Chinese noir about trust, truth and reward money: Diao Yinan's THE WILD GOOSE LAKE

Beginning with a look at the youthful criminal underworld of China (as it learns how to steal motorcycles), against a backdrop of the country's venal and stupid over-development of the housing market (one scene even takes place against a mural of a would-be new community gone bust), THE WILD GOOSE LAKE proves a consistently fascinating trip along the underbelly of the nation that has given us, among other things, Chairman Mao and the Corona Virus. As you might imagine, it ain't a pretty sight. It'll easily hold your attention, however.

The writer/director here is Diao Yinan (shown at right), who co-wrote the sweet, funny, moving Shower some 21 years ago. You could hardly ask for a more different movie -- in tone, genre, attitude and maturity -- than this new one, which you might call all about theft, drugs and rock-'n-roll (without much of the rock-'n-roll, though there is an oddball group dance number midway along).

One character here makes reference to "the Olympic Games of Theft," and while the theft is not up to that level, it certainly is an interesting example because, for quite awhile, we're not even certain what is being stolen let alone how and why. When we find out, the answer is pretty damned dark -- as befits a good neo-noir, which The Wild Goose Lake certainly is.

The film's style is to pile on flashback after flashback, sometimes within each other. Yet thanks to the filmmaker's smart sense of how to track time, place and event, he allows his audience to keep up surprisingly easily. Its main characters are the mid-level criminal, Zhou, played by Hu Ge, who is, as his name might suggest, a huge attraction in China. He's gorgeous, sexy, charismatic and not especially versatile, given that he offers up a variety of one and one-half expressions during the entire film. Never mind: he gets the job done.

After a surprise beheading of a young associate, Zhou (accidentally, he says) kills a cop and spends the remainder of the film being hunted down, even as he tries to re-bond with his woman Shujun (the delicate Wan Qian, above), while staying out of the clutches of the new girl in town (Gwei Lun-mei, below), the motives of whom remain ever just-out-of-reach.

Add to this a passel of lesser (or maybe greater) criminals also intent on getting the prize (which only slowly reveals itself) that Zhou holds, including some cops only marginally less corrupt than our criminals, led by a Captain (Liao Fan, below) who may be a tad less venal than the rest of his crew.

The movie boasts one big action scene toward the beginning (below), and not really another until the climax, at which point the most ruthless perpetrator is finally revealed. However, that final action scene is so dense, bloody and brutal that it should knock you into submission, as well as knock your socks off. (It boasts the most original dual use of an umbrella that I can recall, and this is not merely as a weapon.)

By the denouement, The Wild Goose Lake finally offers its first glimmer of hope amidst near-total negativity. Up to then its portrait of low-end Chinese society is utterly damning. Trust is mentioned more than once in the movie, yet few we see deserve it. Ah, China -- the other equally hypocritical superpower, as Communism tries to go Capitalist! Good luck with that.

From Film Movement, running 111 minutes, and in Chinese with English subtitles, the movie opens tomorrow, Friday, March 6, in New York City at Film Forum, followed by a Los Angeles run at several Laemmle theaters and at the Alamo Drafthouse Downtown, beginning March 13. Here in Boca Raton, it will not open until April 17 at our Living Room Theaters. To view all currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters, click here and scroll down.  

A CIAMBRA: Blu-ray/DVD debut for Jonas Campignano's docu-like tale of Romani in Italy

Laden with awards and nominations -- from international festivals and in its own country of Italy via the David Di Donatellos, the Italian version of our "Oscars" -- and also greeted with enthusiasm when it opened theatrically here in the USA earlier this year, A CIAMBRA (so named for an unfinished housing development and neighborhood, shown two photos below, occupied for some years now by a community of Romani people in the Calabria region of Southern Italy) is a hybrid documentary-style narrative film in which an enormous (and real) Romani family, all playing themselves, help tell the tale of one of its younger members, a teenager named Pio, who wants more than anything to become a criminal just like his weirdly adored older asshole brother.

As written and directed by Jonas Campignano (shown at right, of Mediterranea), the movie fairly reeks of reality. You could not ask for anything more "honest" -- from the performances (not simply "warts and all" but "warts and more warts") to the screenplay and dialog (which is noticeably sparse and seems quite believable) and direction and camera-work (by Tim Curtin) that could hardly be more immersive and on-the-mark.

The movie shows us the plight of the Romani in Italy as third-class (if that) citizens, barely a cut above -- in the eyes of the "real" Italians -- those black African immigrants who also flood the area. A Ciambra neither glamorizes nor in any way idealizes its protagonists; in fact, it shows them to be, in many cases, their own worst enemy -- dreaming of a more "romantic," on-the-move past, while doing little (except theft) to address the needs of the present, let alone the future.

And yet the movie itself is paced so slowly, with a plot as obvious and predictable in its own way as any Hollywood sit-com, that it quickly becomes a slough and a real ordeal to have to sit through, given that most viewers with any experience in watching either documentaries or narratives about the "downtrodden" will know exactly where it's going and pretty much how it will get there, too.

Fortunately, the film has as its leading actor a young name named Pio Amato (above), who has at least enough charisma to help carry the film along. We experience all that happens through his eyes and mind, and he does make an interesting and very problemed companion for much of the time. He has no interest in anything except becoming a criminal like his brother (Damiano Amato, below), which as he sees it, is the only viable way to help support his hugely extended family.

Along the way, he (sort of) befriends one of the more helpful Africans (Koudous Seihon, below) and a kind of bond is eventually created, tested, and -- in the film's most moving scene -- broken between them.

"Family first," a mantra too often heard in the world, from culture to culture, rears its ugly head and, via a particularly ugly betrayal, our non-hero sees his fondest wish come true. Surprise? Hardly. And at just two minutes short of two full hours, the movie -- with little plot machination other than that of my description above -- often seems endless.

No hope or even possibility of change is offered -- which is most likely on a par with reality, so far as the Romani are concerned. (Their links to the Mafiosi do not help matters.) And while the film takes place in Italy, one suspects the rest of Europe is quite similar -- as would the U.S. be, too, were the Romani to make any real inroads here.

In fact, one wonders if Signore Campignano would not be the right man to visit America, explore the innermost regions of poor, white, racist Trump country, and then make a movie about how these people, via their beliefs and behavior, are sealing their own -- as well as their country's -- death warrant.

From IFC Films and running 118 minutes, A Ciambra arrives on Blu-ray (the transfer is a decent one, and the bonus features plentiful) and DVD tomorrow, Tuesday, July 10 -- for purchase and/or rental.

Sunday Corner with Lee Liberman: Steven Knight's PEAKY BLINDERS -- Our bad men

Today's post is written by our sometimes correspondent, Lee Liberman

PEAKY BLINDERS is the story of a 1920's English gang named for their peaked caps into which razor blades were stuck for cutting enemies. (The real Peaky Blinders are shown below.) It's a better Boardwalk Empire situated in grungy sulfuric Small Heath, Birmingham, between World Wars. I struggled to get into it (not being a gang warfare fan) just to see the charismatic and unusual Irishman Cillian Murphy (above) in the lead with best Brits Tom Hardy, Charlotte Riley, Helen McCrory and Ireland-born/New Zealand-raised Sam Neill in major roles.

Sometimes you run across a gem and this is one -- slow to draw you in but increasing in addictiveness. It reminds one of The Godfather but is not operatic, rather with a grunge punk vibe -- it whines and bangs like the machines of industrial Birmingham, made immediate with its score of plaintive blues and metallic hard and boogie rock. Prolific screen-writer/novelist/director Steven Knight (below, of Dirty Pretty Things, Locke and many more) describes the Birmingham of the period as the workshop of the world, filled with weapons, cars, metal parts, liquor, and other goods for export -- a melting pot of hard men that drew workers from all over the UK. It was Knight's birthplace and the story of his parents' world.

A mix of fact and fiction, Peaky Blinders is novel genre to the Brits who feast on their aristocracy and great literature but not on their gangster past. Like Michael Corleone in The Godfather, Tommy Shelby plans to convert the family's illegal betting (below), protec-tion, and black market rackets into legal busi-nesses. The dirty work proceeds as alliances shift among Gypsy, Jewish, and Italian gangs (Bolshe-viks and IRA too). The returnees from World War I have come back trained killers, suffering from PTSD, marinating in opium, cocaine, whisky -- ready to explode.

Even with the violence, one can get lost in the fathomless blue eyes of Tommy Shelby, whose angel face and self-knowing melts the heart of woman (if not man). The trenches stalk his sleep but his grip is firm on business. If necessary he'll pound a man to death, but he does try hard to avoid violence; this female viewer was sucked right in to Tommy's combine of soft-spoken iron rule and tenderness (almost willing to look the other way at his ruthlessness ).

Aunt Polly ran the gang's gambling business while Tommy and brothers Arthur and John (Paul Anderson, below, and Joe Cole) were at war; she is the family glue -- acted by marvelous Helen McGrory (above, from Harry Potter, Skyfall). Aunt Polly mothers rebellious niece Ada (Sophie Rundle) and the brothers; she's part matriarch, part floozy, part business woman, a deadly shot, disgusted at the violence of her nephews but quick to defend her bad men. (How's this for a power couple: McGrory and real-life spouse Damian Lewis.)

Tommy's nemesis, the vitriolic Major Campbell (Sam Neill, below) is a Belfast secret service officer imported by Winston Churchill, then secretary of state, to recover a shipment of stolen guns in Tommy's accidental possession before they get into the wrong hands (the IRA, for instance).

Campbell's distaste for the Peaky Blinders ratchets up as his sweetly beautiful spy Grace (Annabelle Wallace, below) betrays him by falling in love with Tommy. Campbell seethes: Tommy Shelby is a "murdering, cut-throat, mongrel gangster...a worm who crawls in through your ear..." No wonder. Tommy relentlessly goads Campbell over who dodged the war, who was the war hero, and whom Grace loves. 

Almost cartoonish, their combat has a touch of Warren Beatty's 1990 Dick Tracy vs arch-enemy 'Big Boy' Caprice (Al Pacino). The treacherous Campbell and other characters are over-blown just enough to cut the violence with the comic edge of something approaching camp. But they are still emotionally real -- Knight understands how people talk to each other. "People often say the opposite of what they mean, they repeat themselves constantly," he said in an interview. Knight's ear for real conversation makes his characters stick in your head.

The second series introduces some London based crime figures including Alfie Solomons, a real life Jewish crime boss played by Tom Hardy, magnetic no matter what he does. (His crazy- edged Alfie offers up a seder to die for, above). Hardy's wife, Charlotte Riley, (they met co- starring in PBS's 2009 "Wuthering Heights") plays aristocratic horse trainer, May, who takes on Tommy's horse for race-training and aims to saddle Tommy, too. Tommy leaves us dangling; he loves Grace but she betrayed him and May's world means door-openers for Shelby business.

The series received 6 BAFTA nominations (British Academy of Film and Television Art) and won 2013's Royal Television Society Award for best new series; yes -- it's just plain good. Steven Knight is a master of all parts. Snoop Dog is reported saying that gangs are copying the clothes, and I see Peaky Blinders haircuts on the street. Series 1 and 2 (6 episodes each) are streaming on Netflix now; Series 3 will debut fall, 2015.

Jewelry and justice weave through Pond and Marcolina's LIFE AND CRIMES OF DORIS PAYNE

Talk about movies that get you feeling all kinds of things about their protagonist! THE LIFE AND TIMES OF DORIS PAYNE is one for the books. This short but incisive and nimble little documentary about a famous (infamous is probably the more correct word) elderly black woman jewel thief packs so many ideas, conflicting and otherwise -- about justice, race, friendship and trust -- into its short frame that you'll be glued to the screen, even as you're trying to figure out what you really feel and think regarding this woman.

The directors -- Matthew Pond (below, left) and Kirk Marcolina (below, right) pictured with their elegant and oh-so-unsettling leading lady, now 83 -- clearly have a relationship with their subject. I would guess they even like and enjoy her company (who wouldn't, expect maybe the law enforcement officers who keep arresting her?). Yet what is undoubtedly the movie's key scene, in which Doris "explains" to one of the directors what she "meant" when she clearly lied to him and/or the authorities about her whereabouts at a certain time, we suddenly see before us just how this woman manages to somehow justify herself against all odds, while breaking trust with the very people who are trying to tell her story. This is an amazing few moments, and they become the film's game changer.

And yet... Once we've seen and heard of Doris' history -- both as she tells it and as we hear it from a couple of friends, as well as meeting her son, who seems a chip off the old block but without the class, sass, and skill of his mom, and her daughter, who seems a decent sort, and in fact keeps her face covered so that she cannot be identified from the movie -- making a hard and fast judgment on the woman is not all that easy.
We may feel, as does the judge who must sentence her -- and I don't know that I've ever seen a judge who seems more reluctant and unmoored by what he must do -- every bit as confused and unsettled.

The movie can't help but raise the question of race and the history of blacks in America, but smartly does not "play" the race card, at least not in the sleazy and stupid manner of so many politicians. Doris raises the issue and it is clearly part of what has gone into her own history. But only part.  This woman appears to have a genetic predisposition toward stealing. (Is this possible? Why not?)

Granted, we could spend a good three or four hours on the subject of Doris Payne, her life and work. Yet the 74 minutes Pond and Marcolina give us seem enough to acquaint us with an endearing and very upbeat woman who somehow makes us sad. She also makes us think, and wonder at life and what it gives us, and how we use it.

The Life And Crimes of Doris Payne -- from Films Transit -- opens today in New York City at Film Forum. Elsewhere? I don't know, but maybe you can ask the distributor (see the Films Transit link above). In any case, watch for this one when it finally begins making the rounds of VOD and streaming.

Blu-ray/DVDebut: Giamatti, Rudd & Hawkins brighten Phil Morrison's ALL IS BRIGHT

The beauty and necessity of indie films stars are put on show in this little independent movie that came and went from theaters in the blink of an eye but can now find its place in film-goers' hearts and minds in a very good Blu-ray transfer that hits the street this coming Tuesday, November 19. ALL IS BRIGHT is about thievery and the criminal as-pect, among other movie constants such as family, love, divorce and coming to terms with what's best for your offspring.

As written by Melissa James Gibson (who penned several episodes of cable TV's The Americans this past season) and directed by Phil Morrison (shown at left, of Junebug), the movie is a parable of how to survive our current bleak economic times.

Those talented Pauls, Rudd and Giamatti, play criminal friends who also share a love for the Giamatti character's wife (Amy Landecker) and child (a talented newcomer named Tatyana Richaud). So Giamatti, just out of prison, on parole and needing immediate employment, talks Rudd into letting him replace another worker selling Canadian Christmas trees in New York City. (The scene in which Rudd tells that worker he's not needed, shot from a distance so that we cannot hear any of the dialog, is one of the film's sweetest, saddest and funniest.)

Down in New York City, Giamatti's first sale is to recent Russian immigrant played in fabulous style by that versatile British actress Sally Hawkins (above, right), who brings the movie a much-needed lift whenever she appears. Otherwise, the Pauls (below, with Rudd on the left) argue and sometime fight, finally managing to sell their trees and earn a nice bit of cash, while trying to convince the other that he's the wrong guy to head the family in question.

All Is Bright's a movie of small pleasures. Ace performances from everyone ensures that anyone who appreciates good acting will stick with the film. The writing too, is full of quirk, charm and a relatively high level of beliveability, given the combination of reality and sentimentality that hovers over the situation. Morrison directs in a simple, offhand manner that lets the actors grab the ball and run with it -- which they do at every opportunity (Morrison and Gibson have given them ample).

And that's pretty much it. There is an interesting viewpoint toward criminality here, what it does to our boys and how it comes back to bite them in the ass. There's also a smart look at immigrants in NYC, and at the haves and the have-nots. Nothing too deep, mind you; there is that air of sentimentality I mentioned earlier that comes home to rest at the finale. And yet. The writer and director and their cast manage to finally circumvent this just enough to let us feel the sadness and pain while exulting in the final decision made -- which seem the right one, considering all that we've come to know.

All Is Bright, from Anchor Bay Entertainment and running 107 minutes, is one of those worthwhile independent films that can easily escape notice. So be aware, particularly if you're a fan of this trio of fine performers.