Dominga Sotomayor's TOO LATE TO DIE YOUNG: a Chilean artists' commune circa 1990

A kind of banner year for the country of Chile, 1990 saw the end of the murderous dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. The dawn of that year embodied by a New Year's Eve party proves the pivotal point in TOO LATE TO DIE YOUNG, the new film by Dominga Sotomayor, in which the filmmaker attempts to recapture a very specific period and place of her own youth, a small Bohemian commune in the hills far above the city of Santiago.

The result is a slow-paced but not uninteresting look at the young, the teenage and the adult world of that day, but without ever -- unless TrustMovies missed some offhand but loaded Chilean reference -- mentioning anything remotely political at all.

Instead, Ms Sotomayor's movie (the filmmaker is shown at right) covers the budding romantic, sexual and jealousy-laden lives of the teens, the often angry and sadder lives of the parents, and the free-wheeling fun had by the very young. The film opens and closes with a dog running along a road. But what a huge difference in feeling each of these scenes conveys. The filmmaker also uses a foreboding brush fire somewhat in the manner of Chekhov's gun.

In between there's a load of quite realistic, if somewhat generic dialog and behavior from pretty much all the characters involved here. (The filmmaker has used all fledgling performers to essay her leading roles.) And while we don't expect anything close to the liveliness and wit of, say, Noel Coward on display, one occasionally longs for something more from this mostly very non-communicative bunch.

The leading character is a budding young woman named Sofia, played very well indeed by newcomer Demian Hernández (shown above), whose activities and feelings pretty much anchor the movie. Sofia is being courted, sort of (if only he had more courage), by Lucas (Antar Machado, shown below, under Sofia)

but Sofia herself prefers the older and much more confidant Ignacio (Matías Oviedo, below, right), who knows just how to be, sequentially, appealing, seductive and shitty.

Señor Hernández -- the actor was in the middle of transgendering while the film was being made; he has now, we are told, made the transition fully -- is particularly good at looking pensive and confused, so that Sofia pulls us in and easily holds us in her questioning, questing grasp. (In an earlier rendition of this post, I had assumed that Hernández was transitioning from male to female; I apologize for that assumption.)

Still, it is the youngest generation, personified by Clara (Magdalena Totoro, below), who eventually makes us think and feel most. Clara proves the moral center of the film: Who she is, how she reacts, and what she finally does brings the movie to its fitting close.

Though the pace is slow and meandering, you may find a day or two after viewing it, that the film has stuck with you in ways you might not have expected. It is odd, too, that for or all the fraught historical baggage that the year 1990 carries for Chile, this particular movie could be taking place just about anywhere and at any time -- it's that "universal."

From Kim Stim and running 110 minutes, Too Late to Die Young (Tarde para morir joven), in Spanish with English  subtitles, opens today, Friday, May 31, in New York City at Film at Lincoln Center (the unnecessary new name for what we used to call the Film Society of Lincoln Center: Was the latter one too many words for today's audiences?), and then the following Friday, June 7, it will open at the Laemmle Music Hall in Los Angeles. Another eight cities across the country are scheduled for the weeks to come. Click here, then scroll down to click on PLAYDATES to learn if you're in the vicinity of any of these. Blu-ray, DVD and digital opportunities are also promised soon by this increasingly prolific distributor.

Júlia Murat's PENDULAR explores creativity and sex in a Brazilian warehouse loft

When Júlia Murat's Brazilian movie, Found Memories, opened in New York back in 2012, TrustMovies was extremely impressed -- with its enormous beauty, its quietude, and the unobtrusive formality of its mise en scène. That film took place in a lovely and quaint old country town. Ms Murat's new film, PENDULAR, is set in the midst of a major city, in a somewhat abandoned warehouse that has been converted into a loft by and for a couple of artists -- she's a dancer, he's a sculptor -- that they now use as both work space and living quarters. One must assume the two are somewhat successful, since the furnishings and accoutrements with which they've surrounded themselves are rather impressive (they've got a particularly beautiful kitchen and bath).

Ms Murat, shown at left, lets us see some of their respective work (more of hers than his) and it looks interesting enough, if nothing all that original or special.

As to their character, the filmmaker keeps that pretty much at bay. They are both mostly fixated on their work, except when they're having sex, which is somewhat frequently throughout this 108-minute movie.

The sex is hot and heavy, and while neither actor -- Raquel Karro (shown above and below, who's both a dancer and actress) and Rodrigo Bolzan (below and further below) -- is drop-dead gorgeous, both performers are certainly attractive enough of face and figure that watching them either clothed or nude proves no problem.

We meet their friends and co-workers, briefly, off-and-on, and we're privy to snatches of this twosome's conversation -- though not all that much. Even then, most of it deals in some respect with their art. He needs more work space for his (maybe) massive sculptures; she gives in, if somewhat grudgingly. When they fight, each uses the other's art as his or her weapon.

Once again. Ms Murat's visual sense and formal composition is a consistent pleasure to view (the cinematographer is Soledad Rodríguez). Whether her heroine is trying to track the path of a odd cable wire that ends within the warehouse (but where does it begin?) or dancing or even fucking, the design is just fine.

Eventually, though, you may want more. I know I did. Late in the film, the man expresses a major personal need (I'll let you discover what this is), and conveniently (or inconveniently, depending on your viewpoint), the woman suddenly finds herself able to provide this  That leads to the movie's major drama and climax.

This might be enough, if only we knew more fully just who these characters are. Despite decent performances, using what little Murat and her co-writer Matias Mariani provide, the two actors are unable to manage this, and we have to content ourselves with some minor ruminations on work and art, watching Ms Karro in action, and the viewing of a good deal of pleasurable sex. Hey, that may be more than enough for a lot of you out there.

From Big World Pictures, Pendular -- which could as easily refer to some of our heroine's dance moves as to our hero's heavy-hung sexual equipment -- opens this Friday, November 30, in Chicago at the Facets Cinematheque. In December it will also play the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and Time and Space, Ltd. in Hudson, New York. Click here (and scroll down) to keep abreast of all currently scheduled (and possibly more upcoming) playdates, cities and venues. 

TOM OF FINLAND: Dome Karukoski's elegant, multi-faceted look at an unusual gay icon

Having pretty much come into early adulthood and gay/bisexual culture with the "artwork" of one, Tom of Finland, as a prominent guidepost, TrustMovies still, even now, knew nothing about the man who created the work. All that has changed with the theatrical opening of the movie that the country of Finland has submitted as a possibility for this year's Best Foreign Language Film -- something, I warrant, that Finland would never have done before or during the heyday of this artist's prominence. For much of his life, Tom, whose given name was actually Touko (according to the film, it became "Tom" due to his American publisher trying to make his work more marketable to the English-speaking crowd), would have been a near-pariah in his home country, had his work not been kept decidedly "under-cover."

Though part of Scandinavia, Finland was evidently not nearly as culturally, politically, socially or sexually forward-thinking as its Danish, Swedish and maybe Norwegian counterparts. TOM OF FINLAND -- as directed by Dome Karukoski (shown at left), with a screenplay by Aleksi Bardy and additional dialog (I am guessing for the portions set in the USA) by Mark Alton Brown -- turns out to be a surprisingly elegant, beautifully filmed combination of social, cultural, sexual and personal history that shows us the difficult times gays endured in Finland (and Germany) from the wartime 1940s through nearly the 1990s. By then gay culture had pretty much exploded throughout the western world -- with everything from its fashions to disco dancing to the idea of gay sex being not quite so bizarre and horrendous as formerly imagined -- seeping rather quickly into the progressive mainstream view.

As personified by the excellent actor Pekka Strang (shown above and below), Touko/Tom is brought to fine life as a young man, a middle-aged and increasing successful one, and finally the elderly gent who, having lost the love of his life even as his greatest successes occur, is left with memories. And his art.

To the film's credit, that "art" (a sample of which is shown below, and which I would call, as does Wikipedia, "erotic illustration") is never pushed forward as anything great. Instead it is shown to have a huge appeal to the gay population -- which it did and still does. With its emphasis on uniforms, leather, big bodies, and very large muscles (including those cocks), it strikes directly at certain accouterments favored by a portion, probably rather large, of the gay population.

And the drawings are indeed beautifully done: In black-and-white, they're well-composed and about as in-your-face as you could wish. The movie itself, however, is a lot more subtle that the work itself. It must be, in order to give us the fairly in-depth look at Touko and his life: first, with his sister and eventually with the young man who moves into the pair's apartment as a renter and soon becomes  Tom's lover, and finally a near-rapturous view -- so different from Finland -- of gay life in the USA during the burgeoning 1970s and then into the 80s, as AIDS begins to decimate the gay scene.

In America, we're introduced suddenly to some new characters -- Jack (Jacob Oftebro, above, left, who also doubles, I believe, as Tom's gorgeous fantasy man, below) and Doug (Seuman Sargent, above, right). Why soon becomes clear, while the how is handled with enough panache to grab our interest. One of the great strengths of Karuoski's direction (he also collaborated on the story) and Bardy's screenplay come via their refusal to hand us literally everything on a large and labeled platter. Instead they make us work, and the effort is invigorating.

Though their movie unveils in linear fashion, no dates are given anywhere in the film. Just figure it out. So we do. Neither are locations labeled. We're in Finland, then Germany, then America, then back to Finland. But thanks to an intelligent screenplay, the location is either quickly or eventually revealed.

Big events are handled with surprising restraint, as well. The death of a loved one comes and goes without the usual funeral scene, inclement weather and tears -- yet we feel it just as strongly. Notice a scene midway that deals, among others things, with yellow curtains and their meaning, then smile at how lovely is a later scene, featuring just a look at some fabric in a local shop.

The film is full of such moments, and it is all the richer and stronger for them. Oh, Tom of Finland is feel-good, all right. But we've also been given enough feel-bad, along with intelligent probing of place, culture and mores, that the finale seems more than appropriate and justified.

Performances are all you could wish for, too. From the excellent leading actor, to the fine supporting roles. That's Jessica Grabowsky, above and below, center, who plays Touko's sister, and Lauri Tilkanen, below, left, in the role of Veli, the lover. If there is one big coincidence to be faced down, that would be the fact the Veli, who shows up to rent a room in the pair's apartment, is the same fellow with whom Touko has earlier had sex in the local park. I suspect this is an invention of the screenwriter, but either way, it doesn't derail the film. (I usually allow one major coincidence per movie.)

From Kino Lorber, in Finnish and German with English subtitles and some dialog in English, and running 115 minutes, the movie opens Friday, October 13, in New York City at the Quad Cinema and the following Friday, October 20, in Los Angeles (at the Landmark NuArt), Berkeley (at the Landmark Shattuck Cinema) and San Francisco (at the Landmark Embarcadero Center Cinema). To see all currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters, click here and scroll down.

Maura Axelrod probes art and an artist in MAURIZIO CATTELAN: BE RIGHT BACK

So. Is the art of Italian bad boy Maurizio Cattelan really smart -- or more like fart? You'll can find your answer via the unusual and extremely entertaining new documentary MAURIZIO CATTELAN: BE RIGHT BACK by filmmaker Maura Axelrod. For 15 years a news/ documentary writer/producer covering the Middle East and Caribbean regions, Ms Axelrod (shown below) only more recently turned her attention to the world of contemporary art and the making of this, her first full-length documentary as director and producer.

If the lively, informative and very surprising result is any indication, this was a very good move -- for both her and her audience. After viewing this doc, the attitude of TrustMovies toward Signore Cattelan is that the guy is indeed an artist -- but also, probably first and foremost, a provocateur. There have been plenty more of these in the art world, from Warhol to Basquiat to Banksy, Mark Kostabi and Robert Cenedella, the subject of the recent and quite wonderful doc, Art Bastard. But given the content of Cattelan's personality and oeuvre, it's little wonder that another famous filmmaking provocateur, Paolo Sorrentino, would use one of Cattelan's most famous works (shown below) as a humdinger of an ending to his credit sequence for the recent HBO series The Young Pope.

Yours truly knew absolutely nothing about Cattelan or his work before watching Axelrod's doc, so I made, I think, a near-perfect virgin viewer/tabula rasa for her enterprise. And I was fascinated, if initially annoyed, from the first frame onward, as we learn about the artist's history, upbringing and early career as much more of a provocateur than anyone concerned with actual art. As one interviewee notes along the way, Cattelan "has dedicated his life to success in art rather than to art."

Still, god knows the art world, with its pretensions and nonsense, is always ripe for the picking, and so many of Cattelan's provocations, like the toilet above -- a shoo-in for ownership by Donald Trump -- are so much delicious, original fun that one can't help enjoying them rather immensely. (Where, in particular, the doc's interesting subtitle of "Be Right Back" comes from is one of the funniest.) And Cattelan does seem to be the darling of certain art critics -- two we hear from here are via Vogue and The New Yorker -- so, despite his seeming much more provocateur than real artist, we stick around, if only to enjoy this 90-odd minutes of fun.

We hear from the artist's former fiancee ("He taught me to think that everything is possible!") and his current girlfriend ("The first date we had was really awkward...."), from critics and friends, from gallery curators and more, as well as seeing so many of his "provocations," along with -- slowly but surely -- this guy's actual art. And just as slowly but surely, that art wins us over. The more you see of it, the better it becomes. Finally, yes, it does seem serious -- from even Cattelan's fake Flash Art issue to the sculpture (above) that is unveiled directly in front of the the Italian version of Wall Street.

Then there's his Hitler sculpture (above). Or the three hanging children (which should bring to mind everything from The Holocaust to child predators). And then, about two-thirds of the way through this oddball treat, we get something akin to "Will the real Maurizio Cattelan please stand up?"  By the time we arrive at this artist's retrospective, hosted by New York City's Guggenheim Museum, if you're not a die-hard fan (of his attitude, if not of his art itself), I'll be very surprised.

Another smart and unusual movie distributed by Bond/360, Maurizio Cattelan: Be Right Back opens tomorrow, Friday, April 14, in New York City at the newly renovated Quad Cinema, and in Los Angeles on May 22 at several Laemmle theaters. Elsewhere? I have no idea. And neither the film's web site nor Bond/360's provides any help.

The photo of Ms Axelrod,  shown

second from top, is by Lucian Read.

EFFIE GRAY: Emma Thompson/Richard Laxton's quiet, careful look at Victorian mores and morals

The question "What's a young girl to do?" has seldom taken on a more haunting, depressive scenario than the one observed in EFFIE GRAY, the new film written by Emma Thompson (who also has a plum role here) and directed by Richard Laxton. The poster at right looks all sunny and bucolic. Don't be fooled: This is one dank, dark film with only an occasional bit of brightness to help us weather Effie's personal and continuing storm. Extremely feminist in its quiet, close-to-the-vest manner, the movie should have you, like poor Effie, eventually ready to climb the walls.

The movie is based on real-life characters and real-life events that have, as we learn while the end credits roll, been tweaked quite a bit to fit the scenario created by Ms Thompson that shows us the life that might have happened to young Effie (played with a pretty good accent and a fine dose of repressed feeling by Dakota Fanning), above and on poster, top left) after she married the prominent art critic, artist, "thinker," and philanthropist John Ruskin when she was around 18 years of age. It ain't pretty. Or kindly. Or in any manner just.

Yet, given the Victorian times in which this tale takes place, believability is not the problem. Nor is the character of the man -- played in equally repressed fashion, which then turns to shock and finally anger, by Greg Wise (at right) -- who took Effie as his wife. Ruskin, as portrayed here, is one of the supreme, if initially unintentional male chauvinist villains of all time -- moviewise, at least. Why could he not, would he not, consum-mate his marriage? Of course, we first imagine perhaps he was homo-sexual. But the movie does not give us much evidence of this.

Instead, Ruskin, as seen here, was indeed a "mamma's boy," and with a mama like the one played by a rip-roaring (but of course in Victorian subdued fashion) Julie Walters, above left (along with David Suchet, center, as Ruskin's dad), we quickly note this man's utter inability to get out from under his controlling parents.

Enter (eventually) a young artist named Everett Millais (the properly anguished Tom Sturridge, above), who becomes a kind of quiet champion of Effie, as well as her friend and -- we hope, in time -- something more. But all this takes place in an era in which women were kept down by convention and not least by their very own Queen Victoria, a champion of the "morality" of the time -- or so that is what the world knew of her via public reputation.

Screenwriter Thompson and director Laxton (shown at left) keep all this at just a simmer throughout, with the bubbles slowly growing larger until that boiling point is reached. Whether or not audiences -- even the arthouse crowd -- will have the patience to take this journey of very slow under-standing and growth is problematic. The film held my interest throughout, due to some excellent acting and occasional respites from the doom and gloom. A couple of these are provided by Ms Thompson (below, left) and James Fox (below, center) playing a long- married pair, Elizabeth and Charles Eastlake, who, as shown here at least, came to have an effect of young Effie.

Another source of brightness and pleasure (for awhile, anyway), is the trip to Italy taken by the Ruskins, on which Effie is introduced to an Italian Viscountess (Claudia Cardinale, below, left) and her son (Italian heart-throb Riccardo Scamarcio, below, right) and she and we get to spend some time viewing the wonder and glory of Venice.

Visually, the movie stays true to its theme of repression. Inside or out it is usually dark, dank and gloomy, with the occasional shard of light all the more impressive. The light, in fact, comes to represent some kind of freedom and/or escape.

When and how this arrives is fraught with hope and worry, and provides the film's most suspenseful moments. Even then, at the finale, the bow that our girl must make to Victorian convention remains unsettling and constricting. We know from historical record that the bare outline of events shown here did happen. But what became of Effie Gray? The movie ends in media res, but you can find much of the answer here. And while I sincerely doubt that any sequel is in the works, were one to appear, I'd certainly see it.

The movie -- from Adopt Films and running 108 minutes -- opens this Friday in an unusually wide limited release across much of the country (in 24 of our 50 states). Click here then click on View Theaters and Showtimes to see all scheduled playdates, with cities and theaters listed. 

AGNES VARDA: FROM HERE TO THERE screens free tomorrow at the FSLC and plays the SundanceNOW DOC Club in June

What is it that makes little Agnès Varda (below) such a nonstop delight? This whirlwind of energy and ideas and connections -- filmmaker, documentarian, artist, raconteur and widow of another fine filmmaker, Jacques Demy -- has a (relatively) new series of documentaries, made for and shown on French television back in 2011, and titled AGNES VARDA: From Here to There (Agnès Varda: de ci de là).

This utterly charming, nonstop fascinating series of five separate episodes, each running 45 minutes, will make its New York City debut tomorrow (Saturday. May 31) at and courtesy of the Film Society of Lincoln Center at 6pm in the Film Center Amphitheater, where it will screen free of charge. Tickets will be distributed one hour prior to performance time at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, only one ticket per person, and you can expect a line to form somewhat early. (If you miss its FSLC screening or live elsewhere around our huge country, the series will begin showing on the SundanceNOW DOC Club in June -- the best reason I can imagine to join this excellent documentary content provider.)

TrustMovies expected to watch only a couple of the five episodes before covering the series, but no --  that was not to be. Each segment is so accomplished and riveting in its quiet and unshowy manner, as it brings you up-close-and-personal to various artists, filmmakers and friends of Ms Varda that I couldn't wait to get to the next episode. In fact, I decided that there could not be a better way to start my day with with this series, so I watched one every day earlier this week with my morning coffee and oats. Each 45 minutes held me rapt and left me feeling terrific -- eager to begin my day. How much more can you ask of a documentary?

Varda's secret, I am guessing, is simply a matter of taste -- her own good taste and willingness to look at and be challenged by most anything/everything she views. The connections she makes are significant, and though I was unaware of most of the artists she covers, their work proved so interesting that there was not one I wasn't pleased to have brought to my attention.

In episode one, she tackles Chris Marker, and, as usual, anyone who tried this, vis-a-vis the late filmmaker, comes a cropper. As much as I love Marker's work, the man himself was so bent on keeping as much of himself and his own personality out of view that Agnès can only play around a bit to little avail (she does some cute things with Marker's cats) and then we move on.

Soon we're in Nantes with Anouk Aimée and Michel Piccoli for a celebration of M. Demy. Then we meet many more artists even more interesting than the mysterious Mr. Marker, though their work may be less so. We see collage, installations, singers, painters.  "I wonder what happened before that?" Varda remarks of a photo (above) we're just then viewing. And then she shows us an entire "before" video of these same people. She's such a little devil!

Manoel de Oliveira, whose Gebo and the Shadow only just opened here, turns up in this episode, too, telling us that "Reality is a dramatization organized by society." Interesting. He also notes that "Solitude is something I have no experience with," and then does a fine Charlie Chaplin impersonation and some splendid fencing (below), using his cane. What a guy! (What an 102-year-old guy! At the time, actually: he's now 105.)

Episode two takes us to Brazil, Brussles, Stockholm and Venice. In a Brazilian gift shop, Varda notes all the work on display and remarks, "You get a lot of hope for five Euros." We see again some of her marvelous work from The Beaches of Agnes. And then it's off to Brussles for a Magritte celebration! A highlight here is the woman journalist who comes to interview Varda. She is bald. Of course Agnès wants to know more about this, and so turns the tables and interviews her.

Episode three takes us to Basel, Cologne and St. Petersburg, where we see an igloo made of huge stones and then cathedral made of dried but quite edible pasta. Agnes eats it, with a bit of grated German cheese. There are potato images galore (above and below: that's Varda in a potato suit with the late Jonas Mekas). If she occasionally tells us things we either already know or could easily figure out (looking out at a city, she says, "Hundreds of thousands of people I don't know, and they all have their lives." Well, yes.), more often she'll come up with something swift, smart and fun.

Artist Christian Boltanski notes that "We all have our own dead child still inside us" (his morphing self-portrait goes from adult back to child). His wife, Annette Messager, is also an artist, whose work is perhaps even more interesting than that of her spouse. The two discuss their living situation in a sensible, thoughtful way, coming to terms with why we love who (or what) we do.

Episode Four takes us to Lyon for a 2009 art event. We begin with the Chinese and move on to Mr. Button, (Varda, above, has given that name to this artist she love). Then Varda returns to La Pointe Courte (the eponymous site of her first full-length film) and meets some of the men who played extras in that film, now fifty years later! We meet Jean-Louis Trintignant (below) and hear that famous actor read poetry and then speak quietly with Varda. We learn about fishing, too, and some odd facts: "Did you know that 90% of all fish are caught dead?"

The final episode takes us to Mexico, where the huge difference between the classes registers strongly. To Varda's credit, she bites the hand that feeds her (literally) by contrasting the enormous breakfast spread of food she is offered with the beggars and street vendors outside the four-star hotel where she is being housed by the film society that invited her there. The art we see is wondrous, however, and we also get a very interesting interview with Carlos Reygadas and a visit to Frida Kahlo's home.

The above are my highlights; you'll have your own. If you're already a Varda fan, you'll do whatever it takes to see this series. If you're new to the woman, this series -- from The Cinema Guild and running a total of three hours and 45 minutes -- is a fine place to make her acquaintance.