Fellipe Barbosa's hybrid docu-drama GABRIEL AND THE MOUNTAIN opens in NY and L.A.

Not quite like any movie I've seen previously and yet not so different in content and style as to seem at all "strange," GABRIEL AND THE MOUNTAIN is a kind of memorial to Gabriel Buchmann, a long-time friend of the filmmaker -- Fellipe Barbosa --  as well as an exploration of the last period of Gabriel's too-short life and a possible, though not-particularly-tidy explanation of his untimely death.

To his great credit, Barbosa decided to make his movie as narrative film, rather than a documentary, casting actors both professional and not and then mixing them so well, while using a story format that appears to follow real life closely enough, that a kind of vérité is quickly achieved.

The filmmaker, shown at right, seems clearly "invested" in this movie-- not just financially and artistically but emotionally, too.

And yet, instead of allowing himself to be either overly constrained or, conversely, undisciplined by his closeness to the material, Barbosa has used his understanding of what docu-drama can achieve to produce something nearly sui generis and very much worth experiencing.

His movie is too long -- it could have lost 15 to 20 minutes and been much stronger -- but it is still, despite this, memorable. Once seen, neither it nor its main character, Gabriel, will easily be forgotten.

As played by the remarkable young actor, João Pedro Zappa (shown above), Gabriel is at once full of life, energy, wit, smarts and attitude -- occasionally, so much of the latter that he begins to annoy. Yet he's kind and caring and always bounces back into your (and his girlfriend's) good graces.

Initially we see Gabriel with the various folk he's encountered along the way on his African adventure. He's come there as a kind of educational project to study poverty from the viewpoint of the people who are living through it and who, not coincidentally, seem to have embraced Gabriel fully and lovingly. In documentary style, each of these people tell us a bit about their own encounter with the young man. One of the side attractions of the film is that it makes the countries of African that we visit seem like the kindest and most welcoming places on earth.

Once Gabriel's girlfriend (played equally well by Caroline Abras, above and at bottom) joins him midway along, the movie becomes a kind of love duet that's also full of spice and ginger, politics and economics, and some quarreling, too, in which we view a bit of Gabriel's not-so-nice side -- which makes his character register all the more strongly and fully.

Gabriel is so full of life, in fact, that this gives the movie an odd and moving melancholy, since we have seen from its onset that he is now dead. And yet he lives. Boy, does he live! Along the way we visit the Masai people, see Mount Kilimanjaro, spend some time at the sea and finally return to Mount Mulanje in Malawi, Gabriel's final destination.

As the movie grows longer, it loses some stream because during the final 30-40 minutes we learn little more about Gabriel's character, even though the film itself continues and becomes somewhat repetitive. (The heavily accented English of the Africans is also sometimes difficult to decipher; English subtitles would have helped.) Still, the need to learn what happened to this young man, and why, is strong. The result -- in which we somewhat know and yet don't fully know -- is very well-handled by the filmmaker.

From Strand Releasing and running two hours and eleven minutes, Gabriel and the Mountain opens this Friday, June 15, in New York City (at the Quad Cinema) and Los Angeles (at Laemmle's Royal). In the coming weeks the movie will expand to at least another half dozen cities across the country. Here in South Florida it opens, Friday, July 13, at the Miami Beach Cinematheque. Click here, and then click Screenings on the task bar midway down, to see all currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters. 

ADVENTURESS WANTED: Tom McAlevey & Yoshiko Kino make a fine DIY documentary

It ain't easy getting your film from the "shot" stage through to distribution. Even when, perhaps especially when that film is DIY in the extreme, shot solely by its two participants, on a for-real road trip that the two take in a bright red beach buggy all the way from Sweden to the tip of South Africa. Not only will one of the two filmmakers make his movie the DIY route, he will also, it seems, have to distribute it this way -- after a deal with some supposedly professional movie people did not pan out.

The guy in question is an American man, then living in Sweden, named Tom McAlevey (shown at right), who loves adventure and hooking up with women and so decided to combine the two into this particular trip -- and then film it all as it was going on. Hence his movie's title, ADVENTURESS WANTED, which was also the headline of the classified ad McAlevey ran, hoping to entice a relatively smart and attractive young woman into joining him. It worked. He had more than enough applicants (we see some of these at the beginning of the film), but decided to go with the woman, Yoshiko Kino, below, whom he knew first (if I got this part right) as his exercise/yoga instructor.

TrustMovies learned about the film from a press release emailed to him, giving him a video link to access in order to watch the film in high-definition. He did -- and now declares the viewing world fortunate indeed to be able to see this unusual diary-cum-movie. The documentary manages to combine so very many genres -- real-life adventure/love story/road trip/psychological profile/relationship manual/wild animal menagerie/and more -- that it proves both sui generis and surprisingly generous to both parties -- the adventuress and adventurer -- involved.

Adventuress Wanted is so utterly fresh, vivid and vital; so funny and even occasionally moving that one can easily understand why it won Best Directorial Debut at the 2010 NY International Film Festival. I've never experienced anything quite like this film. So impressed was I at its conclusion that, although I could have (in fact, had) watched for free, I got out my credit card and made a contribution to Mr. McAlevey's fund. Something this entertaining and unusual deserves a helping hand.

Now, you should perhaps know something more about these two performers/filmmakers. McAlevey's originally a New Yorker, now well into middle age, who lost an arm (see above) in a motorcycle accident in the late 1980s. A trouper, he handles himself and his loss with about as much grace and ease as would seem possible. He is a slight and somewhat scrawny man, as well -- though usually full of energy -- and this, together with the missing arm would, I suspect, make him a fellow that the average person would want to help along his way.

This may account for the fact that Tom tells (and shows) us how incredibly kind and helpful were almost all the Arabs he and Yoshiko met along their journey through Northern Africa and downwards. (The Tunisian garage-owner seems a particular gem of a guy.) In our current age of Muslim-bashing, this registers strongly and healthily, though, on the other hand, no mention is ever made in the movie about the northeastern and neighboring state of Israel.

Ms Kino, on the other hand, is most definitely all there, with a softig little body and lots of spirit to go with it. She offers an alternately good/bad foil for McAlevey (and he for her) and the pair makes no bones about its sexual encounters along the way and its bonding (and sometimes ripping apart) as the trip continues. As the prime filmmaker, McAlevey appears to be shooting straight and playing as fair as possible under sometimes trying circumstances. Conse-quently, we come away from the film with very good feelings toward both of the participants.

With Tom and Yoshiko doubling as their only crew for visuals and sound, the result here is surprisingly rich and -- with the wild animal footage -- exciting and real. Along the way, we travel through Italy and then over to Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique and finally South Africa, with each country offering its own oddities, problems and help. There must have been a truckload of visuals to deal with, but the film has been edited down to a fast 85 minutes, thanks to the work of lead editor Jean Frédéric Axelsson and co-editor McAlevey.

By the end, we learn what has happened to Yoshiko and Tom, and if you stay through the bitter end, you'll see what a player this guy is. But I think you'll love him anyway -- and his film.  To watch Adventuress Wanted, simply click here, then click on Download Now toward the upper right hand column of your screen. Then scroll down and click on either of the green buttons that say Download the movie for PC or Download the movie for MAC.

And if you find the film even halfway as good as I did, I suspect you'll want to contribute something toward its continued success.

Miguel Gomes' stodgy, homage-y TABU opens at Film Forum: Of croc and schlock

I am guessing that the work of Portuguese filmmaker Miguel Gomes (previous output: four shorts, the widely heralded Our Beloved Month of August and his earlier The Face You Deserve) is an acquired taste. On the basis of his latest film, TABU, TrustMovies feels that he has not quite yet made that acquisition. Evidently a kind of homage to the work of early movie-maker F. W. Murnau -- even the poster images (the current film's is shown above, the older one's below) have a certain similarity -- Gomes' newest creation provides a not uninteresting combination of colonial critique (Portugal in Africa), forbidden love, the past and the present, and both old-fashioned and somewhat newfangled black-and-white cinematography.

But it all seems finally rather precious and not, I am afraid, that entertaining. At just under two hours, the film does go on. And as it does, the little life, mostly derived from the first half, set in modern day, drains out. The second half tells what ought to be a more interesting story of the love affair between the younger versions of the old woman and man we meet in part one.

But the filmmaker, shown at right, loves to dawdle and diddle, and so getting there, as they say, takes some time. Along the way, we're given story upon story that connect via countries and landscape (the jungle, the African plains and especially crocodiles, see below) that figure into just about every-thing concerning the past and in the dreams our char-acters have in the present.

We also get an early rock band from the period and some accompanying songs that are fun to hear again. While there is a certain "beauty" in much of the goings-on and in the often lovely black-and-white cinematography, the connections that would make for drama are so tenuous that little feeling for anyone or anything is generated. Some critics have called this "brilliantly nuanced," "mind-bending and utterly mysterious," but for me the result produced more than a whiff of... call it kitsch, schlock or camp, that made it impossible to take anything here all that seriously.

I wasn't bored by Tabu (I nodded off for a few seconds only once!) and I found myself taken with some of the characters: the cranky old woman (Laura Soveral, in photo at bottom) whom we see as a younger semi-femme fatale in Part Two; her kindly, ineffective neighbor Pilar (Teresa Madruga), shown below, at the cinema on a semi-date with a fellow who looks a bit like a sleeping Sondheim. If you were so inclined, you could call this one a semi-movie.

Also worth a look is the male lead in Part Two, Carloto Cotta (shown below and on poster, top, with Ana Moreira), as the youn-ger version of the old man we meet at the end of Part One. He is a stunner whose great beauty of face, body and hands ensures that the second section moves, if not quickly, more enjoyably.

So, yes, there are a number of things that make Tabu a forbidden pleasure. If only Mr. Gomes had been able to see that they coalesce more effectively. To my great surprise, the film has popped up on a 10-best list or two, which should at least ensure some kind of audience here in New York City.

To that end, the movie, an Adopt Films release, opens tomorrow, Wednesday, December 26, at New York's Film Forum for a two-week run. So see what you think, New Yorkers. To view all upcoming playdates around the country, click Adopt's web site here, then click on FILMS and then on TABU.

On DVD: David Hilbert and Cevin D. Soling's IKLAND give the Ik their due -- at long last; plus a short Q&A with filmmaker Soling

A bit of personal history to start off: What got to me most strongly was not the book itself -- Colin Turnbull's (with the accent on the bull) The Mountain People, the supposed anthopological expose of the African tribe, the Ik, who were said to possess not a shred of human kindness -- but the theater piece adapted from the book by one of the past half-century's finest directors, Peter Brook, whose Marat/Sade took us into a new theatrical dimension, and whose US came out roundly against U.S. involvement in Vietnam and Britain's acquiescence in that (and so much else). Brook was a master at challenging his audience, forcing it to be a part of the world of his plays, even as he entertained it royally. The Ik (click and scroll to page 2) was no exception -- except it turns out that this world of Turnbull's, and then of Brook's, never actually existed.

If, that is, the just-out-on-DVD documentary IKLAND, from directors David Hilbert (at right) and Cevin D. Soling (below) can be believed. TrustMovies thinks it can. The film, which had its theatrical debut earlier this year to good press notices, begins by taking us back to the time of Turnbull's (in)famous book and what is had to say, and then offers an interesting history of Uganda, which like so many African countries -- only worse -- has had more than its fair share of colonialism and power-mad, murderous, genocidal dictators.

This history proves important because it shows how Uganda has been splintered for more than a half century by war, and so the Ik, to whom survival is all-important, have had to find their place in the mountain territory in the extreme north, living a life as sheltered and frugal as would seem possible. It takes the filmmakers half their movie to arrive in Ikland, but the wait proves worth it for what we learn -- about the filmmakers and crew, the various other tribes who border on the Ik, and the LRA (Lord's Resistance Army), whose child (and older) soldiers provide an almost constant threat to all those not part of this cult-like army.

We see how the Ik have done a terrific job of camouflage, hiding their village from any marauding passers-by (at right); we see the yearly harvesting of white ants, and we hear about wasps the size of birds that can bore a hole in a man's skull. Mr. Soling goes out of his way to find translators who actually speak the Ik language well enough (something that seems to have eluded Mr. Turnbull), so we see and hear these people (shown in the photos below) up close and personal and find them -- sure, somewhat reserved but also -- quite genuine, and in one section in which the filmmakers get them to tell us stories, they prove both funny and charming, with a sense of both humor and irony (note the story of Dad and the hyena).

Hilbert and Soling bring along a drama instructor, who in the movie's climactic scene has the tribe performing their version of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, the point of which the tribe clearly understands.

And when Soling questions one old woman about the Ik's religion and its special deity, Didigwari, he asks her if there are also other gods in addition to this one. She thinks a moment before answering, "You have to ask him."

Maybe the filmmakers' stab at anthropology is wanting (they make movies, after all), but they certainly convinced me that these Ik are a hell of a lot different from what Turnbull claims to have seen and lived with -- for three years?!

Rent or purchase the documentary, which has now made its way to DVD, and see for yourself.  I did, and like that late-comer apostle, Paul, I have felt the scales -- some 40 years of subscribing to Turnbull's wretched myth -- fall from my eyes. (I didn't realize this until checking him out on the IMDB, but Mr. Soling, a decade back, gave us the delightful pastiche/mockcumentary The War on the War on Drugs. If you haven't seen this one, too -- do.)

***********

After view this most interesting documentary that shook up some my my notions of the Ik, I emailed a few questions to the director, and below is what I got back, with TrustMovies questions in boldface and Cevin Soling's answers in standard type. 

TrustMovies: Is it possible – anthropologically, sociologically, humanly -- that the Ik could have changed so drastically over a half century – from Turnbull’s version to yours? 

Cevin D. Soling (the director is shown below, while filming Ikland): American culture has certainly changed dramatically in 50 years, but such changes are due, in large part, to our cultural embrace of science and technology. We are changed by the changes we create in the world around us. In agrarian societies, change happens much more slowly, but there are also factors that create momentary shifts in behavioral patterns. Warfare and famine create stress, which alter routines and social interactions. One could argue that communal bonds in American society during WWII were stronger, so the outcomes are not necessarily adverse. 

What might account for his -- Turnbull’s -- seeming refusal to see things as they actually were: perhaps the British holier-than-thou attitude (particularly concerning people on continents which the Brits had formerly colonized)? I ask this because I have found that the colonization attitude sometimes dies hard. 

I do not believe Turnbull was predisposed to disregard colonized societies. He was a respected anthropologist and he certainly heaped praise on the BaMbuti Pygmies in his book, The Forest People. My personal opinion is that there was a confluence of personal unpleasantries and a political agenda. While there was still an infrastructure in Northern Uganda at that time that made travel much easier than today, the terrain and locale was still challenging. He complained about the hikes on the steep and treacherous mountainside and the environment in general. With the extremes in temperature each day, the swarms of insects, the prickly flora and aggressive fauna -- it is a very challenging place to live. In addition, while one can find many variations among African tribes with regards to gender issues, the Ik have clear divisions in gender roles and notions of sexuality which were at odds with Turnbull's public lifestyle. I think he may have held that against them. Finally, the timing of the book is essential to understanding motives too. The counter-culture philosophy at that time argued that competition borne of capitalism was responsible for social breakdown. By depicted the Ik as depraved, Turnbull could undermine this argument and be a champion for the establishment. 

Interesting take!  In my observation Capitalism, Colonization (of one sort or another) and the Establishment can often be seen skipping, hand-in-hand. In your documentary, there appears to have been real connection -- emotional, intellectual -- between you and the Ik. While this might go against some views of what “good” anthropological studies consist, it does make one question how Turnbull could have spent, what – three years? – amongst them without anything approaching this closeness. How long were you and your crew there, over all, and during what time frame? 

I am not an anthropologist, but rather a documentary filmmaker. One of my missions was to go beyond the enthnographic films I watched in High School where the objective camera POV infantilized cultures that were less technologically developed. Their humanity was lost. I wanted to show events honestly, which included mine and the crew's interactions with the people. I think this provides an additional insight that compliments the work of anthropologists. At some point in anthropology, there is a fundamental issue of personality that must be acknowledged. As much as Turnbull did not like the Ik, it can be surmised that the Ik did not like him either. We are looking at the account of one individual who did not enjoy being somewhere and he was probably not fun to be around. One sense he was an object of ridicule for that reason. As such, we should expect a very distorted account. It is also possible that Turnbull was not given accurate information from the locals he trusted because either they did not want to share things with him or they had biases that Turnbull did not take into account.  I was in Uganda from July to August of 2006. 

Did you ever see the Peter Brook theater piece adapted from Turnbull’s book? I did, and it, together with the book, had taken a permanent place in my mind/memory. I am happy to have that memory jolted and re-jiggered into something more humane. 

I have a copy of the screenplay, but never saw a performance. Does one exist on film? I would love to see that. 

Since I received your email, I have surfed the web looking but have not found anything suggesting The Ik exists on film.  But I have the sneaky suspicion that it may have been filmed, if only for Brook's private use. You would think that anything from a director this special did would be given a filming. But perhaps not. 

Readers: If any of my readers knows anything about a filmed version of Peter Brook's theater piece The Ik, please let us know at the email address at the top of this blog. And Cevin -- thanks very much for both your film and your valiant efforts to get it made.

JOHNNY MAD DOG, from Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire, opens at Anthology Film Archives

We've heard about the "child soldiers" of Africa, seen them in various documentaries, and most recently in Claire Denis' narrative White Material. Until you've viewed JOHNNY MAD DOG, however, they'll not have registered with the maximum force that Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire brings to this film, his first full-length narrative feature, which he directed and adapted from the novel by Emmanuel Dongala. M. Sauvaire, shown below, has made a few documentar-ies in his day, and he draws upon non-narrative techniques to bring his film to immediate, immense and frightening life.

We're thrust into things from the first frame and the pace seldom lets up for the full 98-minute running time. We see from the outset the ruthlessness of these child soldiers/killers/savages as they "take" an enclave of citizens and do with them what they will. From their midst, they recruit a young boy (in the pink shirt below), forcing him to do something that, whatever else may happen to him, will set his life askew forever.

Initially, it is difficult to sympa-thize with any of these walking horrors. You hate them; you want them dead. One of the surprises of Johnny Mad Dog, which doubles as the name of the leading character (on poster, top) is that as the film moves along, almost all the boys begin to humanize, even as their actions remain disgusting, abominable. This makes for an acute tension that, I think, renders the movie more difficult to fully embrace, even as you admire its skill and impact.

There is a doomed negativity to almost eveything in the film, star-ting with the names given to its killer children -- Johnny Mad Dog, of course, and No Good Advice, Small Devil, Nasty Plastic and Dust to Dust.  Probably the most positive of these would be Never Die -- except the single saying the boys most often chant is this: "Don't wanna die?  Never be born."  While that is utterly true, of course, it's not the kind of slogan you'd want your kid to grow up on.

There is no narration nor real exposition to this movie: You are thrown into the midst of it and must find your own footing. Two stories are present in the film -- that of Johnny and his crew, who are told by their leader to "take" a section of a town. We also meet the young girl Laokole (Daisy Victoria Vandy, above), trying to care for her amputee father and younger brother.  The two stories will come together briefly, part, and then join again at the conclusion -- which will not perhaps be the conclusion that you wanted.

Along the way, the film almost becomes a romance, as Johnny (a riveting performance by Christopher Minie. above center) puts his not-quite-mature "moves" on the only female member of his band, Lovelita (Careen Moore). There's a highly unusual scene here in which rape turn into to lovemaking on both parties' part.
 

Full of odd. specific details that almost defy description but not believability (the white wedding dress one young solider-- above, center -- discovers, dons and wears for the remainder of the movie) or the song that the youngest, most delicate soldier Butterfly (Mohammed Sesay, shown at left) sings to their newly dead "comrade" (a boy who never even got to hold a real weapon before meeting his death).

There are so many ironies present here that, were not the movie so consis-tently riveting, you might mistake it for some kind of overdone satire. No: This is a reality that you can only hope you and your loved one will never experience.

The cinematography (by Marc Koninckx), when you have time to stop and notice, is often extraordinary, with some of the citiscapes (above) as breathtaking as the verdant countryside. And this has got to be one of the most surprising uses, yet not out of line, of the song Strange Fruit, sung by Nina Simone, that you'll have heard.

Johnny Mad Dog, from IFC Films, opens today, Friday, January 21, at Anthology Film Archives for a one week run. Performances are at 7 and 9pm daily, with an extra 5pm screening Saturday & Sunday.

Back to Africa, as Denis and Huppert knock our socks off with WHITE MATERIAL

Africa has never been far away from the films of Claire Denis -- from the first and comparatively benign (everything's relative) Chocolat to the new and slowly horrifying WHITE MATERIAL. Even when Denis' setting is Paris and its environs, her characters, some of them, at least, are dealing with the African emigrant experience in France. And her most critically-acclaimed work, Beau Travail (though not my favorite) deals with the French Foreign Legion, whose "home" is the sun-splashed desert of the "dark continent." As special and full of wonder (and two peak performances) as is a film like the Paris-set, bourgeois-bound Friday Night, Denis' work set in Africa commands its own special power, yet none of her films till now have had quite the power of this new one.

White Material is also perhaps as close to mainstream a movie as the filmmaker, pictured at left, has given us. "Close" for Denis, I mean. Relatively easy to follow as it goes from the present to an extended flashback that brings us back to the beginning and slightly onward, the movie is heavy with those mainstream staples -- threat,  violence and terror -- though all of them are handled in a manner that makes us increasingly uneasy, rather than slapping us in the face with standard blood-and-guts. In fact, for a long while we see no killing, no use of violence.  Instead we see its threat -- or its aftermath. When at last, the on-screen, you-are-there killing arrives, it comes from exactly where we do not expect it and is thus even more shocking and unsettling.

It seems to TrustMovies that Denis' theme here is the fruits of Colonialism, harvested on the home ground of the colonized: How self-destructive the big C is to the colonizers themselves and how, once armed revolution takes hold, the colonized become as or more savage than their suddenly overthrown keepers.

The filmmaker's story is about a sick-unto-dying French family who has for three generations owned a coffee plantation in Africa.  The opening shots -- wild dogs running loose and our main character, Maria Vial (played by the great Isabelle Huppert, above) traveling up a road and hoping for help from passing autos that do not stop -- sets the tone for what is to come. Maria wants, no matter what, to hold on to the family plantation.

We meet Huppert's husband André (Christopher Lambert, above), who is trying to negotiate some kind of monetary settlement for the plantation from the powers-that-may-soon-be, including the town's mayor (William Nadylam, below), who has organized his own militia to fight the growing strength of the home-grown rebels jockeying for power. We also meet the household servants, including one with whom André has fathered a son.

Maria's father-in-law (Michel Subor) still controls the plantation but appears to have given up on everything, maybe including life itself. The Vial's grown son (played by Denis irregular Nicolas Duvauchelle, most recently seen in Wild Grass and The Girl on the Train) still acts like a baby half the time, due perhaps to his mom's inappropriate "mothering." When he chases after two young rebels and is made to undergo a terrible humiliation, this sets off familial crises in which the cracks become too big for everyone to bear and all hell break loose inside the family, just as the same thing is occurring outside.

 
Real control eludes nearly everyone here, and even those who seem to possess it for a time (the rebel leader Boxer, played by another magnetic actor Denis used early on: Isaach De Bankolé, shown below) know how transient it will be. In near-complete control, yet seeming loose and intuitive, the filmmaker builds her story and her tension boldly, with always just enough information to keep us up-to-snuff but on our toes, with Huppert's character always in control of herself, if of little else.

This actress just gets better and better. (Really, has she not been, from The Lacemaker onwards, close to perfect?) Huppert rarely change her appearance much (her costumes, of course) yet she has that special ability to seemingly create each character from the inside out.  Consequently we don't doubt a word she says, nor an expression that passes over her often enigmatic face.

White Material (the title refers to the "possessions" of the colonizers) is a decidedly accessible movie, unlike, say Denis' Intruder of a few years back. It tells a gallopingly good story, in addition to being about something important that the world and its people still seem to have trouble comprehending. It should increase this filmmaker's coterie considerably, even as it burnishes her art to a brighter sheen.

The movie, from IFC Films, opens here in New York City on Friday, November 19, at the Lincoln Plaza Cinema and the IFC Center. It will also be available from IFC On-Demand starting Wednesday, November 24. Click here to learn how to get it from your local TV-reception provider.