The movie (with a running time of 105 minutes), from Anchor Bay Films, opens today, October 14, in New York at the IFC Center and the AMC Empire 25.  According to the film's web site, it will be coming soon to Landmark theaters in the Los Angeles and Chicago areas, as well.