Haiti's history meets teen romance in Bertrand Bonello's nitwit flick, ZOMBI CHILD

I've been a fan of the films of Bertrand Bonello (shown below) for years now -- Nocturama and Saint Laurent are my favorites -- so it gives me no pleasure to report that his latest, ZOMBI CHILD, is an embarrassing, unadulterated piece of crap. Unless M. Bonello is simply having us on? If so, he's managed to con most of our critical establishment, no great achievement considering the current state of movie criticism. It is not that his film has no real scares, suspense or thrills, as do most films with the word zombie (or, as here, zombi) in the title. Nor that instead of those usual attributes, a filmmaker has skewed his work toward intelligence and politics, economics, and history. Robin Campillo managed all that just about perfectly in his zombie movie, They Came Back (Les Revenants).

Here, the history of Haiti, colonization, teenage infatuation, zombie love and other subjects bounce off each other repeatedly without ever making much of a connection -- intellectually or emotionally. It takes over an hour before that connection finally arrives. And once it does, the movie just grows stupider.

TrustMovies is sorry, but it is simply not enough to toss in everything you think you know about these subjects and then expect this to somehow coalesce. You've got to make your tale resonate in an edifying manner so that your characters seem at least a tad important, maybe even believable. Bonello utterely fails at this. Plus, he's unusually sloppy (our Haitian zombie forgets to move slowly, once he's washing himself in the river).

The movie, despite its intellectual pretensions, does not even qualify as subtle or smart, for it is simply exposition piled upon more exposition, until it arrives dead on its feet -- in a way that puts to shame its own zombies.

Toggling back and forth between Haiti in the 1960s -- as one of those zombies is created to join others in the sugar-cane work force -- and an elite girls' school in present-day France, where the entitled white students form cliques and discuss boys, music and sorority nonsense, deciding whether or not to allow a new black student to join, Zombi Child moves along at the pace of the old-fashioned undead. To and fro we go, from Haiti to France, with things occasionally broken up by a nightmare or a flesh-eating fantasy. Come on, Bonello, we know you can do better than this.

Even the film's minimal special effects are cheesy -- black eyeballs yet?! -- while the finale offers up the most embarrassing use of Rodgers & Hammerstein's You'll Never Walk Alone to ever hit the screen. It makes even the ending of the movie Priest seem unduly reticent.

I am tempted to call this film a piece of intentional camp. But, no, I know in my heart that the camp here in unintentional. More's the pity.

From Film Movement and running 103 very long minutes, Zombi Child hits DVD and digital today, Tuesday, May 19 -- for purchase and, I would guess, rental. Your move.

László Nemes' SUNSET proves an enthrallingly odd follow-up to his Oscar-winner, Son of Saul

Just as his immersive and often very difficult to watch debut film, Son of Saul, thrust us into the Nazi extermination of the Jews, so, too, does László Nemes' second and new film, SUNSET, very nearly bury the viewer in the greed, sleaze, perversity, hypocrisy and violence that led us (along with some other things not covered here) into World War I.

Granted, Son of Saul spent all of its hour and 47 minutes in the middle of that Holocaust. Sunset puts us into WWI only for the final moments of its much lengthier two-hour-and-22-minute running time. The film's ending, however, is sudden and specific enough to make TrustMovies better understand what Mr. Nemes' major point appears to be.

The filmmaker, pictured at right, uses a similar point-of-view technique as in Son of Saul: He places his camera just in front of or right behind, sometimes to the right or left but always quite close to his protagonist. In Sunset's case, this would be a pretty but deadly serious young woman named Írisz Leiter, played with very nearly one single expression that manages to combine questioning and determination in a most unusual manner. The performer here is Juli Jakab, below and on poster, top) an actress/writer of note who was also featured in Son of Saul.

Ms Jakab's intensity, combined with her beauty and dedication to this unusual role helps keep us and the movie on track, despite its length and refusal to offer up a whole lot of typical exposition. Instead, Nemes seems to be saying to any remotely intelligent viewer who is at all familiar with history (That's what? Five per cent of America?), "OK, folk: Take what you know here, then watch, listen, and run with it."  And we do. Or I did, anyway, along with the approximately half of our critical establishment who approved of the movie.

The character Írisz appears at film's beginning, at a very chic and well-connected millinery shop, to which, we slowly learn, she shares a major bond. Yet she seems to know almost as little about her actual past and family than we do. Slowly, the movie lets Íris (and us) in on things.
They're not pretty.

The era -- 1910 and the time preceding WWI -- is aptly captured in sets, costumes and characterization, and eventually some (and only some) of the mystery of who and how is unveiled, as we come face to face (or via hear-say from not always reliables characters) everything from missing relatives to love and murder to sex trafficking, torture and plenty more violence.

Because so much of what we learn is only sidelong and suggested, some viewers may insist on something more substantial. They will be disappointed. For those willing to put the puzzle pieces together, making some connections on their own, Sunset should prove compelling, often quite beautifully filmed, and well-written, -acted and -directed enough to pass muster -- and then some.

What's missing here, for WWI history buffs, are the politics of the time and the people and companies who would profit most from the carnage. We get but a mere taste of any of this; instead we're treated to the uber entitlement of royalty and wealth, the huge disempowerment of women, and the violent reaction of folk who will be termed anarchists by some but who are in truth more like crazy, avenging angels. This offers plenty to chew on, of course, but it's not nearly the big picture.

From Sony Pictures Classics, Sunset, after opening in a number of major cities over the past few weeks, will hit South Florida today, Friday, April 26. In the Miami area, look for it at the AMC Aventura 24 and the Silverspot Downtown Miami; in Fort Lauderdale at the Classic Gateway; in Boca Raton at the Regal Shadowood 16 and Living Room Theaters, and at the Movies of Delray in Delray Beach. Now and over the weeks to come, it will play many more cities. Click here and then click on THEATERS to find the one closest to you.

From Paraguay, THE HEIRESSES: Marcelo Martinessi's first full-length film is a rich and moving character/situation study

It is unusual enough to view a movie from Paraguay, but when that movie is also a first full-length film from an unknown director that turns out to be not only thoroughly involving but first-class in every respect, this is grounds for rejoicing. So it is with THE HEIRESSES (Las herederas), written and directed by Marcelo Martinessi.

Señor Martinessi (shown at right) has managed to combine themes involving class, change, entitlement, old money vs new, relationships, power, control and prison (of various sorts), all the while providing a study of character and situation that is really quite close to perfection. It has been a long while since I've seen a first film this well done in all areas -- on both sides of the camera.

The tale told is of two women -- Chela and Chiquita -- each from a wealthy (formerly, at least) family who have been lovers/partners for decades but have come upon hard times, due to which they are now forced to sell many of their most precious belongings.

As essayed by Margarita Irun (shown above, who plays Chiquita) and especially Ana Brun (below, left, as Chela), who has the more important role, these women resonate hugely. Ms Brun, in what is apparently her debut role, could hardly be better, as she slowly and quietly wraps us in her at first stand-offish but finally almost warm and completely understandable near embrace.

We get to know the two women, as well as their circle of friends and neighbors, especially once Chiquita has been "removed" to some extent from Chela's immediate life. How and why provides one of the film's many interesting plot devices, leading to some very quietly surprising changes along the way.

We get a look a Paraguay's prison system (women's variety, above), as well as a number of glimpses at the elderly, card-playing old-money wealthy (below) and their gossipy, judgmental habits,

and in particular one younger woman, Angy (very well-played by Ana Ivanova, below,  right), to whom Chela has clearly taken a shine. What happens between these two provides a good deal of the small but irrevocable changes that occur throughout the film, many of which involve those that Chela must make in order to grow and survive.

The manner in which Martinessi has laid out this growth and change is calibrated in such a way -- never too obvious but with enough information provided to keep up interested and on our toes -- that his movie proves consistently compelling and finally moving and even, yes, uplifting. Yet in a very minor key.

What we first perceive as a kind of love is eventually understood to be control. How Chela learns to circumvent some of this makes for one of the great, low-key pleasures of this just-beginning movie-going year.

From Distrib Films US and running 97 minutes, The Heiresses opens in its U.S. theatrical premiere this Wednesday, January 16, in New York City at Film Forum. Elsewhere? Well, it's scheduled to play Los Angeles at Laemmle's Royal in early March, but I can't find any other currently scheduled playdates. But it is difficult to imagine that a foreign film this good won't eventually hit major cities around the USA. Keep watch.

Blu-ray debut and 30th Anniversary celebration for the Merchant/Ivory adaptation of E.M. Forster's posthumously-published MAURICE

So fine in so many ways that, as much of a landmark as it was back in 1987 at the time of its initial theatrical release, MAURICE -- the James Ivory/ Ismail Merchant adaptation of E. M. Forster's famous and posthumously-published novel -- seems today, thirty years later, all that and more. From its opening scene, in which an older man explains to a young schoolboy the vagaries of sexual union, to its twin love stories, with its eponymous hero involved in each, the movie teems with life, love and pulsating-but-buried desire.

Mr. Ivory (shown at left, on the set of the film) directed and co-wrote (with Kit Hesketh-Harvey) the screenplay and brought his usual deep understanding, empathy and technical skill to both.

His movie captures early 1900s Britain, with its entitled, tawdry barriers of class and even manages quite well to differentiate between the classes, including the very wealthy and the merely well-to-do. The period details are close to perfection, and the acting -- from the smallest roles to the film's three leads -- could hardly be bettered.

TrustMovies recalls being shocked (but pleased) three decades back by the movie's frankness concerning homosexuality, as well as the full-frontal shots of two of the three leads. Today, all this is often-enough seen, and yet the film still seems both bold and believable in its handling of matters sexual. More important it delves beneath the surface to get at the difficulties Britain had in coming to terms with honest and encompassing sexuality.

James Wilby (above) plays the title role, and what makes his performance resonate so strongly still is his ability to show us Maurice's entitlement and fear, as well as his desire and very genuine love -- first for his University mate, Clive (a superb Hugh Grant, below), and later for Clive's gamekeeper, Alec Scudder (a boyish, buoyant Rupert Graves, two photos below).

These three expert performances ground the movie, while showing us two approaches to one's homosexuality (both closeted, which was necessary at the time due to that behavior's being a crime worthy of imprisonment in Britain): acceptance and learning to deal with it, or rejection and its accompanying repression.

The movie (as did the novel, too) opts for a happy ending that we can not help but realize is most likely fantasy. How will the new relationship between these two men (from such different classes) survive? It probably will not. But they will at least give it a try. And that, given the time and place in which the film is set, is as much as anyone could ask.

Maurice remains one of if not the best gay film ever made. Yet to call it simply that hardly does the movie justice. Under any label you'd care to apply, this is a thoughtful, moving, provocative and, yes, great piece of filmmaking.

The new Blu-ray, DVD and digital platform debut -- from the Cohen Film Collection -- arrives this coming Tuesday, September 5. In addition to the film itself, the DVD includes a new Q&A with Mr. Ivory and cinematographer Pierre Lhomme, The Story of Maurice, and two theatrical trailers (the original from 1987 and the more recent 2017 version). The two-disc Blu-ray set has all of these plus a further discussion by Lhomme and Ivory about the making of the movie, a new conversation between Ivory and filmmaker Tom McCarthy, a conversation with the filmmakers, and deleted scenes and alternate takes with audio commentary by Ivory. 

Blu-ray debut for Luchino Visconti's less-than-masterful but still worthwhile biopic, LUDWIG

TrustMovies has now seen LUDWIG -- Italian filmmaker Luchino Visconti's telling of the history, from his crowing through to his death, of the ruler known as "Mad King Ludwig of Bavaria" -- three times. The first was in 1973 during its original theatrical release, the second maybe ten years ago on DVD, and the third with the film's current Blu-ray release to home video via Arrow Academy. On initial viewing, I found the film pretty awful, despite my love for much of Visconti's work. On second viewing it seemed a bit better, and this time it appears, perhaps due to the increased length (nearly four-and-one-half-hours) richer and fuller than any previous incarnation.

One of the highlights of this new Blu-ray disc release is the hour-long documentary about Signore Visconti, shown at right, during which the late actor Vittorio Gassman talks about the director and notes that he was a master of melodrama. Indeed he was, and one of the problems with his telling of the tale of Ludwig is that Visconti foregoes most of that melodrama, which perhaps makes his feature a bit more rigorous but in the end much less compelling.

The filmmaker has, however, coaxed from Helmut Berger what is undoubtedly the finest performance this pretty-boy actor ever gave. Herr Berger is surprisingly good: His road from eccentric to full-out nut-case to sad specimen of abused royalty is played with genuine feeling and an acute sense of the specifics of aging and deterioration.

In this longer, four-and-one-half-hour version, we get some of the detail and precision that was missing from the shorter versions. These include more of the history and politics of the time and of the various relationships between characters. This current and fully restored Ludwig is a fuller, richer version of what came before.

In the supporting cast, Trevor Howard and Silvana Mangano still shine darkly as as the scheming Richard and Cosima Wagner, while Romy Schneider (above) makes princess Elizabeth as difficult and coquettish as ever. As Ludwig’s best and most trusted friend, Helmut Griem (shown at right in final photo) provides the film’s moral ballast, while John Moulder-Brown (below) makes the sweet, boyish and very sad character of Prince Otto come to fine life. 

Among the scenes you’re most likely to remember – from all the versions – will be Ludwig’s wooing of the young actor Kainz in that glorious underground grotto with the swans and that charming little love boat, and Elizabeth’s visit to Ludwig’s most famous castle in the room with all those mirrors. Visually the film is a near-constant treat, with sets and costumes as gloriously garish and/or stunning as you’ll have seen. And then there’s that hunting lodge scene with all the young men perched atop and around the limbs of the giant tree that grows in the middle of the lodge.

There are memorable moments aplenty to make the 257 minutes worthwhile, and if the film must take its place among Visconti’s lesser works, well, it is still a Visconti. From Arrow Academy/Arrow Video and released here in the USA via MVD Entertainment Group, Ludwig arrives on high-definition Blu-ray -- the 4K restoration is from the original film negative -- and standard def DVD in a four-disc set this coming Tuesday, April 11.

Special features include that hour-long doc on the director, a half-hour portrait of actress Silvana Mangano, an interview with screenwriter Suso Cecchi D’Amico, a brand new interview with Helmut Berger (the contrast between then and now is simply staggering), and the film's theatrical trailer. There are several viewing options, as well: in the full theatrical cut or as five individual parts as shown on Italian television, with an English soundtrack with optional English subtitles, and in the original Italian soundtrack with English subtitles.

André Téchiné's IN THE NAME OF MY DAUGHTER -- glamour, nostalgia, crime, and maybe justice

Of the 22 mostly excellent movies made by French director André Téchiné, at least a half-dozen of these have starred the iconic actress Catherine Deneuve, and his latest, IN THE NAME OF MY DAUGHTER, if not one of his best, is certainly worth seeing and mulling. Taken from a real-life crime tale that is evidently very well-known to the French, the movie will not resonate so strongly here in America, and yet its odd and transfixing story should grab foreign-film audiences nonetheless.

M. Téchiné, shown at right, tells the tale in his usual clear-eyed manner, allowing us to view only what observers to these events might have seen and heard, without unduly pushing us in any positive or negative direction involving the characters. Instead of heroes and villains, we get something much more in-between: people with their own agenda who do things good and bad, kind or crappy, toward goals of which we (maybe sometimes even they) can't always be certain. This lends the movie not merely a particular kind of unhinged suspense but also leads to its satisfying-in-some-ways, not-so-in-others conclusion.

This sort of keeping us off-balance, while giving his characters room to expand, deflate or simply surprise us, has been one of the hallmarks of Téchiné's oeuvre, and it is why some of us so treasure the filmmaker. It has also kept him rather firmly out of the art-film mainstream -- even though his films are often set in particularly beautiful locations. But screw that. Téchiné is better -- richer, smarter and finally more genuinely humane -- than mere mainstream.

Here he brings to pulsating life the mid-1970s-set story of a problemed relationship between a mother (played by Ms Deneuve, two photos above) and her daughter (Adèle Haenel, shown just above), a failing gambling casino (the film takes place on the French Riviera) that the Mafia would dearly love to take over, and the involvement in all this of an up-and-coming young man who intends to get much farther ahead (the ubiquitous Guillaume Canet, below).

Class, entitlement, sexism, and some generally inappropriate behavior from nearly all concerned set the movie on a course toward collision. Why and by whom is part of its somewhat nasty charm and sadness. All could have worked out so differently, of course, if behavior from even one of these participants had been a bit different. Which is part of the Téchiné experience, and why some of us we keep coming back to him for more.

The threesome of lead actors does a superb job of keeping us off-balance, with Deneuve giving one of her fiercest performances in some time: such strength put to poor and ill-considered employ. Ms Haenel, whose beauty can stop traffic, is more correctly subdued here: angry but tentative, alternately hopeful and depressed. M. Canet uses his feral side quite well; we may not like him but we certainly understand his motives and actions.

The look of the film is on target, too, as the 70s come back in a rush of color and rather poor (but fun) taste. Everyone smokes, of course, and very large cars -- even for Europe -- are a must.

For the French, this is a story that simply would not die. Many of the movie's most telling moments arrive in more modern-day dress, as some of our characters -- aged quite well by the make-up artists -- live to feint and parry once again.

In the Name of My Daughter -- distributed in the USA by Cohen Media Group and running 116 minutes -- opens tomorrow, Friday, May 15, in New York City at the IFC Center and the Lincoln Plaza Cinema, and in Los Angeles at Laemmle's Royal. In the weeks following, it will open in another 18 cities. To see them all, with theaters and playdates included, click here. 

WELCOME TO NEW YORK: Abel Ferrara's puddle-deep look at the Dominique Strauss-Kahn affair

Dem mighty jus' keep on fallin'! From Gary Hart to Sheldon Silver -- and, oh, so many in between -- the supposedly powerful figures of the western world discover their own feet of clay, as the rest of us rejoice as much in their fall as we appeared to do in their rise. Certainly one of the more interesting of these figures is Frenchman Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the fellow who was appar-ently being groomed as the next leader of France, scheduled by the French "left" to take over after Sarkozy's upcoming ouster. Well, that didn't happen.

Why it didn't happen has been much conjectured upon, with very interesting and not so unlikely theories ranging from a set-up job by the opposing party (or maybe someone within Strauss-Kahn's own, or even the good 'ol USA) to the fellow's rather obvious proclivity for sodden misbehavior. In his new movie WELCOME TO NEW YORK, filmmaker Abel Ferrara (shown at right), while giving a nod here and there to economics, politics and social unrest, is really most interested in the "sex addiction" theory associated with our famous Frenchman, along with its accom-panying guilt and shame. Given Ferrara's oeuvre and obsessions, this is not surprising. What is, however, is how much of a major shrug his movie turns out to be.

Starring two well-chosen, senior-citizen movie-stars of talent and acclaim -- Gérard Depardieu (above, right, and below) as Strauss-Kahn (here called by the name of Deveraux) and Jacqueline Bisset (above, left) as his wife -- the film takes on immediate interest, if only for its smart casting. Beyond this, however, while not unwatchable, Welcome to New York grows tiresome well before it concludes.

As director, Ferrara, knows his way around camera-work and pacing, but as co-screenwriter (with Christ Zois, who often works with the director), he is never on particularly secure ground. Much of the dialog, though well delivered via its actors, sounds barely a cut above improvisation -- or the kind of expected blend of research and cliché that never probes deeper than surface level.

Further, Ferrara has decided not to stick all that closely to even what we know about the case itself. The film opens with Depardieu (as himself) explaining to the press something about how he tackles this role, and there is the usual disclaimer assuring us that, while the movie takes off from the famous case, what we're going to see is mostly made-up drama.

Consequently, the made-up maid supposedly attacked by Strauss-Kahn, looks little like the attractive and sexy real woman in the case. Nothing is made of anything politically, either (a shame, really, because there is enough juicy and oddball occurrences in this story to have made a nifty little paranoid thriller), and only a small bone is tossed to the idea of the entitled vs the underlings (above).

So what we are left with, mostly, is sex and more sex, after which, our boy having been caught out, we get the residual guilt and shame. All this has its interest for awhile until longueurs set in, and the little detail we get about the Strauss-Kahn marriage barely suffices.

Ms Bisset proves a strong presence against M. Depardieu's bulk and talent, and I must admit that it was a welcome change to see this actor having to portray, as above and below, a broken man for a change. His time under arrest, in jail, and being harassed by the press goes a distance in helping us sympathize with the guy -- which Ferrara clearly wants us to do.

Entitlement, money, power and the accompanying sex-and-more-sex to which these lead, followed of course by debasement  -- this is what interests the filmmaker most. And while all this is surely part of the Strauss-Kahn scandal, there's so much more here that his movie doesn't begin to approach.  If half a loaf is enough, by all means, crack off a chunk and chew awhile. It's initially tasty but not very nourishing.

Welcome to New York -- from Sundance Selects/IFC Films and running a too-long, two-hours-and-five-minutes -- opens this Friday, March 27, at San Francisco's Roxie Theater. Simultaneously, you'll also be able to see the film via VOD in most major markets. A further, if limited, theatrical rollout is expected over the weeks to come. Or not (See below).

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Addendum: Now that is has come to the fore that filmmaker Ferrara is very displeased with re-cut version released by the distributor, perhaps the above review is not indicative of the "real" movie. Though from what I could gather from the report in The New York Times, Ferrara's reasons given do not sound, to my mind, as if they would make the movie much better. Read the Times story here, then make your own judgment. In any case, I found it very odd that IFC was suddenly not opening the film theatrically in either NYC or L.A. Now we know why.