Heat waves -- and whom they affect -- in Judith Helfand's history/documentary, COOKED: SURVIVAL BY ZIP CODE

The film begins with a "natural" disaster -- the summer-of-1995 heat wave that hit Chicago and killed hundreds of people -- and then quickly moves to make us understand how the particular choice (and, yes, it was a long-gestating choice) of exactly which people would die was anything but "natural." 

Adapted from the book, Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago by sociologist and urban studies author Eric Klinenberg (shown at left).  COOKED: SURVIVAL BY ZIP CODE tackles not just heat waves, hurricanes, and other natural disasters but why these always seem to first kill folk from low-income, non-white neighborhoods, along with why "disaster preparedness" seminars and demonstrations prepare mostly wealthy white enclaves for survival. 

As directed by Peabody award-winner Judith Helfand (shown at right), Cooked brings to screen life Klinenberg's hugely important book. with interviews with both the citizens who suffered through these traumatic events and some of the policy-makers and folk in charge of the  supposed survival mechanisms in place to protect us all. It is not a pretty picture.

One of the great strengths of ths film is how Klinenberg and Helfand use history and statistics (from as far back as the early 1940s) to show us how injustices such as redlining prevented non-white citizens from obtaining bank loans and thus owning real estate, as did their white brethren.

Cooked was filmed prior to our current pandemic and prior to the death of George Floyd (and so many others) that seem now to have at least somewhat broadened the understanding and changed the attitude of a larger portion of America's white population. Still, to see and hear Helfand asking direct questions of these in-charge men and women, and to see how her interviewees pause, look away, and either make excuses or practically outright say,"Well, yes, but good luck with trying to change any of this," is alternately shocking and deadening. 

Perhaps now, with all that has happened in and to our country over the past year, we might be able to look forward to actual change finally arriving. Meanwhile, we have all the evidence we need of its urgency and importance. Early on in the film, I think it was Klinenberg who points out how so much of how we live and what we are allowed to see and understand has kept the entitled portion of our population "protected and blissfully ignorant."

By the finale of this very important documentary, I suspect you will completely agree with Ms Helfand when she notes "how deeply flawed and immoral our national priorities are."  Cooked, however, is not simply a litany of the horrors. 

Toward the finale, we're on  a food truck bringing fresh produce into a neighborhood  without any proper venues for healthy food shopping. An older teenage boy comes aboard the bus and is cajoled into eating -- for the first time in his life, he tells us -- a raw apple. He finally does, and... gosh, it's pretty tasty! This scene is so unusual, so moving, and actually almost shocking that you may ask yourself, When did you eat your first apple? Can you imagine not having even the opportunity to actually eat one until you were very nearly a young adult? Probably not. But now you'll consider what this might feel like. And if you have any further doubts, as does Lindsey Graham, about the systemic racism plaguing our country, maybe it's time to simply resign from the Senate -- or the human race. 

From Bullfrog Films, distributed by Icarus Films and available on DVD in two different versions: an 82-minute version with SDH English captions and a 54-minute PBS version with SDH English captions (I watched the 82-minute version, which I would thoroughly recommend), Cooked can be purchased (and I hope, rented, too) now. Click here for more information.

The Black experience--from slavery onwards--is captured rather amazingly by Jeffrey Wolf's unusual documentary about an outsider artist, BILL TRAYLOR: CHASING GHOSTS

 Bill Traylor, the subject of the new documentary BILL TRAYLOR: CHASING GHOSTS, was already 86 years old back in 1941, the year that TrustMovies, the fellow who is writing this review, was born. Mr. Traylor himself was born in Alabama as a slave in 1853 (that's how far back this doc goes), and yet his art -- however you might describe it: "outsider" "folk" or "primitive" -- also resonates as surprisingly contemporary, if also somewhat befuddling. Traylor's story, however -- his history, his life and his art career -- resonates without a bit of that befuddlement.

The film's director, Jeffrey Wolf (shown at left), and its writer, Fred Barron, have put together in a mere 75 minutes, a movie that offers us as fine an example, via the life and work of a single individual, of the Black experience here in the USA as any I've seen. 

Whether this was the original goal of the film or not, I've no idea. But the achievement is certainly there. Of course, no single individual can truly act as a stand-in for an entire race. But, boy, does Mr. Traylor come close, thanks to the splendid archival footage, including interviews with folk long dead and some still alive -- especially, eventually, generations of the progeny of Mr. Traylor.

Bill Traylor: Chasing Ghosts is primarily about this man's art, which has, since the late 1970s and early 1980s, been recognized by the art establishment as significant. (MOMA, ever the sleazy institution, actually tried, via its then director, to purchase a chunk of  Traylor's art in the early 1940s at a ridiculously low price.) 

We view plenty of this art (shown above and below) during the course of the film -- enough, actually, to be able to form our own conclusions about it. For me, the art is fascinating in its simplicity, even if its meaning proves more elusive than anything else. Instead, it is the life of this man -- as a slave who was greatly appreciated by his original "owner," so much so that that owner, the head of the "white" Traylor family, made certain that the further care of the black Traylor family was provided for in his will -- that resonates most strongly.

As one of the many highly intelligent and thoughtful narrators points out early on, as horrible as slavery was, "it had plenty of 'gray' areas, rather than always being, no pun intended, something black and white." These black and white Traylors were one such instance, as Bill Traylor and his family continued to work for the white Traylors for 40 years after slavery had been abolished -- and only left, once the white family was taken over by a particularly unjust Traylor offspring.

We see how Traylor's art came about, and how the man (shown above and below) -- quite the womanizer -- came to sire perhaps 20 offspring, all of whom he managed to care for as well as he could, while living and working during slavery, reconstruction, the Jim Crow south and beyond. 

Talk about a "survivor"! 

Once we meet the generations that came after him, while seeing and understanding how his art slowly accrued its reputation, we're simply amazed and ever more appreciative of his accomplishments. Bill Traylor: Casing Ghosts turns out to be a wonderful memorial to a man, his art and to a time long gone that has now been returned to us via this unusual and remarkable movie.

From Kino Lorber and running 75 minutes, the documentary opens tomorrow, Friday, April 16, in New York City at Film Forum, and the in Los Angeles area at Laemmle theaters, as well as elsewhere around the country. Click here and scroll down to view all currently scheduled playdates, cities and theatres (virtual or otherwise).                                                                          

Adieu to Bertrand Tavernier; bonjour to the home video debut of his splendid follow-up series, JOURNEYS THROUGH FRENCH CINEMA

 

Copyright: Jean Luc Mège Collection Institut Lumiere

Viewing JOURNEYS THROUGH FRENCH CINEMA -- the eight-hour/eight-part series that acts as a kind of follow-up to Bertrand Tavernier's wondrous documentary, My Journey Through French Cinema from 2016 -- and having that viewing interrupted by the news of M. Tavernier's death turned the experience into something else entirely. Knowing that we will have no more from this fellow who proved himself a fine filmmaker and film historian who, over his long career, managed everything from publicity to criticism to on occasion even making certain a film received distribution, I should think that cineasts worldwide are in mourning.

On the other hand, surely this is also a time of rejoicing and celebrating all that Tavernier has given us, from films such as Safe Conduct and Captain Conan to this latest and (I am guessing) last major effort that covers all the things he left out of his original, three-hour-and-21-minute-long documentary. 

As in the former film, the new series proves just as much a very personal trip that highlights Tavernier's own preferences and judgments. And yet, so inclusive, honest yet rigorous is this man that, even as he points out some faults in various filmmakers, he is also able to show us their special strengths, along with why certain films -- or scenes from them -- still act as important landmarks along the path.

The series -- on two discs -- is divided into eight episodes, each one just a minute or two under a full hour.  Episode One covers three of Tavernier's favorite filmmakers: Jean Grémillon, Max Ophuls and Henri Decoin, and his assessment will have you seeking out the work of Grémillon, while Decoin's, as he explains, proves a good deal more than merely commercial. (You'll certainly already know the films of Ophuls.)

Episode Two includes two more of his favorites: Sacha Guitry and Marcel Pagnol -- mine, too! -- both of whom have been out of favor critically for far too long, along with Jacques Tati and Robert Bresson, who have not. No matter where you stand on the work of these guys, Tavernier's visuals and commentary will enrich your understanding. This section also includes a lovely shout-out to the importance of a good producer.

 Julien Duvivier and music in cinema are the subjects of Episode Three, and our narrator offers a wonderful appreciation of what music can and has done for French film, as well as a fine and surprisingly full look at much of the work of this under-appreciated filmmaker. (There's an interesting comparison of the French and American versions of the Pépé le Moko story (aka Algiers here in the USA.) 

One of the fascinating sections is Episode Four, which deals with pre-World War II foreign directors in France (and how the French film industry was so very set against them:  The "French resistance" takes on a whole new meaning here), cinema during the period of Nazi occupation, and finally the postwar period. One of the funniest of Tavernier's many charming anecdotes involves Jack Valenti, the quota for American films shown in France during this time, and how a portion of ticket sales from these went to support the French film industry.

From Occupation to The New Wave (Episode Five) covers filmmakers such as Claude Autant-Lara, René Clément and Henri Georges Clouzot. The final and beautiful monologue about the filmmaking profession ends with a description of the director that is as poetic, succinct and brilliant as anything you'll have heard.

Forgotten Filmmakers (Episode Six) includes the work of Raymond Bernard (you'll want to see Wooden Crosses after this!), Maurice Tourneur (get a load of Maurice Chevalier in With a Smile) and Anatole Litvak (whose films made both in France and America are ripe for rediscovery).

Episode Seven, Underrated Directors, offers up filmmakers like Jean Vallée (who, according to Tavernier, gave us the first French film in color!), Pierre Chenal (he directed Native Son!) and Henri Calef, (whose The Hour of Truth does something original and powerful with The Holocaust), none of whom TrustMovies was familiar with, so this section, too, proved unmissable. However, the rather paltry section on French female filmmakers is no fault of Tavernier, who points out that, no matter how small the amount of woman filmmakers had been prior to Agnès Varda -- only five! -- this was still more women directors in film than there were high-level women in French politics at this same time.

The finale Episode, number eight, deals with Tavernier himself and his various jobs within the film industry. Some of this we've seen and heard previously, but his work as press agent under Pierre Rissient makes for some delightful remembrances, including how the pair worked with directors such as Jacques Deray, José Giovanni and Yves Boisset. The film ends with a lovely appreciation of Alain Resnais and then, surprise!, Christian-Jaque. I wish there were more.

From Cohen Media Group and Kino Lorber, Journeys Through French Cinema is available now on DVD and Blu-ray. Digital streaming? Yes: Click here for more info. It's a bit expensive to see the entire series ($20), but it's worth the price. This is too good a trip to pass up.

An original amazement to be cherished: Frank Beauvais' JUST DON'T THINK I'LL SCREAM

Not only have I never seen anything like this movie, I have also never seen a film in which the narrator seems to have so incredibly much in common with me: How I think and feel about so very many things, from politics and protest to culture and movies, life, love and death. And that's for starters. 

TrustMovies also must admit that Frank Beauvais (shown at right), the writer and director of JUST DON'T THINK I'LL SCREAM (Ne croyez surtout pas que je hurle) is one hell of a lot younger, brighter and better-spoken than am I. Still, this man's sensibility seem so close to my own that I was hooked on his amazing one-off of a movie from his very first words and their accompanying images. He held me in thrall for the following 75 minutes, as well. 

These are not exactly his images, by the way. No, he's cribbed them from the 400 movies he managed to watch during the time, back in 2016, when he moved from Paris  to a tiny town in the Alsace region.  They are mostly generic-looking images that work well with his narration and move at a very fast pace, so don't even try to identify the films from which they come. 

Only a single of these images immediately stood out to me, one from the 1953 horror movie in 3D, The Maze (above), by which I was greatly charmed and scared as a twelve-year-old kid. Otherwise, the images speed past in very nearly a blur, due unfortunately to my not being able to understand French, and so my eye remained on the almost constant English subtitles which (excellently, I suspect) translate M. Beauvais' lovely, graceful, sad and angry words. (No movie I've ever seen has more made me wish that I could speak and understand the French language.)

Just Don't Think I'll Scream details our hero's life (and this guy is indeed a hero, so far as I'm concerned), after his current relationship is severed and he moves to a town so cut off from just about everything that Beauvais, who does not drive, effectively becomes a kind of house-bound hermit, keeping up with world news, watching his movies, and tackling a few other projects. 

Early on he explains to us that as he continues watching all these movies, "the films are no longer windows; they're mirrors." We learn something of his mom, who lives in a nearby village and whom he dearly loves, and of his late father, from whom he was estranged. Among the thoughtful and precise little gems of information he drops along the way is how one's possessions can so easily becomes a kind of Stockholm Syndrome. 

What seems particularly strange and prescient is how this little film, the events of which took place back in 2016, was cobbled together long before the entry of Covid19 into our world. Yet in its exploration of isolation and the need for digital entertainment, it seems in some ways the perfect reflection of our current time. (The end credits, by the way, list every single film from which a still has been used.)

Perhaps I am dead wrong about my having so much in common with M. Beauvais. Instead, it may be that his stunning combination of narration and "found" film visuals is merely one of the best explorations of "character" I have yet encountered. In any case, as "partial" autobiographies go, this movie is nonpareil, as the French might say.

From KimStim, in French with English subtitles and running just 75 minutes, Just Don't Think I'll Scream opens virtually at Film Forum in New York City and at 15 other virtual theaters across the country tomorrow, Friday, January 29. To learn where and how you can view, click here and scroll down. Clearly, the film is not meant for all tastes. But if you possess anything near to Beauvais' particular sensibility, I'd suggest that you're probably a shoo-in viewer.

Lynne Sachs' FILM ABOUT A FATHER WHO breaks new ground in the "family" documentary department

Every year there seem to be a couple (if not more) of new docs that, in telling their strange and troubling stories -- often about a family that the movie-maker is exploring (sometimes his or her own) -- practically cry out, Can you top this?!  2021, which has barely even begun, offers one that pretty much tops them all: FILM ABOUT A FATHER WHO. 

The filmmaker here is Lynne Sachs (shown above), who has spent 35 years -- 1984 through 2019 -- researching, compiling her information and finally turning her film and video into a very compact 74 minutes of footage. That's barely over two minutes per year, yet the result is something for which running-time seems quite beside the point. (Before you start to feel too badly for Ms Sachs, know that she has completed a number of other films over that same time period: Click on her IMDB profile, at the link above). 

All of us, TrustMovies would guess, are at some point in our lives, interested in our parents and their history, however checkered it might be. As Ms Sachs explores this regarding her father Ira Sachs, Sr., shown above and below (her sibling, Jr., is himself a noted filmmaker: Leave the Lights On, Love Is Strange), she learns more and more that becomes so increasingly jaw-dropping that you will eventually have to pick that body part up from the floor. Ms Sachs also explores, to a lesser extent, the history of her mother and grandmother. But it's Dad who's key here. 

To even try to explain what we learn in this film would be to give away the entire store, as it were. Really: once the film gets going, a new spoiler crops up literally every few minutes. Eventually you will find yourself asking, Who the fuck is this man?, and it's clear that his offspring have all asked themselves the same question plenty of times over the years. In terms of film-making technique, Sachs has assembled her footage -- archival to near-present-day, with interviews conducted all along the way -- pretty much in the necessary manner to allow that "mystery of identity" to reveal itself, play out as it needs to, and still, yes, remain something of a mystery. 

According to her IMDB resume, Sachs explores "the intricate relationship between personal observations and broader historical experiences by weaving together poetry, collage, painting, politics and layered sound design," and she is "strongly committed to a dialogue between cinematic theory and practice."  In Film About A Father Who, she gets what I would call a little too creative and artsy once or twice, which, in the context of all we see and hear, simply calls attention to itself and not much more. Fortunately she and her editor Rebecca Shapass concentrate mostly on the faces, words and thoughts of the people we meet, and this is more than enough to keep us in tow.

As the movie came to a close (spoiler ahead: See the film before reading the rest of this paragraph), I found myself thinking that Ira Sachs, Sr., is the absolute and perfect poster boy for vasectomy. Though that, of course, would rob us of his progeny -- all of whom seem like decent enough folk. And, to his credit, the man at least monetarily cared for his offspring. I also would have liked to know, since DNA does count for quite a bit of our heritage, much more about the man named Harry Richman (I believe that's the spelling of the fellow who was our titular father's actual father). But perhaps there was simply no further information available on this guy.

In any case, Film About a Father Who takes its place as a whopping good exploration of family, parentage and parenting, secrets and -- if not outright lies, then some pretty heavy withholding of information. From The Cinema Guild and running 74 minutes, the documentary opens in virtual cinemas nationwide today, Friday, January 15. Click here for more information and venues.

ACASĂ, MY HOME: Radu Ciorniciuc's beautiful, provocative doc opens in virtual theaters

 

The theme of individual freedom against the power of the state only recently received an amusing, thoughtful and emotional workout via the Netflix movie from Italy, Rose Island, and now here it is back again, even more powerfully and movingly explored in the new Romanian documentary, ACASĂ, MY HOME, directed by Radu Ciorniciuc (shown below) who also produced the film and, along with Mircea Topoleanu, handled its often ravishing cinematography.

This "individual vs the state" idea also cropped up rather hugely and nastily here in the USA last week, as those protesters (or, depending on your viewpoint, domestic terrorists) attacked Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. TrustMovies' view of this individual vs state thing often rests on whether those individuals offer a live-and-let-live attitude rather than the inflict-damage-overturn-a-democratic-election-and-maybe-end-some-lives kind of clashing that these deplorable, brainwashed Trump & Fox "News" followers exhibited.

In Acasă, My Home, Mr. Ciorniciuc offers a situation in which a large Romanian family, having lived for years (the kids were born there) in a wild area that will soon become an official nature preserve -- "the largest urban nature park in the European Union!" as one official puts it -- is soon to be "relocated." From the start, as we follow the oldest brother and his young siblings as they fish (by mouth!) and glide over the water, playing with the local wildlife in a near-idyllic, gorgeously photographed paradise, it is clear that this is probably to be a losing battle for the family.

And yet, for the most part, the State seems to be trying to act at least somewhat justly toward the family, and the filmmaker lets us see and understand this -- even though we also know that bureaucracy almost never takes in the individual situation with the nuance and caring that it deserves. And yet, the family's head, a very set-in-his-ways father, is also shown to be too intransigent (there's a brief but devastating scene of "book-burning" midway along that will bring you up short). 

Ciorniciuc allows us to consider both the pros and the cons of "civilization" and, once the family is moved into its new quarters inside the city, we experience these ups and downs with them as their lives move ahead. All this is handled with such finesse and understanding that you might imagine the filmmaker had spent his life doing documentaries, yet this is but his first attempt. He plays fair, it seems to me, with everyone. Clearly, he managed to gain the trust of this family, as well as of the various bureaucrats with whom he and the family had to deal, and they, too, appear to have been fairly considered.

Early on we get one of those breath-taking surprise shots that shows, with a shock, nature and civilization, side by side, while at the nature preserve, we meet the Prime Minister, a female government minister, and even England's own Prince Charles. Later, in town, we get a little local prejudice and some police brutality. "Someone call the police!" is screamed out at one point, followed by (and spoken by the brutalizers) "We are the police!" Oh, right. Finally and just barely, the filmmaker takes us, with only a little kicking and screaming via the eldest brother, into the next generation.

Toward the end of this "family moves from the country to the city" saga, I was put in mind of Visconti's great narrative melodrama Rocco and His Brothers. Acasă, My Home is that powerful and meaningful. What it might lack in narrative plot, drive and force, it makes up in breadth, scope and good old-fashioned documentary realism. And it is so very beautiful -- in its generous images of people and place -- as to be both exemplary and memorable. 

From Zeitgeist Films and Kino Lorber, in Romanian with English subtitles, and running just 86 minutes, the documentary hits virtual  theaters this Friday, January 15. Click here and scroll down for more information on the film and the venues in which you can view it.

France, surrogacy and a pair of gay would-be parents in Jonathon Narducci's lovely doc, GHOSTS OF THE RÉPUBLIQUE

Who knew? But I supposed we ought to have been able to figure it out: France, that storied land of liberté, égalité, fraternité proves not quite that if you're gay. And god help you if you want to be a parent and perhaps use a surrogate. Initially, the title of the new film, GHOSTS OF THE RÉPUBLIQUE, sounded to me like some French political documentary, and it turns out to be exactly that. But hardly in the manner I had imagined. 

Surrogacy is illegal in France, and the film's title actually refers to the offspring of a surrogate mother, who, when that child is brought back to France by his French parents, is refused French citizenship. France is still, it would seem, far too Catholic a country. And God, as we all know, absolutely condemns surrogacy. Oy.

The movie's very able director, Jonathon Narducci (shown at right) is not making a case for the wonders of (or how wonderful is) surrogacy. In fact, he includes a hefty section of the film in which a woman fighting against this practice explains the various reasons why she feels it is not healthy. 

Adoption by gay or lesbian parents, though not illegal in France, has certainly not been made easy, and what happens when a gay couple would like one member's sperm to be involved in the birth? So, yes, surrogacy. And that's the journey -- from France to Las Vegas and back again several times -- on which Mr. Narducci and his several heroes and heroines take us.

TrustMovies cannot imagine any better subjects than the gay couple -- Nicolas and Aurelien (shown above and below) -- together with their quite lovely egg donor (Diana, above, right) and surrogate (Crystal, below, right). One of the things we learn from the film is why it is less problematic to have the egg donor and surrogate as separate women. When so many things, from the state itself to the rigors and risks involved in pregnancy (let alone surrogacy), seem to conspire against the best outcome, the road ahead is pretty fraught.

Since every last publicity photo available (include even the poster image) doubles as a spoiler, I must apologize in advance. Still, the journey is a fascinating and very moving one. These are people you'll come to know and love every bit as much as you would in any lengthy narrative movie. 

As a bisexual man who was lucky enough have had a child with his first wife, and who grew up in a time when the very idea of gay marriage seemed utterly impossible -- prison and/or shock treatments were the "remedies" for homosexuality in my coming-of-age era -- I would have found the idea of gay marriage, let alone parenting and surrogacy, ridiculously far-fetched. 

Yet Ghosts of the République makes it all seem not simply real but pretty damned wonderful. It would be salutary to learn, in a few years' time, how all of the parties involved feel then about the whole process. In the meantime, we, as they, can exult in the glories of the here and now. The world, including France, has a long way to go toward real liberté, égalité and fraternité. But it is worth acknowledging that we seem to have come quite a distance already.

From Gravitas Ventures and running just 81 minutes, the documentary arrived on VOD and streaming venues last week and is available for purchase and/or rental nearly everywhere now. Click here and scroll down to see many of the current venues. (This documentary, by the way is both narrated and executive-produced by gay activist and writer Dan Savage.)