That internationally famous, uber-popular book is back again in Marjoleine Boonstra's THE MIRACLE OF THE LITTLE PRINCE

If you are an adherent of The Little Prince, the book by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry first published in 1943, to the point that you find this little tome to contain just about everything the world needs in terms of guidance, philosophy and ideas to live by, then this new documentary by Marjoleine Boonstra entitled THE MIRACLE OF THE LITTLE PRINCE will probably be quite up your (along with lots and lots of other people's) alley. After all, The Little Prince is said to be second only to The Bible in its popularity and the number of languages -- 375 -- into which it has been translated.

Ms Boonstra, shown at left, has gotten the idea to show us four of these cultures/languages that are currently in danger of disappearing, along with how Saint-Exupéry's novella is helping them to survive.

These languages would be Tamazight, spoken by the Berbers of Morocco; Nahuat, spoken by the Pipil of El Salvador; the Sami and their language of Northern Scandinavia; and Tibetan, the language spoken in Tibet (as long as those Chinese overlords don't hear you).

So we spend maybe 20 to 25 minutes in each of these locations, learning a bit about the people, their history and language, watching them read (from The Little Prince, of course) during which we hear some of Saint-Exupéry's verbiage. And in each of the locations (at least three out of four that I noticed) we catch sight of a child, usually in the background but still quite obvious, who is pretty clearly meant to stand in for that Little Prince (herewith to be signified as TLP).

And that's pretty much it. To call this movie slow would be to find a snail speedy, while to try to gain much more from the documentary than the notion that, yes, the famous book has served to help preserve these languages will prove difficult. Boonstra is unable to make any more thorough or specific connections that might pull us in more forcefully or creatively. Still, perhaps this will be enough for TLP lovers.

Along the way, we do learn an oddball thing or two -- most interestingly how to pack up three sheep and carry them on a motorcycle and that the Nahuat language has no specific word for rose -- and some of the settings, particularly the desert and El Salvador, look majestic or verdant, though Paris, where our Tibetan now resides thanks to the Chinese take-over, doesn't look nearly as lovely as usual.

Toward the end there is a very odd dead-bird story, and by the finale, you will see how the lessons of TLP can be applied here, as just about everywhere else. That's the point, I suppose. My question, after finishing The Miracle of The Little Prince (and of course, yes, it must be nothing less than a "miracle," right?) is how this movie ever got made, let alone how it managed to find a distributor.

From Film Movement, running 89 minutes, and in French, Tibetan, Tamazight, Sami and Nahuat with English subtitles, the film opens this Wednesday, August 28, in New York City for a one-week engagement at Film Forum. A couple more playdates are now scheduled; click here and scroll down to view them.

Movie of the Year? Of the decade? David Robert Mitchell's UNDER THE SILVER LAKE

Thoroughly dividing critics and audiences alike (on Rotten Tomatoes, the movie has a score of 56% from the critics, 60% from the audience), UNDER THE SILVER LAKE has given TrustMovies his most all-out enjoyable cinema experience of the year so far. Now out on home video -- Bluray, DVD and digital -- this is a film I think you really must give a shot.

Written and directed by David Robert Mitchell, shown at right, whose earlier efforts The Myth of the American Sleepover (one of the best and most graceful and surprising teen movies I've seen) and It Follows (a somewhat over-rated horror effort that proved at least original and had a very good first half), this one is Mitchell's best so far, and I wager that the 44-year-old filmmaker has a lot more to give us in his time ahead.

What makes Under the Silver Lake so special? A whole lot of things, starting with its Los Angeles/Silver Lake reservoir locale. I grew up around there and so know it well, and the movie made me feel simultaneously at home and as though, just like its hero, I'd fallen into a rabbit hole leading to wonderland.

Whether by choice or instinct, Mr. Mitchell consistently butts up the ordinary against the bizarre. Realistic details lead to anything but, while the fantastic ends up in something utterly mundane. (My favorite moment is the long, mysterious tunnel that leads our hero to a... nah: You gotta find out for yourself.) The effect is alternately alarming and delightful -- and consistently amusing. I had a smile on my face almost throughout.

Watching Under the Silver Lake is like discovering David Lynch on antidepressants and in a very good mood. Sure, this movie deals with everything from awful cults to a dog murderer on the loose, and still that smile refuses to leave your face. This also has to do with the wonderful young actor Mitchell has cast as his lead: Andrew Garfield (two photos up and below).

Since Boy A, back in 2007, I think I've seen every movie Garfield has made, and even when I thought the film mostly sucked (Silence), he never did. What a face this guy has. Those huge and immersive big-brown-eyes draw you in and hold you in thrall, and the actor is versatile enough to try all kinds of roles. His lean, lithe body, which we see just about all of in the course of the movie, is a big bonus, too. Mr. Garfield appears in, I believe, every scene of this movie, and -- to paraphrase one of his best films -- he never lets you go.

The actor plays Sam, a not particularly likeable, aging young man -- 33 and seeming to have not the least idea what to do with his, so far, pointless little life -- who spots a pretty blond named Sarah (Riley Keough, below) poolside in his apartment complex, and quickly gets to know -- and fuck -- her very briefly before, the next morning, she has disappeared, along with literally everything (almost) that was in her apartment the night before. Hmmmm... mystery.

The rest of the movie is devoted to Sam's relentless search for Sarah, which leads him into one bizarre situation after another. These grows loonier and tunier, finally culminating in a kind of wonderful closure during which Mitchell gives us his moral -- which could not be simpler nor more profound. This moral ends, if I am not mistaken, with the word "right?" and if I am also not mistaken, our hero hears this and actually considers it.
(We all should, by the way.)

Mitchell's denouement is as lovely and rich as what has come before, featuring sex, a parrot, and in the very last shot a quietly unobtrusive reference to another shot we've seen several times previous and which now suddenly resonates quite differently -- because it has happened to someone we care about. Mitchell doesn't spell any of this out, however. But it's there nonetheless (unless I am way off base in my conclusions, but I would prefer to think not).

For me this writer/director has made a marvelous kind of scavenger/Easter-egg hunt in which we -- and Sam-- really do find the prize. Other critics have suggested that there is no "there" there, but I think they are dead wrong. Were they asleep? But how could they be at a movie that is this much fun?

Along the way, there are so damned many visual and audio treats -- sets that zing, music that sings, fashions that will make you oooh, aaah and giggle -- that you'll probably want to see the whole thing again, just to be able to finally take it all in. (Janet Gaynor fans will plotz.)

For the many movie references alone -- from Pitfall and Land of the Pharaohs to Something's Got to Give -- film buffs will enjoy things, but if you're not inclined toward this sort of game-playing, don't worry. You can easily appreciate the movie for its delightful plot and satisfying resolution. Alone, for the gorgeous, frightening, knockout scene in which Sam and the character played by Callie Hernandez (above, left) actually go into/under Silver Lake, this movie is worth all of its two hours and 20 minutes.

Released by A24 and playing in theaters for a limited time this past April, Under the Silver Lake is now available in Blu-ray, DVD and digital streaming. You have no excuse for not giving it a try. (That's the funny, mysterious Grace van Patten with balloon, above.)

MABOROSI: Early, much-loved movie from Hirokazu Kore-eda gets Blu-ray/DVD debut

I first encountered the work of Japanese filmmaker Hirokazu Kore-eda (shown below) via his marvelous After Life, a bizarre, philosophic and enchantingly original riff on the post-death experience. Since then I've seen each of his subsequent films (those released here in the USA, at least) and enjoyed every one of them. Yet the movie that brought him to international attention -- MABOROSI, his first narrative film released in 1995, three years prior to After Life -- I am only now catching up with, due to its at last getting a Blu-ray/DVD release, thanks to Milestone Films.

The film is worth the wait. Not surprisingly Maborosi, which refers to a kind of strange light sometimes seen at sea, deals with so many of the themes that are clearly important to its director: family, loss, love and responsibility. Even more interestingly, TrustMovies thinks, is that fact that all these themes are dealt with in a manner even more graceful, subtle and quiet than in any of Hirokazu's later films (which are themselves pretty graceful, subtle and quiet).

While the director usually writes his original screenplays (or occasionally bases one on a manga), with Maborosi, he worked from a screenplay by Yoshihita Ogita (adapted from the novel by Teru Miyamoto). Whether he was deliberately more careful in adhering to the screenplay or it simply worked out this way, his movie is almost exquisitely calm, composed, placid and beautiful.

In telling a tale of disappearance and death, family and obligation, the director makes a rare visual poetry out of loss, grief and only very painful, difficult renewal.

Beginning with the disappearance of a much loved grandmother (above) and then all too soon the apparent suicide of a beloved husband and best friend (below), our heroine, Yumiko (Makiko Esumi), barely able to shoulder the co-responsibility of caring for a young child before her loss, now is forced to do it all nearly alone.

Still, new life beckons, and Yumiko accepts it, as a new husband and his daughter joins her and her little son, bringing them to a small, strange and beautiful -- if pretty desolate -- seaside town.

The movie relies even more on its visuals than on its rather sparse dialog to guide us along, and because those visuals are so beautifully composed (the cinematography is by Nasao Nakabori), we follow effortlessly. And though we are told of those illusory seafaring lights, the film itself is so full of odd, dark and beautiful lighting effects (as above and below) that it very nearly becomes its own "Maborosi."

Our heroine (as well as we viewers) wants nothing more than explanation. We expect that things -- important things -- will be revealed. Nothing ever is. Perhaps that is the point: Nothing conclusive can be revealed.

Yes, the past is always present and always will be -- until memory leaves us. The point is not allowing that past to engulf us but rather moving ahead. All of the filmmaker's work seems to underscore this. The beauty and poetry he gives us in the process is what makes that work so special.

From The Milestone Cinematheque and running 110 minutes. Maborosi arrives on Blu-ray/DVD  this coming Tuesday, July 10 -- for purchase and (I hope) rental.

Blu-ray/DVDebut: WAKEFIELD -- Robin Swicord's take on the E. L. Doctorow story

The idea of WAKEFIELD -- both the movie (directed and adapted by Robin Swicord, shown below, from the short story by E.L.Doctorow) and the Doctorow story itself -- is such a strong and original one that I think it would be difficult for any intelligent middle-class reader or viewer not to be drawn in by it. A relatively successful corporate drone on his way home from work one evening encounters first a problem with his commuter train's inability to proceed (in the short story, it is the accidental uncoupling of the train car in which he is seated) and finally arrives in his town only to discover that an electrical blackout has occurred.

Once he reaches his house, instead of proceeding inside to greet his wife and daughters, without anyone noticing, he goes up and into the attic room located atop the garage across from the house. Why? Both film and short story make it clear that Howard Wakefield is an intelligent but unhappy man and not a very good or kind one, either (at least in the more conventional meaning of those words). His marriage is certainly in trouble, so perhaps he needs some time alone to figure it all out. Whatever: Howard decides to take that time, which stretches from mere hours into days, weeks and months alone in his little attic storeroom by day, while scavenging for food and other needs by night.

After viewing this film, which TrustMovies found interesting enough, certainly, but not as compelling as he had hoped it might be, he decided to read the short story (which you can find here). Doctorow's Wakefield takes less than half as long to read as does Ms Swicord's version (at 106 minutes) does to view. And while the character of Howard narrates both, because the movie's POV allows us to see what Howard sees, rather than simply hearing his words, our experience is now much broader and encompassing.

Some viewers might find this more interesting, if expected, but Swicord's version does two things that detract from the original: It takes you, to some rather large extent, out of the mind of Mr. Wakefield, while allowing you to form our own judgment of what he (and now you) see; and it absolutely softens Wakefield's character so that you can imagine that this man's time alone has perhaps helped him to change for the better. The story itself offers none of the latter. For instance, in Doctorow's original our guy refers to the Down Syndrome children next door as "retards." But, oh, my, not in the movie. The whole tone of Wakefield's narration in Doctorow's version is drier and more "entitled."

And while the ending of both story and movie is almost exactly the same, the movie offers, yes, quite a bit more possibility of hope. Perhaps this is simply the difference between Ms Swicord's reading of the original and my own. Certainly the performance of Bryan Cranston in the title role (shown, above, in his middle class mode and, below, in the gone-to-seed version) is exemplary, as this actor most often is.

Jennifer Garner (below and two photos up) also proves credible as the wife, but because what we see of her and all the others here comes from Howard's viewpoint, the movie remains pretty much a one-man show. To her credit, Swicord stays remarkably close to the original regarding the various incidents that pile up along the way. But Doctorow kept us closed into the mind of his man; Swicord lets us wander too much. Still, I'd have to recommend Wakefield, the movie, simply because the idea here is so fascinating, while the execution, if flawed, is at least good enough to carry us along. If you have the time, however, I'd highly recommend reading that original, too.

Released theatrically via IFC Films, the combo DVD and Blu-ray pack arrives on home video from Shout Factory this coming Tuesday, August 1 -- for purchase and/or rental.