POP AYE: Kristen Tan's original, delightful road-trip-cum-elephant opens in NYC and L.A.

If you have any interest in discovering what a male mid-life crisis looks like, Thai-style, or any intertest in elephants as traveling companions, or really just an interest in unusual, surprising, enriching new movies, then I would heartily recommend POP AYE -- which turns out to be all these things and more. Its writer/director, Krisiten Tan (whose first full-length film this is), has fashioned a parable about coming to terms with one's past, as well as with aging, guilt, life, work and love that takes the form of a road trip by a late-middle-aged man, accompanied by the elephant he knew and cared for as a child. Yes, this is a tale, the likes of which you will probably not have seen previously.

Ms Tan, shown at right, does a lovely job of plunging us into the midst of things via the immediate life of her hero, a fellow named Thana (played by Thaneth Warakulnukroh, shown above and below, with an elephant named Bong, who essays the title role here) and then slowly lets us learn the specifics of his life, his work and his desires so that, by the finale -- as rich and unexpected as much of it is -- everything we now know about him makes sense on several levels: realistic, symbolic, psychological. This is quite an accomplishment for any film, let alone a fledgling effort such as Pop Aye.

Among the things that we learn about Thana is that he is being phased out of his role as one of the top dogs at his architectural firm, as well as by his wife, who seems to want little to do with him, particularly in the sex department. One evening, as he drives around Bangkok feeling depressed, he sees an elephant that reminds him of -- and might in fact be -- the one he took care of as a child, and with whom he grew to young adulthood. (This sort of "elephant" thing can happen more often in Thailand than, say, here in the USA.). Thana stops the car, goes back for a look, and sure enough....

So begins a bizarre but surprisingly believable road trip in which Thana and Pop Aye wend their way toward the village where they spent their younger days. Along the way they get a lift from a truck driver, meet a poor but oddly contented man who pines a bit for his lost wife, become involved with some local police who try to escort the pair to an animal refuge, drink and sing Karaoke with a transgender lady of the night (below), and finally bond with some friends-of-new-friends and a relative who provide both surprising emotion and an oddball kick to this strange tale.

As writer and director, Ms Tan negotiates her storytelling with great visual beauty, humor, irony, unexpected yet heartfelt emotion, and finally the kind of surprise that, in retrospect, makes perfect sense. (The movie's funniest line sprouts from the mouth of a Buddhist monk regarding payment for cremation, while its most refreshing and lively visual comes as Thana attempts to climb atop his traveling companion.)

The journey turns out, of course, to be one of self-discovery, but this is neither telegraphed nor hammered home too strongly. It is also a film about learning what is and is not important in life. In its final section the film grows ever more mysterious and simultaneously all the more rich and resonant, as past and present merge, guilt is revealed and growth -- not a lot but enough -- is achieved. For a first film, Pop Aye is remarkably sophisticated.

From Kino Lorber, the movie opened this past week in New York City at Film Forum, and will hit Los Angeles, this coming Friday, July 7, at Landmark's NuArt and from there, over the weeks to come in another dozen or more cities. To view all currently scheduled playdates,, with cities and theaters listed, click here and then scroll down and click on PLAYDATES.

Civil rights & animal wrongs: Chris Hegedus & D.A. Pennebaker's doc, UNLOCKING THE CAGE

I don't think you have to be an animal rights activist or a PETA person to appreciate the new documentary, UNLOCKING THE CAGE, but I suspect you do have to care enough about animals not to want to see them abused -- particularly those species who have been proven to be "cognitively complex," as have chimps, dolphins, whales and elephants. (This last one was news to TrustMovies, who grew up believing the old saw that an elephant never forgets. Evidently they do a hell of a lot more than merely that.)

As directed by the prolific and interested-in-just-about-everything husband/wife team of Chris Hegedus (at left) and D.A.  Pennebaker (below) -- who've given us a fine bunch of documentaries from Town Bloody Hall through The War Room, Moon Over Broadway, Elaine Stritch at Liberty and more recently the delightful Kings of Pastry -- this new one is among the most moving of all of their work. As usual, though, the pair never attempts to jerk tears:

H & P are content to simply show -- and let their subjects tell. In this case those subjects include not just the "animal rights" lawyer Steven Wise (below) and his legal team, known as the Nonhuman Rights Project, but also a few of the animals (especially certain chimpanzees) for whom Wise and team are trying to obtain "limited personhood rights." Does this mean we must concede that these animals are the same as people? Not quite. Wise is quick to acknowledge the differences, while maintaining the need for greater protection via increased "rights."

"We're trying to change the way humans view nonhuman animals," the lawyer, shown above, declares right up front. He also acknowledges the work of Peter Singer as one of his major inspirations. And now that our own Supreme Court has acknowledged corporations -- and even, as the doc points out, business partnerships -- as "people," why not chimps? Well, first off, Mr. Silly, because the rich and the corporate won't get richer and more powerful by giving personhood to chimps, as they did via the personhood-to-corporations route.

And so Wise and his team -- supported by the research of international primatologists, as well as by evidence of the living conditions of several of these chimps, shown below (along with one bonobo, above) -- take to America's court system to get the job done. Talk about a Quixotic enterprise!

And yet, damned if that enterprise doesn't begin to get somewhere, after all. The road is uphill and hugely difficult (along the way the chimps that the team plans to use as clients keep dying off), but -- as the documentary shows us, rather in the manner of a low-key-but-enthralling courtroom tale -- things do begin to change.

One of the great things that the filmmaking team allows us to see is the competing viewpoints -- both of which are presented quite intelligently -- from the side of the current establishment invested in seeing that things do not change and from that of Wise and his little group.  One of the film's best scenes shows us a mock trial in which what our "hero" has to say in called into question. Especially interesting is how the team uses the writ of habeas corpus in its plan to convince the court. (As Wise points out, after one particular setback, "We're trying to expand the writ of habeas corpus [to include animals], and the court has responded by trying to cut the writ back for humans!"

There is irony aplenty here, but there is also, as the French might say, Liberty, Equality and (hmmmm...) Fraternity, too. By the film's finale, it is pretty amazing how convincing, moving and even kind of thrilling Hegedus and Pennebaker have made the Nonhuman Rights Project's cause.

From First Run Features in association with HBO Documentary Films, Unlocking the Cage, opens this Wednesday, May 25, at New York City's Film Forum, and will then expand nationally in June. Click here to see all currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters.