The "mother" of psychology? Cordula Kablitz-Post's bio-pic, LOU ANDREAS-SALOME: THE AUDACITY TO BE FREE, opens in theaters

The name Lou Andreas-Salomé, if it has any associations at all for most Americans, may bring cursorily to mind Freud and late 19th/early 20th Century mitteleuropa. That's what popped into TrustMovies' purview, at least, when he first heard about this new film. LOU ANDREAS-SALOME: THE AUDACITY TO BE FREE, co-written (with Susanne Hertel) and directed by Cordula Kablitz-Post, shown below, is quite a marquee mouthful, as well as an eyeful visually. It's a beautifully produced movie, full of color, costumes, lovely locations and the marvelous use -- for both creative and budgetary reasons, I would guess -- of old-fashioned picture-postcard views of historic locations which the characters seem to suddenly occupy and even move through. This is at once enchanting, humorous and smart.

Ms Kablitz-Post offers us quite a mouthful of intelligent dialog, too -- and because subsidiary characters include the likes of Friedrich Nietzsche, as well as poets Rainer Maria Rilke and Paul Rée, the dialog is for the most part intelligent and occasionally thought-provoking. Lou (as we'll call her from this point on) was a feminist before the term was coined. Perhaps, as seems to be the case in the filmmaker's view, she was also less interested in the rights of women than in the rights of Lou Andreas-Salomé. One of the strengths of the movie is that it does provide a warts-and-all picture of our heroine, who was highly unconventional in her own time and might very well seem so in the minds of many today.

Lou is played -- as child, teenager, adult and senior -- by four different actresses, with concentration on the latter two categories, with Katharina Lorenz (above, as adult) and especially Nicole Heesters (below, as the senior version) very good in bringing Lou to life.

As for the men who flock 'round her, as storied as some of their reputations may be, the manner in which they're represented here make these "boys" seem not simply callow but also none too bright. Well, golly, that's what love can do, I guess. (Below is Alexander Scheer as Nietzsche, and further below is Philipp Hauß as pudgy poet Paul Rée. At bottom is Julius Feldmeier as the youthful Rilke, whom, as told here, Lou had a hand in renaming to something that sounds more masculine.)

I wish that Kablitz-Post has concentrated a bit more on her heroine's ideas and less on her love life, which, while maybe unusual, has the film leaning a little too much toward soap opera for its own good. Still, I knew so little about Lou going into the movie that I certainly learned something overall.

A student of Sigmund Freud, and it would seem a particularly challenging one, Lou became the first female psychoanalyst. As demonstrated by Ms Heester's fierce intelligence and strength, it appears that she was a very good one, too.

While, Lou Andreas-Salome, The Audacity to Be Free may not be the last word, cinematically, on this unusual woman, it is certainly not a bad place to begin one's exploration. Performances are fine all 'round, and visually the movie's a treat -- even if it promises more than it delivers.

From Cinema Libre Studio, in German, Italian and Russian with English subtitles and running 113 minutes, the movies opened in New York City last week at the Village East Cinema (its last day is today) and hits Los Angeles tomorrow, April 27, at Laemmle's Royal, with additional cities and playdates expected to follow.

FINDING BABEL: A Russian writer returns in David Novack and Andrei Malaev-Babel's doc

Here's a new documentary about Issac Babel that I suspect will appeal much more to confirmed Babel-ophiles than to folk like TrustMovies (who has heard of Babel down the decades but has never gotten around to actually reading any of his work). Consequently, watching this somewhat disorganized movie (that does eventually come together better than you might expect) proves a bit of an endurance test. Granted, Babel's personality and character may have been elusive to his readers, but the work itself -- from what we hear of it here (read well enough by actor Liev Schreiber) -- seems even more elusive, given that we get such minute snatches accompanied by a rather obvious and overdone visuals.

Director and co-writer (with Babel's grandson, Andrei Malaev-Babel) David Novack (shown at left) has other documentaries to his credit, so he does not arrive at this project as a total newcomer. Perhaps the combination of his goals, along with those of Malaev-Babel, were not so easily and/or simultaneously satisfied because the end result -- for quite awhile, at least -- seems scattered and all over the place.

First, we get a (very) brief history of the man and his life (mostly of his early disappearance and death, which was not even told to his closest relatives. Ah, those Russians: They sure know how to do "disappeared."). Then we're given smidgens of Babel's writing, along with increasing talking-head interviews, and eventually we come to realize that this documentary is not really about Babel himself, but instead concerns the journey his grandson, Andrei (shown below), is making to "discover" his grandfather.

Andrei is front-and-center throughout and this proves -- eventually -- to be enough to hold our interest, mostly because of some of the people he chooses to contact and interview. From them, we learn snippets about the famous writer, yes, but really more about Russia then and now. It is a land to avoid. Unless of course you were born then, and then you'd best simply go with the flow, from one horrendous, murderous dictator like Joseph Stalin, whose power and paranoia ended Babel's life, to the country's current Putin-ous leader, about which, toward the film's end, we see, hear and experience some modern-day corrupt power.

In between we meet a number of interesting folk, chief among these the noted French actress Marina Vlady (above, whose father was Russian-born) and the great Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko, below, who as might be expected, has some succulent things to tell us. (One of this writer's poems, Lies, was given to me in calligraphy by a good friend when my daughter was born. It has hung on my wall for decades now. It is brilliant and on-the-nose, though many in my family hate it. You can read it in translation in the link above -- or here.)

Most of all, we meet and spend a bit of time with Babel's widow and Andrei's grandmother (shown below), a woman who was apparently rather cold but talented (she designed a famous Russian subway station) and who, even as this documentary was being filmed (she died during the filming), found it hard to dredge up and/or part with certain feelings.

We even pop in on rehearsals for a play that Babel wrote, and watch the performers and hear a bit of dialog. But, again, all this is so brief and offhand that it does not add much to our understanding of the writer. By the doc's finale, if Babel (shown in an archival photo below) remains pretty much the enigma he was at its beginning, Andrei's journey has at least been salutary for him and somewhat interesting for us, too. Maybe the movie will send viewers off to peruse the writer's work that still remains. (Much of Babel's unpublished stuff was destroyed by Stalin and his apparatchicks: Yes, those Russians certainly know how to "disappear" people, along with their ideas.)

Finding Babel (rather a misnomer overall, I think) -- a co-production of Canada/France/Russia/ USA/Ukraine and running 88 minutes -- opens this Friday, October 28, in New York City at the Cinema Village and at the RED Cinema Stadium 15 in Greensboro, North Carolina. The film opens December 2 in the Los Angeles area at Laemmle's Town Center 5, and then in Williamsburg Virginia beginning Thursday, December 8, at the Kimball Theatre. To find an update on currently scheduled screenings, click here.

Personal appearances: 

There will be Q&As 

with director David Novack 

and various guests 

at NYC's Cinema Village 

every evening during this one-week run. 

Consult the theater for exact times.

Vitaly Mansky's UNDER THE SUN attempts -- with great beauty -- to reveal North Korea...

...but as usual with documentaries about this most foreign of foreign countries (I wonder if even North Koreans find it pretty strange: probably not, as they appear to have been brainwashed into a kind of near-lobotomization by now), we get pretty much the same old thing. Yes, once again (as in last year's Songs From the North), the state and its minions control everything the documentary filmmaker sees, hears and shoots (they even write the goddamned script!), so that everything the viewer sees and hears in, UNDER THE SUN, the latest attempt to show us North Korea, is... pretense. And pretense -- especially when it is handled as obviously as it is in this "kingdom" -- soon becomes downright boring.

How can it not? And how can a filmmaker begin to tell the truth when the powers-that-be are looking over his shoulder and telling him what to do, 24/7? Well, there is the editing process, once you've left the country. So documentarian Vitaly Mansky (shown at right, and clearly suffering from a North Korean-induced migraine) seems to have confined some of that "fake" script to voice-over and then let his visuals tell a bit different story from what those in power might want. Also, in his finished film, he explains via supertitles that introduce some of the scenes, how the state consistently changed reality into whatever scenario it would rather have us see and hear.

The result of all this is more beautiful visually than we've seen before. The colors are often eye-popping, particularly in scenes such as one in what looks like a soy milk factory, and later at some sort of a group sing-along in which the women are attired in simply gorgeous, colorful costumes. Visually, the movie is much more stunning than the obviously lower-budgeted Songs From the North (hell, it's even more so than that of the much higher-budgeted Hollywood narrative comedy The Interview).

And the scenes Mr. Mansky managed to capture (I am guessing surreptitiously) of everyday North Koreans show a populace in which anything approaching normal behavior has been commandeered by the state. No wonder the people seem to walk around like zombies. (There's a scene in which one after another twosome or threesome poses in front of bright red flowers and murals of the "great leaders" that is hugely sad, as are other scenes in which Mansky's camera captures subway and escalator riders.  These visuals take us so far before repetition and boredom set in.

How many times must be watch the Korean "director" coach his subjects to do and say the scripted stuff,  smile more, and act more joyful before we get the point? A little of this goes a long way, and Under the Sun lasts 105 minutes, during which we even have to sit through some "reshoots."

And while we do get so fun and sadness out of the leading threesome (shown at left) that is forced to portray the "typical" family in the documentary, with a little girl who is particularly sweet and charming, seeing her and her parents in all these faked situations -- at school, joining a political children's group, working in a garment factory, listening to an old military man drone on, watching a dance class, in hospital, and performing in the would-be spectacular finale number -- everything here combines to tell us what we already know. Or at least think we know. And nothing we see or hear here is likely to disabuse us of these notions. (Also, the thought does arise: What happened to this family after the film was released at film festivals around the world, much to the displeasure of the North Korean government?)

So Under the Sun joins the collection of movies, books, news reports, and all else about North Korea that we already have. If there is a way to show the real thing, nobody's found it yet. Instead we get the pretense (and sidelong glances that indicate something more). Over and over again. I'm not sure what is left for us to learn from all this.

The documentary -- released via Icarus Films, in Korean with English subtitles -- opens this Wednesday, July 6, in its U.S. theatrical premiere for a one-week engagement at Film Forum in New York City. Elsewhere? Yes, and you can see all nine, currently-scheduled cities and theaters in which the film will screen by clicking here.

DVDebut -- Justin Webster's documentary, GABO: The Creation of Gabriel García Márquez

Among the most internationally popular novelists of the 20th and early 21st centuries would have to be included the Colombian-by-way-of-Mexico writer and Nobel Prize winner, Gabriel García Márquez. As well-known as is his writing, I wonder how many of his fans know much about his history. That can now be easily remedied via the new documentary, GABO: THE CREATION OF GABRIEL GARCIA MARQUEZ ("Gabo" is the nickname by which the writer was lovingly known).

Written and directed by Justin Webster (shown as right), the movie's subtitle, "The Creation of Gabriel García Márquez," may at first sound a bit off-putting, as though Márquez was somehow "manufactured," in the way that so much of what is given us culturally these days seems to be. But, no, the subtitle makes very good sense because this fine documentary explores so much that went into the life experience of this man that led him down the path to becoming the excep-tional writer he was.

So, yes, we get history -- of family, politics, economics and the like -- and plenty of talking-head interviews of friends, family, along some rather important people (did you know that former President Bill Clinton was a huge fan, claiming One Hundred Years of Solitude as his all-time favorite novel?). Mr. Webster  blends the personal and political quite adeptly, letting us see and better understand Márquez's strong connection to everything from his native Colombia to Cuba and Fidel Castro.

Can  you imagine the American populace turning out in droves to honor a mere writer?  (Maybe, but not since the death of Sholem Aleichem.) That's how Latin American responded to this man when he was alive, and the movie offers up plenty of clues as to why this should be so.

The documentary is indeed an appreciation, but, as one friend notes about Márquez early in his career, "He had come under the influence of Bogotá," cultural capital of Colombia. Which meant that he'd become snobbish, sexist and full of himself. But this was simply one more progression along the way and probably not much different from the experience of many talented South American men of the day. (On the movie's plentiful extras, an actress and former lover of Márquez fondly recalls her time with the man.)

His regard for and ability at journalism, captured beautifully here, stayed with Márquez for life. Despite Cuba's human rights abuses, so did his love and respect for Fidel Castro. (There's a wonderful shot of Fidel, Márquez and Ted Turner included in the terrific archival and newsreel footage.) We watch in wonder as each new book appears, and Webster gives us plenty of ammunition to better understand from where and how these works arrived. (Among the many lovely anecdotes included here is one about his wife, some back rent, and a fortunately trusting landlord.)

If you're a Márquez fan, unless you already know a lot about the man, the documentary would seem a "must." If you're a newcomer to his work and life, Gabo: The Creation of Gabriel García Márquez will make a fine introduction that will very probably set you to reading that work. From Icarus Films the documentary hits the street this Tuesday, May 10, for purchase or rental.

EISENSTEIN IN GUANAJUATO: It's the new Peter Greenaway and very sexual. 'Nuff said.

OK. So it's gorgeous (that pretty much goes without saying regarding most movies by Peter Greenaway). With EISENSTEIN IN GUANAJUATO, black-and-white cinematography moves into color; the screen splits, then splits again. Sometimes we see black-and-white and color simultaneously. And as happens with Greenaway now and again (remember The Pillow Book?), there are a number of shots featuring uncut cock (belonging here to famed film director Sergei Eisenstein -- or at least the actor who's playing him, Elmer Bäck).

I would say that Mr. Greenaway, shown at right, is up to his old tricks, but these are rather new tricks, and simply for that color, exquisite sets and locations, not to mention all of the full-frontal beauty, the movie is worth seeing. As an exploration into the life and desires of filmmaker Eisenstein, I do not know enough about the filmmaker to be certain. But maybe Sergei himself would fall in love with this movie. I certainly did.

I want to see it again, too -- with English subtitles included, because, even though the film is spoken mostly in English, the accents of its two stars (one Finnish, the other Mexican) are so strong that I suspect I missed enough of the dialog to need a second viewing. Visually, too, it's such a knockout that it warrants another look.

Historically, the movie tampers with the time that Eisenstein, having departed the United States for Mexico in 1931, where he hoped to make a film (he did indeed shoot more than two miles of film stock), but instead -- as shown here, at least -- gets more involved with his guide, Palomino Cañedo (played by the quietly commanding Mexican actor, Luis Alberti), who opens Eisenstein's heart, mind and ass to new worlds of pleasure and ideas.

In addition to its gorgeous location photography and interior sets, much of the movie takes place in and around a very large bed (above) that proves pivotal to a number of scenes. In the role of Eisenstein, Mr. Bäck seems a rather inspired choice. The actor, below, who looks a good like like his real-life counterpart, combines a kind of loopy, clownish behavior with a physicality and sexuality that prove oddly charismatic.

In the role of his guide, Señor Alberti (shown below, right), a man of small, thin stature who possesses very large penile/genital package, seems born to disrobe -- which he does several times in the course of the film.

Greenaway uses this character of "guide" in ways both obvious and symbolic, never more so than in the film's prize sex scene in which this man of clearly Indian ancestry tutors our filmmaker in the joys of sex, as well as the philosophy of the conquered and conqueror, planting a flag in a place where, up till now, I don't think we've seen it dwell.

For all its visual pleasures -- including a couple of dramatic and gorgeous sudden changes of perspective -- Eisenstein in Guamajuato is also full of history (the entourage of Upton Sinclair makes an appearance here), ideas and provocations.

The filmmaker seems to have taken what is known of Eisenstein's time in Mexico and embroidered this with extravagant visuals that perfectly underscore what is going on physically and emotionally: exploration, loneliness, discovery, transgression.

If we get much more into the mind and body of the filmmaker rather than the guide, that's fine, as Palomino's character exists mostly to bring forth the repressed -- sexually and politically -- side of Eisenstein. What the filmmaker needs, as his wife tells him in one of the several phone conversations, "Is a secretary, a nurse, and a bum wiper."

Intercut periodically are scenes from the filmmaker's greatest hits, as well as some sexual animation that stands in for what arthouse/mainstream audiences are not quite ready to view just yet.

All in all, this is one hell of a surprising, eye-opening, mind-expanding ride. And I can't help but wonder what its viewers will think the next time they see one of Eisenstein's classics?

From Strand Releasing and running 105 minutes, the movie opens this Friday in New York (at the Angelika Film Center and the Lincoln Plaza Cinema) and in Los Angeles (at Laemmle's Royal and Playhouse 7). In the weeks to come, it will hit theaters nationwide on a limited basis. Click here, and then click on "Screenings"  to see all currently scheduled playdates.

DVDebut: Miguel Llansó's Ethiopian-set sci-fi festival hit, the kooky, charming CRUMBS

What a pleasure it is to see a post-apocalyptic narrative set in something other than the burnt-out drudgery of a wasted planet. While CRUMBS, the first full-length feature from director Miguel Llansó, takes place partly in a desert-like locale, much of the movie offers the verdant, hilly landscapes of Ethiopia, a country I warrant most of my readers have rarely seen on film and never traveled to themselves.
Nor have I.

This alone makes Crumbs worth a look for film (and geography) buffs. There's more, too, for the movie is often as goofy and sweet as the look on its director's face (Señor Llansó is shown at right). In concept and in its often remarkable visuals, full of odd juxtaposition and connections that don't quite adhere, Crumbs is a treat for jaded filmgoers fed up with post-apocalyptic emptiness, violence, horror and depression. To take their place, the filmmaker has come up with a hero like no other we have seen, embodied by a very particular actor named Daniel Tadesse (shown below).

Tadesse, with his misshapen body and handsome, expressive face (the camera roams over both of these) plays Gagano, a collector of scrap and any other items that might come his way -- the film is full of what we might call "collectibles": present-day artifacts that one hopes may gain value over eons to come -- and these bizarre pieces (from a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle figurine to a Michael Jackson record to a Baby Jesus creche piece) seem to have done exactly that.

Gagano lives with his true love Birdy (the graceful Selam Tesfayie, shown foreground, above) in an non-working bowling alley they now call home. And... Well, that's mostly it. There's little plot to speak of here, and what incidents there are -- a visit to a so-called "witch,"  the appearance of a very perverse Santa Claus (below) and a someone-or-other wearing a Nazi arm band (further below) who seems to menace our hero but not really -- only serve to attenuate an already thin tale.

As clever and visually enticing as Llansó has made his movie, this viewer at least felt the plotting and execution to be inordinately slow. While this does give us time to try to piece together a meaning to it all -- What's that spaceship doing up in the sky for so long without moving? Where do our twosome's food and water come from? What's real here (if anything) and what isn't? -- there is not much meaningful that I could piece together.

Still, I enjoyed very much the look of the film, and the performance of Tadesse, below. Because the movie is a mere 68 minutes, the DVD also offers two other short films by Llansó, both starring this unusual actor.

Crumbs, released via IndiePix Films as another in its "highly-curated collection of the best independent films from around the world," hits DVD this Tuesday, November 3, for sale or rental, with its digital debut following close at hand on November 17.