April Sunday Corner with Lee Liberman: The Handmaid’s Tale, Season One

Genesis 30:
And when Rachel saw 
that she bore Jacob
no children, 
Rachel envied her 
sister and said 
unto Jacob, 
“Give me children, 
or else I die… " 
And she said, 
"Behold my maid Bilhah; 
go in unto her, 
and she shall bear 
upon my knees, 
that I may also have 
children by her. "

Margaret Atwood’s enduring 1985 novel retold on HULU will debut Season Two on April 25. The following is a review of Season One, already celebrated with Emmys, Golden Globes, and other awards. Show creator Bruce Miller (above), Colin Watkinson (cinematographer) and the early input of Reed Morano (director of the first three episodes and herself a cinematographer) have recreated the novelist’s vision of an America subverted by a religious cult with the same creepy authenticity of the novel. The headquarters of her dystopia (“a bad place”), Gilead, is Harvard, which began as a Puritan theological seminary in Cambridge, MA, 1636. Atwood takes us back to our 17th century Puritan roots and witch trials, and by inference, to misogyny through history. Misogyny darkens our thoughts still with ongoing threats to abortion and birth control and conflicts with theocratic Muslim regimes. Although Atwood penned her novel during the Reagan-era ascendance of the Christian right and Moral Majority, the story stays current.

Atwood (above) has said she did not include anything in her novel that has not already happened in real life or that may not be happening somewhere now. (Paying tribute to Atwood’s imagery, women demonstrated against anti-abortion legislation in several states and WDC in 2017 dressed as Handmaids; see photo at bottom.) Its resonance has led the novel to have been translated into 40 languages, made into film, opera, ballet, and couture fashion too.

The still-life color palate of Gilead is photographer Reed Morano’s distinctive contribution and its painterly quality gets trapped in your head like a memorable Vermeer (although relieved by flashbacks to pre-Gilead times, filmed naturalistically with hand held cameras). What sticks most is the deep red of body-shielding Handmaids’ cloaks  —  the color of prostitution, menstruation, the scarlet letter of adultery  —  and red lines of women under duress.

The premise here is of an unlivable America ruined by unnamed environmental catastrophes. Population and childbirth have plummeted, many adults are barren. Fundamentalist Christians have staged a coup, massacring U.S. leaders. To control reproduction, the regime segregates women according to their value — the fertile ones become Handmaids, parceled out as temporary property, fertility slaves, to powerful men and their barren wives for childbearing.

The Handmaids are indoctrinated by ‘Aunts’ who teach conformity and obedience alternating praise and torture (below).

Marthas are the domestics, Unwomen are designated to clean toxic waste; Gender Traitors (gay persons) are killed or tortured, and Jezebels are assigned to brothels for powerful men. Gilead is a curated place, says director Miller — inorganic and intentional.

The Handmaid of our tale, Offred, is played by Elizabeth Moss (Mad Men, Top of the Lake), choking us on Gilead and herself. Named for her “Commander” Fred, she is now ‘of’-‘fred’ (Joseph Fiennes, of the irresistible Shakespeare in Love ). Fred’s wife Serena Joy (Yvonne Strahovski) had been a gifted televangelist in the cult that brought about Gilead. She is now neither serene nor joyful having made no gain from the revolution. It insures that she sits mostly at home knitting for the child from her handmaid — an agent of her own oppression.

This apocalyptic Brave-New-World is qualified by Atwood’s intention to arouse sympathy and worry for her characters. In order to get inside Offred’s head, the camera smothers her closely. The effect is to convey the sense of claustrophobic entrapment by commander Fred and wife whose modus operandi is the holier-than-thou of a Mike Pence and a Phyllis Schlafly. Offred says, “Handmaids are two legged wombs, that’s all: sacred vessels, ambulatory chalices.”

This is borne out by the most pious event in Gilead (above and below), a monthly ceremony recreating the biblical imagery of Jacob, Rachel, and her handmaid Bilbau. Fred reads a Bible verse; Offred lies between Serena Joy’s legs, her head in her mistress’s lap while Fred deposits sperm in Offred — a tableau filled with suppressed rage, jealousy, and shame.

A fourth character figures here, Fred and Serena Joy’s young driver, Nick, (Max Minghella). After months of the Handmaid’s failure to conceive, Serena Joy faults her husband and arranges for Nick to stand in for Fred during Offred’s fertile period. It leads to pregnancy and Offred’s first genuine emotion since her capture.

From here on, the action moves from her desperation to stay sane to hope and thoughts of escape. The novel and first TV series ends with uncertainty about the fates of Offred and the family of her own from which she had been abducted — Luke, her husband, who has made it to Canada, and their daughter, Hannah, now a captive of Gilead.  (Shown below, on the run before capture.) 

Season One reprises the essence of Margaret Atwood’s novel and ends like the novel with uncertainty. Atwood has collaborated with Bruce Miller for the next chapter in her characters’ lives, thus the new HULU series is a joint literary and media event.

As a footnote, one can’t help ruminate on the historically repetitive, seemingly endless parade of violence against women. Environmental causes have been put forward in the case of The Handmaid’s Tale, and there are genetic rationales: men oppress women because they can.

My own view puts these together with the thinking of British scholar Steve Taylor; he wrote in Psychology Today ( 8/2012) that women’s sexual power, perceived as inability to resist arousal in the face of temptation, affronts the male need for power and control. Misogyny, then, cut loose in civil or environmental disorder, may be revenge for testosterone-driven sexual drive.

The above post was written by our 

monthly correspondent, Lee Liberman.

DVDebut: smart dystopian young-adult viewing in Alex Helfrecht/Jörg Tittel's THE WHITE KING

So much better than mainstream young-adult schlock like The Hunger Games franchise, the practically unheralded but intelligent and evocative movie THE WHITE KING has rather popped out of nowhere. Making its USA debut on DVD via Film Movement on its new genre label Omnibus Entertainment, the movie had theatrical debuts in both the UK and Hungary (it's a UK/Germany/ Sweden/Hungary co-production), but due to its lack of big-name stars or blockbuster status, it is likely to be lost in the year-end shuffle. That's too bad because it is actually a surprisingly intelligent, thoughtful and even subtle work.

Given what the young adult crowd is currently being fed -- from those games that are definitely from hunger to pointless feel-bad-so-you-can-feel-good nonsense such as The Maze Runner, The Fifth Wave, If I Stay, The Fault in Our Stars, that Divergent/Insurgent/Detergent series and really quite a bunch more -- by comparison this film comes across as very nearly classic. Co-adapted (from the novel by György Dragomán) and co-directed by Alex Helfrect and Jörg Tittel (shown above, with Ms Helfrecht on the left), the movie simply positions you, along with the family that is at its center, in media res, and in a society for which are given no explanation of what it is or how it works.

Slowly much -- but by no means all -- is revealed and we learn that we're residing in a bucolic dystopia (a very nice change from the usual) in which any dissension is stomped, with the dissenter labeled "traitor." This happens first to the father (Ross Partridge, above,center) of our 12-year-old hero, Djata (Lorenzo Allchurch, above, right), and then to his mom (Agyness Deyn, above left).

Our boy's grandparents (Jonathan Pryce, above, right) and Fiona Shaw (above, center) prove little help, brainwashed as they are by the state, and even his friends (below), cowed by their own parents, can do little to aid him. The film seems less interested in making Djata into any kind of super-hero or even into the usual feel-good, happy-ending movie hero. Instead, it concentrates its energy and ideas into what, exactly, makes up a fascist state, how it has become such and where this inevitably leads.

Early on, dad gives a few words of advice to his son, and we see that advice borne out again and again as the film continues. The manner in which the state uses (and uses up) its populace is shown to us and to Djata in ways that are both awful and surprising, and while the movie does not end on an exactly sour note, it certainly does not offer the "happy"ending-with-built-in-sequel that so many young adult movies do these days.

Instead, The White King (truthfully, I am not sure to what this title refers: Maybe to the huge statue that overlooks the whole countryside) offers a moral that kids, as well as their parents, could do well to ponder: Give the fascist state your obeisance, and you're its slave for life. Within the film, however there are plenty of thrills and adventure, shown most interestingly in what lies inside the fenced off forest where citizens are not allowed.

From Film Movement/Omnibus Entertainment and running a sleek 89 minutes, the movie hit DVD and digital last week on December 4 -- for purchase and/or rental.

Joey Curtis and Paul Sidhu's sci-fi time-waster 2307: WINTER'S DREAM opens in theaters

Unless your movie is a documentary, it's probably not a smart marketing move to place a punctuation mark such as a colon in your title. If only that were the biggest problem for 2307: WINTER'S DREAM, but, no, there are plenty of others. Considering that this film won half a dozen sci-fi film festival awards, TrustMovies can only surmise that the past couple of years have have been dismal ones for the sci-fi genre. Either that -- or there is something I just didn't get about this utterly derivative and tiresome would-be sci-fi thriller/action/dystopian-future film.

As written and directed by Joey Curtis, shown at right, the film takes place in that titular year of 2307, when it seems that earth has turned into a complete snowscape -- a la Bong Joon-ho's Snowpiercer, but without a lick of that terrific film's class or entertainment value -- and is peopled by humans and replicants (as la Blade Runner, but without a lick of... you know the routine) who are at war with each other. Our stalwart and dull-as-dishwater hero, played by Paul Sidhu, below, who also wrote the story on which the film is based, is given the assignment of tracking down and killing a replicant who has murdered our hero's pregnant wife, cut the baby out of her belly and absconded with it. Um-hum. Yeah.

The cast of characters includes the usual suspects -- a bunch of tough-talking uber-violent would-be warriors who do an awful lot of stupid things and mouth some of the worst dialog I've hear all year, maybe several. Samples: the answer to one guy's question about why procrastination is like masturbation, or the oh-so-stern commander (below, right), who, after his lengthy speech about why our villain replicant is to be so greatly feared, adds, "P.S: He's lethal."

The action sequences, too, are, to put it mildly, not so hot. Around 20 minutes in, the supposed good guys come upon a distant figure in the snow and do literally everything wrong. Tons of very clunky exposition via the narration does not help a lot, either.

The film does appear to have had a fairly high budget for a small indie movie; even so, the supposedly extreme cold is not in the least believably captured. The poster above shows icicles and frost on the beard. The movie doesn't even manage that much.

If you last it out, you'll be treated to a -- once again -- highly derivative "surprise" twist toward the finale, to which you will probably mutter, "Gee, I haven't see something like that in a movie in at least a week."

In any case, 2307: Winter's Dream opens this Friday, at various theaters, at least some of which are shown here: AMC Jersey Gardens, Elizabeth NJ; AMC Orange 30, Orange, CA; AMC South Barrington, IL; AMC Rio, Gaithersburg, MD; AMC Arizona Center, Phoenix, AZ; AMC Southfield Southfield, MI; AMC Veterans Expressway, Tampa, FL; AMC Apple Valley, MN; AMC Pompano Beach, FL; AMC Solon Cinema, Solon, OH.

Shear & Thom's WILD IN THE STREETS: this 1960s "instant classic" has aged quite well

When WILD IN THE STREETS hit cinemas back in 1968, no less a critic than the fine Renata Adler in The New York Times deemed the film a "kind of instant classic" -- you can read her entire review here -- and went on to praise it in terms that very few (if any) movies distributed by American International Pictures had ever earned. TrustMovies saw the film back in '68 and loved it, but when he viewed it again, maybe twenty years later, he felt that it didn't hold up so sturdily, after all. Well, here we are in 2016, with a certain con-man/liar with a very "loose" hold on reality running for President, and damned if the film doesn't resonate presciently -- and so entertainingly -- all over again.

Thanks to Olive Films' new Blu-ray and DVD release, those long-ago fans, as well as newcomers, can recall or find out what all the fuss was about. Some of that fuss centered on a hot new actor named Christopher Jones, above and below, who starred in the film as the pop singer-turned-business-magnate-turned-you'll-find-out who sets young America ablaze, as he sings to, then rounds up, his "troops" for a frontal and all-out assault on "aged" Americans (that would be anyone over, say, 30 or 35). Mr. Jones looked to be a sure-thing "star" and worthy successor to James Dean, but that star failed to rise. The actor was never again as well-cast and resonant as he was here, and after a few more films, for whatever reason(s), he fell off the grid.

As written by Robert Thom (from his short story) and directed by TV & film vet Barry Shear (Across 110th Street), this 97-minute movie barrels along -- with plot and incident aplenty, and a half-dozen good pop-rock songs that also feed the plot nicely -- at a speed rarely seen back in 1968. Today, the film seems much less speedy, though certainly not slow enough to bore. Even its editing (by Fred Feitshans and Eve Newman, both of whom were Oscar nominated for their work on the film), which looked amazingly fast and furious in its day, would probably need to be sped up a bit by our current standards.

Still the film's combo of politics (every bit as venal then as now), marketing (cornering the "youth" vote by lowering the voting age), drugs, sex (of more kinds that audiences were used to back in the day) and rock-and-roll -- all conceived around a fractured "family" tale that Brady Corbett's recent Childhood of a Leader might have learned from -- adds up to a remarkably entertaining and juicy look at how the USA can be manipulated for fun, profit and finally horror. And the filmmaker's clever use of documentary footage (as above) within their thrusting narrative works nicely, too.

What's missing is any hint of the income gap, the one per cent, and the rise of the corporations. But of course: This was well prior to Ronald Reagan's Presidential ascent and the beginning of our capitulation to wealth and power. But taken as an entertainment, the movie zings and sings. Its songs are fun, rhythmic and even have the melody that much of today's music has totally lost. The screenplay is wonderfully pointed and funny, and the movie's ironies are often a delight. (Watch for the little song about "campaign dinners" that a de-frocked politician -- played with relish, and then abandon, by Ed Begley -- chants toward movie's end.)

The cast also includes Shelley Winters (in foreground, two photos up), going all out to become one of the more memorable of movie "mothers"; Hal Holbrook (above), as the politician who thinks he is using Mr. Jones and his troops; Diane Varsi as a drug-addled hanger-on; and especially Richard Pryor (below and before we even knew who this guy was!) as a smart member of Jones' band.

The film is probably ripe for a remake, which, if it happens, should only provide as much timely fun and frolic as did this original -- available now from Olive Films, on both Blu-ray and DVD, for purchase and, I would hope, rental. (Netflix really ought to order this one -- now!)

Streaming tip: catch up with Gabe Ibáñez's profound sci-fi/robot mystery, AUTOMATA

So far as I know Gabe Ibáñez has given us only two full-length films, the strange and brooding missing-child movie Hierro, and the much-better-than-you've-heard, dystopian sci-fi/mystery/thriller AUTOMATA, one of those films that garnered mixed-to-negative reviews and disappeared before it had time to find its audience. Fortunately, Netflix is streaming the movie now, so there's little excuse to let it get by you. One of the strengths of the film is that it relies on its smart mystery plot -- what's happening and why? -- rather than on special effects to keep you watching. It also offers a decent script, wonderful visuals, and a very good cast of actors (with one notable exception) doing up-to-snuff work.

Señor Ibáñez, shown at right, has managed to treat an oft-done subject -- robots and humans -- in ways that are actually different from the pack, in the process giving us one of those "origin" stories that gets to the core of ideas such as what it is that actually makes us human. The filmmaker understands that to be human is to be both good and bad, and when the latter wins out, one must finally ask if we are all that special, or even necessary. Ibáñez directed and co-wrote the screenplay (along with Igor Legarreta and Javier Sánchez Donate), and handles these ideas in a manner that is quiet and thoughtful but never boring. He alludes to things without banging you over the head, constantly making you observe and consider. His movie is graceful and beautiful, occasionally violent but finally humane. Best of all, I think, is that his robots don't try to look all that human. Yet, by the end of the film we've come to care about them, too.

The movie opens with a rather long set of explanatory verbiage regarding how the world got to the point we're about to see. Ordinarily, I'd object to this kind of exposition. Here, however, it sets us up nicely for what follows. This is mainly mystery, soon combined with chase thriller, all the while keeping on point with its robots-and-humans theme.

I mentioned earlier the good cast, led by Antonio Banderas (above), Robert Forster (below) and Norwegian actress Birgitte Hjort Sørensen (whom some of us will remember as the gorgeous young newscaster on the great Danish TV series, Borgen).

The one ringer in this most effective group is Melanie Griffith, below, who plays a  top-notch scientist about as effectively as she once played a supposedly tough NYC detective in A Stranger Among Us. Ms Griffith looks good, but she possesses a breathy, Betty-Boop voice that she has never seemed interested in developing or expanding. That voice can work wonders in a movie like Working Girl, but when she is called upon to portray a character of high intelligence or noticeable professionalism, Griffith comes up short.

But that's a small cavil in a film that delivers so much so well. The robots are beautifully designed and executed (Javier Bardem voices one of them), and a scene in which Banderas dances with the very interesting "female," Cleo, is handled with particular delicacy and restraint.

There is action aplenty, too (a sunglasses-bedecked Dylan McDermott has a supporting role), and the stark, deadened look to much of the world we see proves quite effective, even on a relatively small budget. But it is the troubling themes the movie tackles that will stay with you longest.

From Millennium Entertainment (now known as Alchemy) and running 109 minutes, Automata is available now on Blu-ray, DVD and digital domains such as Netflix.

Blu-ray/DVDebut: Phillip Noyce's THE GIVER is a young-adult film a lot better than you've heard

As dystopian fantasies go, THE GIVER -- directed by Phillip Noyce from the novel by Lois Lowry (screenplay by Michael Mitnick and Robert B. Weide) -- is more believable and intelligent a film than The Hunger Games twaddle (but with a lot less violence, and so commensurate box-office) and infinitely superior to the also-young-adult-oriented and godawful Twilight series, which substitutes vampire-lite mythology for teen sexual hunger and in the process makes hash of them both. Because Lowry's novel is already 20 years old, its movie version did not come quite so filled with Internet acclaim as the other two and did not have the hoped-for billion-dollar ticket sales. It is nonetheless a most interesting, if flawed, work worth seeing.

Australian director Noyce, shown at right, has a resume indicating that he knows his way around a lot of different genres -- from mystery to politics to action to socially-conscious movies -- and his work here is professional and smart. The screenplay lets us down a bit on some particulars (I haven't read Ms Lowry's book so can't compare): for instance, just how powerful is this "Giver" and why would the powers-that-be keep him/her around, when the Giver pretty much represents their possible undoing? You'll have to cut some corners to make all this make complete sense, but the film is generally worth it. It is very well cast, too, with Brenton Thwaites (below, left) and Odeya Rush (below, right) representing the younger generation trying to show their older counterparts what really matters (a plot factor true in all these young-adult books and movies).

That older generation is represented by the likes of Meryl Streep, as the person-in-charge, and Jeff Bridges (below, left) as someone who's only "sort of" in charge. Less old but still living in thrall to the accepted philosophy of their seemingly rational but deeply dysfunctional community are "parents" Alexander Skarsgård and Katie Holmes.

The movie is much more subtle than the usual teen blockbuster (hence, perhaps, its failure among this generally brainless and web-driven crowd). Horrible things are going on in the name of community spirit and equality, but the now sheep-like populace, over generations, has been lulled into near-total acceptance. Uniformity is virtue; difference is wrong.

How all this is conveyed -- Noyce uses a palette initially drained almost of all color, into which that color returns only gradually as our hero (Mr. Thwaites) begins to feel and experience more. What caring and parenting really means is called into question, as is the need for action and even some violence to protect our most basic rights.

All this should make the Y.A. crowd maybe sit up a little straighter, take some notice and even start thinking a bit. One hopes that the movie, which comes out this Tuesday, November 25, on Blu-ray, DVD and digitally -- via Anchor Bay Entertainment and running 97 minutes -- will finally find its deserved audience among home viewers.

ANTIVIRAL: A new Cronenberg appears on the scene;the apple has fallen very close by

When TrustMovies first heard abut the plot of ANTIVIRAL -- the first full-length film from Brandon Cronenberg, son of David -- set maybe a few days into the future and having to do with celebrity and the lengths that the public will go to worship and "get closer" to those they idolize, the premise sounded so ridicu-lous that my first thought was, "He'll never be able to manage that." I've now seen the film and, by god, the kid has pulled it off.

The first thing you may notice about the movie is how creepily concerned it is with the body in all its sordid glory. Sound familiar? Yes, Cronenberg fils appears to have a jones for all things corpus-like, just as did his dad in a number of his earlier movies -- from 1975's They Came From Within (or Shivers, as it was originally titled) through 1996's Crash (this one was the memorable of the two Crashes). Further, I believe, given what appears in Antiviral, that Brandon (shown at right) may actually have an even more organic and subtle sense of the body, its glories and horrors, than did his dad, whose movies were a lot of gross fun but sometimes seemed a tad more showy than was perhaps necessary. What makes this movie work so surprisingly well is how young Cronenberg has conceived of this dystopian future and then filled it with visual after visual that brings the point home quietly, firmly, horribly.

Not only has celebrity run amok here, it's running hand-in-hand with Capitalism at is worst -- a combination that, though it is never mentioned directly, appears to have cancelled out most love relationships. The world is full of celebrity-worshiping singles, and it matters not a whit whether they are men or women, gay or straight, so long as they "purchase" from their chosen celeb. (The particular "meat market" we witness here, is nothing like anything you will have seen.)

Among these celebrities is a beautiful young blond named Hannah Geist (played by Sarah Gadon -- on the poster two photos up and and in bed, just above), who, as the movie rolls on, grows sicker and sicker due to some sort of a virus -- with which our hero, Syd, being a Hannah worshiper, has managed to contaminate himself. What is this virus? Is there a cure? And who has created it and why? These questions and plenty of others get asked (some are even answered) by the end of this -- one of the least appetizing movies ever made, though still, I insist, remarkably well done.

In the supporting cast are a number of names and faces we know and love -- from Sheila McCarthy to Wendy Crewson and Malcolm McDowell. All of them are very fine, but it is the real star of the movie -- its skeevy, creepy leading man -- who makes it all so very watchable. His name is Caleb Landry Jones (shown above and below), a Texas lad whom we've seen earlier in films like No Country for Old Men (he was the boy on the bike at the end) and Andy, the nitwit kid brother in Contraband. Jones is clearly a very versatile actor, but nothing will have prepared you for the work he does here: creating out of whole cloth a character who is a riveting ball of tics and oddities that are so bizarre and yet so oddly enticing that you cannot look away. If this fellow keeps it up and is given roles commensurate with his talent, he's going to have a long and illustrious career.

This movie is not for everyone; it's far too dark and dank to be a crowd-pleaser. My companion found it well-done but too long (I agree: five to ten minutes could be judiciously cut). But it's an original and a keeper. And it is difficult to imagine any other film taking celebrity -- and what's left of humanity -- to any more profound or further depths than are found here.

Antiviral -- from IFC Films in the company' popular Midnight series, and running 108 minutes -- opens this Friday, April 12, in theaters (in New York City, it will be showing at the IFC Center) and simultaneously on VOD. To learn how to watch it at home, simply click here and follow through....