The first great film of this year: Mohammad Rasoulof's Iranian marvel, THERE IS NO EVIL

The deservedly top prizewinner at the 2020 Berlin Film Festival, THERE IS NO EVIL is a movie that constantly questions the power of the state vs the morality of the individual in an authoritarian regime. For that reason, this film by Iranian-born Mohammad Rasoulof had to be shot on the sly and smuggled out of Iran. 

Despite this, the movie -- in terms of art, content, philosophy and, yes, even as entertainment -- seems to me to be not much improvable upon, had Mr. Rasoulof been given the time, budget and accommodation of any western "studio blockbuster." (The filmmaker himself, shown at right, has been imprisoned in Iran and banned from making movies for two years.) 

Each of the four tales in this anthology addresses a particular  moral question from a different angle, situation and set of  characters -- although by the finale, you may wonder if one of these stories is simply the continuation of an earlier one, though perhaps in a different time frame. (Or maybe not.) This does not really matter, in any case, because each story is told so honestly and so well.

The entire film lasts two and one-half hours. I admit this sounded a bit daunting when I began my viewing. But so immediate, pertinent and involving is the first episode (and each one thereafter) that any sense of time and/or deadline quickly melted away.

Episode One deals with a man, above and above) coming home from work and showering, an imperilled animal he encounters and saves, his wife and child and the various errands he and they must handle. The sense we get of modern-day Iran seems exceptional in its very ordinariness, and the tale ends with our hero back at work and a sudden coup de cinema that I have never experienced -- until now -- and which sets the scene for, as well as our sites on, all that follows, while forcing us to re-think all that we have so far seen.

Episode Two is set in what looks like prison but I think is actually the military (which in Iran, as elsewhere, seems awfully close to the same thing), as we learn of the dilemma faced by one young man. Included here in one of the best philosophic discussions of guilt, innocence, death, responsibility and the power of the state that I have seen and heard. Plus quite a bit of suspense and surprise. 

We move to the verdant countryside in Episode Three and the birthday of a lovely young woman (above, left), attended by her family and her fiance (above, right), which then turns into a wake. For whom, why, and how this has come to be all bubble up and pour over each other in this tale of, not lies, exactly, but information withheld. The final shot is simply amazing: ironic, deeply moving and quietly  provocative.  

Quiet describes the final section, too, as we see the arrival at the airport of Darya, who has returned to Iran from attending university in the west. Awaiting her are her parents, or so we imagine. But history, along with information again withheld, slowly disseminates, as we and Darya learn of the older couple's beekeeping activity and the man's health issues. The animal world, as well as the human, figure in this episode, and the ending is one of the most subtle yet encompassing and quietly moving that I can recall.

TrustMovies has deliberately left out the actual "theme" of this film -- the engine that drives all of its episodes -- because simply to name it seems almost too obvious and heavy-handed, not to mention offering up somewhat of a spoiler. Rasoulof is such a delicate filmmaker, giving us such a rich array of characters, as well as attitudes toward his main subject, that I urge you to see this film without reading too much about it beforehand. 

The writer/director plays fair by all his characters -- even when they do not always play fair with each other. (He also draws expert performances from every actor.) There are no villains here -- except the State itself. We're all flawed, right? So his chosen title There Is No Evil, if not taken in completely ironic fashion, may bring to mind that famous quote from Terence, "Nothing human is alien to me."

In any case, for me this is the movie of the year so far. I have not stopped thinking about it over the week since I viewed it. Even the occasional maybe-too-easy coincidence Rasoulof allows pales in comparison to the beauty, depth, subtlety and inclusivity on view. The filmmaker has given us here not merely Iran but ourselves and consequently the whole wide world.

From Kino Lorber, in Persian and German with English subtitles, There Is No Evil opens tomorrow, Friday, May 14, at Film Forum in New York City -- both walk-in and virutally -- and can also be seen at virtual cinema across the country. Click here to view all venues nationwide.

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. 

On Blu-ray and DVD: Antonio Pietrangeli's must-see marvel, I KNEW HER WELL

How did a movie made in 1965 that is as wonderfully rich, deep, mysterious, poignant, funny and altogether marvelous as this one -- I will go on record right now as calling it the best film about a woman I have ever seen -- fail to obtain a theatrical release here in the USA until 2016? Let TrustMovies hazzard a guess: Because it was about a woman, that's why. And back in the 1960s, this was, well, not so important. Fellini's La Dolce Vita, made five years previous, got all the fuss. That one showed us the face of Italy via a successful male character, while I KNEW HER WELL (Io la conoscevo bene) tells the tale of a not-so-successful young woman struggling to find herself and her place in the Italy of the day.

The film's writer and director, Antonio Pietrangeli, shown at left, is practically unknown here in the U.S., and after viewing his movie you'll wonder how and why this could be. The filmmaker died, very untimely, in 1968 at the age of 49, and this was his penulti-mate full-length movie. But what a legacy it provides! (It will certanly make you want to see more of Pietrangeli's work.) Had I Knew Her Well obtained a U.S. theatrical release, I suspect the man's reputation would be much stronger here than it is. Certainly some of our critics would have seen how vital and important a movie it was. And remains.

The film also gave the stunning and very talented Italian actress Stefania Sandrelli, shown above and below, the best role of her quite illustrious career, and she rose to the occasion perfectly with the kind of intuitive, quiet-yet-spectacular performance that happens maybe once in a career.

This beautiful performer -- who made her internationally acclaimed debut in Divorce Italian Style, among the other two movies she made in 1961 -- plays a young girl from an impoverished farm family in the provinces who has come to Rome to make something of herself. She uses her beauty and what skills she has to find her way into some kind of career -- maybe films -- and we follow her from scene to scene, man to man, one career step to the next, and as she goes, we grow to know her well.

Pietrangeli's method is to show us one scene after another, some short, some lengthy, some in which Adriana is pivotal, others in which she is on the periphery, yet in every one she makes her mark. With each very well chosen scene (Pietrangeli both wrote and directed the film), we learn more about Adriana and grow increasingly fond of her, as the filmmaker and Sandrelli uncover layer after layer of her character: how she reacts to and thinks about men, her surprisingly fine and judicious sense of morality, her enormous humanity and love for those around her; and her own growth and change as she comes to understand the world of which she is a part.

To call Pietrangeli a humanist is too faint praise. His choice of scenes and how he allows Adriana to slowly bloom before us is something that only a great artist can maneuver. His camera and its framing, the splendid black-and-white cinematography, and the casting of all the roles -- small to large -- is impeccable. Yet it all flows by so easily and gracefully that you might think it were a near-improvised documentary.

We see Adriana  at work as a rather absent-minded beautician, working with a sleazy PR guy to try to break into the movies, taking care of a neighbor's infant baby, meeting a sad and beaten-down boxer (above), being taken for a ride literally and figurative by an attractive con man (a young Jean- Claude Brialy, below), and so much more.  Through it all, the young woman simply grows in stature in our eyes.

In one of the most telling scenes, her current boyfriend, a successful writer (Joachim Fuchsberger, below), realizes how much more on-the-ball she is than he -- even we -- had thought. Later, at a party for a successful actor of the day, Adriana plays a supporting role, as that actor and his current producer make nasty fun of an over-the-hill actor (Ugo Tognazzi), as Adriana is photographed for a segment on a soon-to-be-released newsreel. The result of this provides the film with one of its most unsettling moments.

The movie is full of name actors -- from a very young Franco Nero to Mario Adorf, Nino Manfredi and Karin Dor (below, left) -- all of whom essay their small roles with aplomb. But it's Ms Sandrelli who proves the heart and soul of the film. See it, and you will never forget her. (The actress appears in a relatively current interview in one of the bonus features on the DVD and Blu-ray discs, and what she has to say to us about the film, its writer/director, and why it holds up so well today is so worth hearing.)

Not surprisingly, we also get a good, dark look at the Italy of this time period via all of Adriana's exploits, and what we see is not very nice. Whether it's the film industry, a boxing match, an abortion, the attentions of a wealthy young man (below) or the owner of the beauty salon where our girl initially works, Adriana is used, and usually rather badly. No one, neither characters nor filmmaker, makes the statement, yet we come away from the film not being able to help considering the place of a woman in society.

There's no mention of feminism in the movie, yet it speaks as strongly as any film ever made to and about women and how they were then and are now perceived. Yet the movie never preaches; it simply shows. After renting and watching the film via Netflix, I immediately went to my computer and ordered a Blu-ray copy and as soon as it arrived a few days later, I watched it again so that my spouse could see it (he was as impressed as I). This is the first time in years that I've purchased a film I've already seen, but I plan to keep it again and share it with as many people as I can. It's that special.

I Knew Her Well is available now from The Criterion Collection, on DVD and Blu-ray, for rental or purchase. Both versions provide, as usual via Criterion, exemplary transfers.

A great film finally hits USA screens -- Edgar Reitz's HOME FROM HOME: Chronicle of a Vision

First released around the world in 2013 but only now seeing its U.S. theatrical debut (thanks to Corinth Films), HOME FROM HOME: Chronicle of a Vision is the work of a German filmmaker -- Edgar Reitz -- not so well known in the USA, probably because much of his work (like that of another under-seen German filmmaker, Dominik Graf), has been made for German television. Herr Reitz, shown below, is the filmmaker best known for the Heimat series (and its offspring). TrustMovies has not seen that very lengthy, three-pronged, multi-part endeavor, but now, having viewed this film, Heimat is on his list.

Home From Home itself runs over three and one-half hours, but before you decide to take a pass, let me say that this is one great film: rich in theme and characterization and done in an old-fashioned story-telling manner (but using up-to-the-minute technology) to produce something that will rivet you visually, intellectually and emotionally from first scene to last. As both director and co-writer (with Gert Heidenreich), Reitz knows how to grab us immediately and hold us fast throughout.

His dialog and story, narrated by its protagonist, Jakob Simon -- played with a fine combination of sweet naivete, strength and almost idiot-savant intelligence by newcomer Jan Dieter Schneider, shown at left -- are offered up in a manner that is beautifully rendered: literary, often flowery, full of specifics, yet sounding real and of-its-time, artful and rich in ideas. (It's a pleasure to read the fine English subtitles.)

Visually, Home From Home is spectacular. Anyone who appreciates sumptuous black-and-white cinematography should have a field day here. Further, all this is occasionally leavened with moments of sudden color that adheres to certain objects: a molten red horseshoe, blue wall, orange geode, brown eyes and the like.

Initially, this may remind you of that too-much moment of red tossed in toward the end of Schindler's List. But, no: this use of only-now-and-then color occurs often enough throughout -- at moments and with objects of some importance to the film -- that it lends a kind of mythic quality to a story that is indeed that.

Home From Home is a film about coming-of-age of an exceptional young man under exceptionally trying circumstances, and it is also a tale of a country, a people, experiencing the need to expand and emigrate, perhaps for the first time in its relatively young history. Occurring in the mid-1800s, it takes place in a small German town, where everyone knows everyone, and in fact may even know everyone in the next town over, as well.

We have father/son conflict and mother/son love, brother-to-brother competition, a banished sister, adventure, incipient sexuality, the joy of learning, the drudgery of work, near-death and death itself. Moments happen, from the hugely important to the mundane, and they are all part of the wondrous tapestry Reitz has fashioned, as our hero Jakob, with his fascination for Brazil and its natives and their language, grows from boy to young man in the midst of a German town that is re-created about as well as any time and place of two centuries past that film has so far given us.

The rest of Reitz's cast is equally fine; each family member or friend comes to fully rounded life. (Look for a lovely few moments from Werner Herzog, too, in a small but pivotal role near the movie's end.) It is so unusual to find a film this old-fashioned in its depiction of a family saga yet thrillingly current in its technology and thematic concerns. This is a wonderfully humane work, as well: Reitz, while understanding the economic and class disparities present, does not go out of his way to find villains to pillory. Just getting on with the life of the time is difficult enough.

Another top-notch example of the Corinth Films catalog, Home From Home, after appearing yesterday at the San Joaquin International Film Festival Autumnfest, will open in New York City for its U.S. theatrical premier at Anthology Film Archives for a one-week run this Friday, September 11. It will the hit Hartford, Portland (OR), Cleveland and Scottsdale in the weeks to follow -- and maybe more cities, once word-of-mouth begins. Click here then scroll down to view all currently scheduled venues and dates. Note: The director and his star will be available for a Q&A following weekend AFA screenings in New York. Several of Herr Reitz's other films will screen alongside Home From Home. Consult the AFA schedule for details .

Full-bodied characters, brilliant/beautiful cinema from Turkey: Nuri Bilge Ceylan's WINTER SLEEP

I usually don't read reviews of films I'm about to cover, but in the case of WINTER SLEEP -- the new Palme d'Or-winning film from Turkey's Nuri Bilge Ceylan -- once I finished reading Stuart Klawans' review in The Nation of The Imitation Game (a film I had already covered), I found myself continuing to read his thoughts on Ceylan's film. Why didn't I stop and put it aside to finish later? Well, Klawans is a very good writer, and once I'd begun, I didn't want to stop. So rapturous was his notice (you can read it here: click and keep scrolling down) that I immediately gave it to my spouse and asked if the film interested him. It did, despite its rather unusual length (three hours and 16 minutes: and spouse is not a fan of lengthy movies).

Although Mr. Klawans recommends seeing Winter Sleep in a theater, we were sent a DVD screener to watch. As shown on our large, widescreen TV, the quality was, in a word, sensational. Visually, this is one of the most beautiful movies I have ever seen. While Ceylan's work (the filmmaker is shown at left) is often quite lovely to view, his latest outdoes any of his earlier films. From the incredible vistas that open the movie -- huge rocks sprouting from the mountain soil and homes that seem to emerge literally from the hills -- to the many interior shots, with lighting and color unlike anything I've seen, the movie is visual splendor. Still, visuals can only go so far. Incredibly, Mr. Ceylan also offers us a situation and characters as precise and special as those visuals, and then tops it all with some of the finest dialog -- also precise (in a manner that is able to gracefully unfurl character) and deep, sometimes profound -- that you're likely to hear in any film this year.

The movie is a wonder, a marvel. And while those three-plus hours don't exactly speed by, the material here -- characters and situation -- grabs us so strongly that we're not for a moment disengaged from this film. The situation blooms out of character, chiefly that of Aydin (Haluk Bilginer, below), our "hero," a wealthy man who owns the hotel that lies at the center of the film.

Around this cold sun circle the rest of the characters, including his young wife, Nihal (Melisa Sözen, shown below), and his sister, Necla (Demet Akbag, above, right). There is a scene midway in the movie between sister and brother that is one of the strongest (and longest) sections of dialog I think I've ever heard in a movie, unveiling character, philosophy, desire and fear, batting back and forth like a great tennis match of intellect and hubris that will have you on tenterhooks, trying to take it all in.

A subplot involving tenants of our wealthy fellow, a family quite down on its luck, further unveils the character of Aydin, as well as of the tenant family members themselves. A scene involving money changing hands toward the finale is one of the most quietly explosive and frustrating ever committed to film.

Ceylan's movie probes everything from class and religion to feminism, the male prerogative (in a culture such as Turkey's), and much more. There's even a reference to Hitler and the Jewish Holocaust that might tilt Turkish heads in the direction of their country's own Holocaust against Armenians, the responsibility for which -- unlike the Germans for their own, dreadful piece of history -- Turks have yet to accept. (I would like to think that Ceylan intends this "thought process," though being any more direct about it could probably end his career, at least in his home country.)

If I have given you any sense at all of how rich this movie is -- in so many ways -- then I'll consider this post a success. Winter Sleep has been selected by Turkey as its submission for Best Foreign Language Film. As crowded with quality as this year's selections surely are -- Force Majeure, The Circle, Ida, Rocks in My Pockets and Two Days, One Night (I'll cover that last one next week and haven't yet seen Beloved Sisters, Leviathan or Human Capital) to name but a few -- it strikes me at this point that Ceylan's film outshines all of what I have viewed.

Winter Sleep -- from Adopt Films and running 196 minutes -- opens this Friday, December 19, in New York City exclusively at the Lincoln Plaza Cinema, and in Los Angeles on January 23 at Laemmle's Royal, Playhouse 7 and Town Center 5. To see all currently scheduled playdates, click here, and then scroll down and click on View Theaters and Showtimes.

Life and learning continue as Michael Apted's landmark series reaches 56 UP

If you already know of the memorable and magnificent "UP" series, the latest addition to it will most likely be on your must-see list already. If you don't, it's never too late to come aboard. TrustMovies himself came aboard maybe ten years ago -- somewhere in the time between 42 Up and 49 Up. He began with the first in the series, now called Seven Up, shot back in 1963 for the British television documentary series World in Action. It covered a dozen 7-year-old British school children, all white with one mixed-race boy included, from homes upper-, middle- and lower-class (a couple of kids were in group homes).

The children, being kids, were very open: funny, charming, unique and generally delightful companions. So it was decided (probably more likely hoped) that the series could continue to document the lives of these children as they grew and matured. Indeed it has -- every seven years until this latest offering 56 UP -- with its original director and producer, Michael Apted (shown at right), continuing his yeoman work of interviewing and documenting these rather ordinary lives in a way that makes us realize how special and amazing they are. Just like yours and mine. In fact, if you don't identify -- and not just with one but with many of these people at different points along the way, I would suggest that you're not paying enough attention. The result is unique: the kind of documented personal history we've never had the opportunity to see until this particular collaboration, and the effect is equal parts bracing and moving. There is a profundity here that is in no way manufactured or strained. It simply is.

If you are new to the series, I would beg you to tackle it in a different way than I did. I watched the initial episode, along with its follow-up (called Seven Plus Seven), and then within two weeks had seen 21 Up, 28 Up, 35 Up and 42 Up. This proved too much too soon, and I felt there series contained far too much repetition. It doesn't, however, because the real waiting time between episodes is seven years.  We need the repetition at that point, because we've forgotten so much. So if you plan to watch, beginning-to-end, give yourself a respite of at least a month or two between episodes. Maybe even more time.

I met another critic at the press screening yesterday, who first came to the series by watching the penultimate episode 49 Up, and then went back to the beginning. That worked just fine, she said, and so I suspect you can enter the series via any of its (at this point in time) eight portals. What we get from all this is an understanding of the children we first meet, and of the young people they grow into, then the adults that come from these and finally, rather slowly in some cases, to the maturity and aging we have now. To call this a rich experience is woeful understatement.

It occurred to me only with this most recent addition to the series that I may not live long enough to see another segment; if I am lucky perhaps I'll see two more, which will take our people to the age of 70. And since Mr. Apted and I were born less than a fortnight apart, it also occurred to me that he might not live to finish the series, but I surely hope that he does. The fellow has made some other good movies in his time, but nothing to equal this. The Up Series will be a memorial not just to its participants but to the filmmaker.

Interestingly, we have noted along the way that those participants are not always happy with their participation nor its result. They feel, and rightly so, that the series is only showing a small piece of them. Yet when you total all those small pieces, you get -- maybe not the full character you would if you lived with the man or woman -- but still something vital and amazing.

Another caveat expressed by a couple of the participants is that of the filmmaker having an agenda -- to show up the British Class system. I'd love to speak with Apted about this, but from what we see and hear here (and have elsewhere over the past, what, century or three?), that system indeed exists (does anyone actually doubt this?) and the series' more affluent participants express it notably along the way. In 56 Up one fellow says it has changed and gone away; another says, Oh, no, it is still with us. (Both of these men are of the upper class, it is worth noting.)

Yet every one of these eleven people, from whatever class they come, are worth watching and listening to. TM is not going to go into the specifics of what we learn from this installment. Be there and find out for yourself. Once you've seen even one of these films, I believe you will be hooked for life -- theirs and yours.

56 Up, from First Run Features and running 144 minutes, opens tomorrow, Friday, January 4, in New York City at the IFC Center. Beginning January 17 and 18 , it will open in San Francisco and Los Angeles, respectively (and in Ottawa, too!) and from there appear in cities all across the U.S. in the months to come. You can see all currently scheduled playdates by clicking here.