DVDebut for IN HER NAME, Vincent Garenq's drama of death and much-delayed justice

Less a revenge thriller than a quiet and compassionate drama of loss, anger and a search for justice, IN HER NAME, the 2016 French film by Vincent Garenq and starring the exceptional Daniel Auteuil, is a tale taken from life that spans several decades but compresses these into a smartly conceived, directed and written (by Garenq, shown below, and Julien Rappeneau) movie that lasts but 87 compelling minutes that are definitely worth a watch.

A true-life tale that made news in its native France, the movie tells of the Bamberski family -- husband (M. Auteuil), wife (Marie-Josée Croze, shown two photos below) and their two children -- torn apart by the wife's continuing infidelity with a family acquaintance (his daughter is a schoolmate/friend of their daughter) who is a successful doctor in Germany and who proves to be a swine of the first order. This character, who exists mainly as the significant "villain," is  played with a near-perfect combination of charm, sex appeal and sleaze by German actor, Sebastian Koch, shown below, left, with Auteuil.

The story -- which begins with the arrest of M. Bamberski by French authorities (we're unsure of exactly why, although kidnapping has been mentioned) -- then backtracks some 30 years to Morocco and then France, Germany, and back again, as events unfold in a continuous time-line made up of relatively short scenes that show us what is happening and why.

Although these events involve things such as rape, untimely death and maybe murder, Garenq avoids any heavy melodrama by keeping his film to more of a documentary style (and I mean that in the old-fashioned, not the newer, hybrid, sense of the word). He doesn't try to jolt us or turn his movie into a suspense thriller. He doesn't need to because the events themselves are awful enough, and what happens after the initial death proves even more jarring and anger-provoking. The filmmaker has chosen to tell his tale in what turns out to be the most appropriate way possible.

Garenq's other ace-in-the-hole is his leading actor. M. Auteuil has for decades now proven his command of the screen in his own generally quiet fashion. He can on occasionally go over the top, too, and either way stealing films from under other heavier-handed actors like Gérard Depardieu (remember The Closet) without even trying.

Here his quiet determination is both believable and occasionally chilling. He's an obsessive, all right, but as someone who has lost his daughter, first to her betrayer and then to the French and German justice systems, how could he not be? Auteuil holds the film together and brings it home. His final line, in fact, is as simple, honest and heart-breaking as you could want.

The supporting cast (made up mostly of characters trying to help Bamberski achieve his goal) is also spot-on, with Christelle Cornil (above) especially good as the new woman in Bamberski's life who tries her best to join in/put up with his obsession.

Out on DVD from Icarus Films and streaming from Distrib Films, In Her Name, in French with English subtitles, is available now -- for both purchase or rental.

SPIRAL fans, rejoice: Season 5 -- the best yet -- is out now on DVD via MHz Network

As ever, the French cops/lawyers/judges/justice series SPIRAL (Engrenages) resonates darkly like little else you'll find on television anywhere. Season 5 of this remarkable show offers up children as its central theme -- one barely conceived, another dead, and the rest in various and tricky places on the spectrum in between. Parenting, too, comes in for a licking, as we see some truly shocking instances of the very bad sort and what this can lead to in the later lives of the participants.

The same six lead characters are back again and in their usual fine form. One of the things that makes the series resonate so strongly is how these characters continue to grow and change -- with their strong and weak points both contributing to this growth and change -- while engaging us with remarkable strength and force. The other thing is that makes Season 5 so compelling lies in the surprises that await us. These come both from the exquisite plotting and the fine characterization by the series creator, Alexandra Clert (shown above), the currents writers and the lead performers, each of whom gets better with each new season.

What we have this time begins with the murder of a mother and her child, and the surprise pregnancy of one of our "heroes." There is also a series of robberies going on in which young hoodlums on motorcycles and thieves in stolen cars wreak their havoc on the citizenry. A "snitch" turns out to be an unlikely if self-serving ally, and the initial suspect in the murder case appears to be possibly innocent.

Judge Roban (the marvelous Philippe Duclos, two photos up) has grown hardened in surprising ways, while lawyer Joséphine Karlsson (everyone's favorite French redhead, Audrey Fleurot) has both softened and strengthened. (The latter is shown above with that fine actor Louis-Do de Lencquesaing, here in an ace supporting role.)

That pug-ugly and extraordinarily sexy actor Thierry Godard (above, right) deepens and broadens as the cop, Gilou, while Captain Laure Berthaud (Caroline Proust, below, left) must deal with her usual work-related business while deciding how and even if to welcome a newcomer to her life. (The French -- and perhaps still too Catholic -- attitude toward pregnancy and abortion is given a very interesting workout here.)

Tintin (Fred Bianconi, above) is having his usual family problems, and that other lawyer, Pierre Clement (stalwart hero Grégory Fitoussi)  has gone from prosecutor to the defense side and is handling the case of the prime suspect. It is via Pierre's character that the series offers one of its biggest surprises to date. M. Fitoussi, below, left, is shown with Olivier Chantreau, who brings a nice combination of outsized anger and bleak confusion to the role of of the prime suspect.)

As ever, the insistence on the inclusion both good and bad in our six lead characters and most of the major supporting ones makes the series infinitely more complex and believable than many others of this genre. And the addition this time of actress Shirley Souagnon in the role of a character named Karen Hoarau, aka Oz, proves a terrific piece of casting and acting. Ms Souagnon, below, makes a memorable impression indeed.

For anyone new to this fine series, begin with the first through fourth seasons, all of which are available via Netflix and Hulu. Season 5, however, is available on DVD only from MHz Networks, and for anyone who can't wait, that would be the place to order it -- for sale or streaming (soon) via the new MHz Choice option. 

Ziad Doueiri's THE ATTACK--one of the best of the Israel/Palestine films--opens

If The Other Son remains one of the most hopeful of the movies about Israel and "Palestine" (and, yes, I hope those quotes can someday be removed), THE ATTACK -- the new film directed and co-adapted (with Joelle Touma) by Ziad Doueiri from the novel by male writer Yasmina Khadra (for a very interesting short biography, click on his/her link!) -- is one of the least hopeful. Yet it is also one of the best films I have ever seen about this ongoing conflict because it takes the stuff we already know -- or assume we know -- turns it inside out and peppers it with surprise and shock and and then tears right into everything we think we, as decent human beings, hold sacred, forcing us to work it all through and come out the other side into... what? Oh, shit. This is one difficult, terrific movie.

Its leading character, Amin (Ali Suliman, above, of Paradise Now, Lemon Tree and The Time That Remains), is a successful (and now, the evening on which that the film opens, an award-winning) Palestinian doctor, trained and practicing in Israel, which is the home of him and his wife. The next day a terrorist attack occurs, and from here on in, everything changes in ways both predictable and definitely not so. The film calls into question, in a manner so strong and intense that it wipes the floor with most other movies on similar subjects, everything from identity and trust to guilt and justice, then asks us to reassess that person with whom we share our life, bed and love. If all this does not supersede questions of location and territory, well, then, screw you.

Mr. Doueiri, shown at right, has overseen the film in a way that, according to a compatriot who has also read the original novel, clarifies certain points and events without needless telescoping or elision, bringing everything home to roost in a way in which our protagonist (and thus we) are faced with the deepest questions concerning just where our identity lies. (This week we have two films opening that achieve this difficult task, both of them quite well: The Attack and the recently covered Three Worlds.) The fact that Amin is a very good doctor further complicates the situation, so far as his Israeli co-workers and friends are concerned. How they react provides yet another touchstone in our protagonist's journey toward understanding.

The Attack connects interestingly to other recent films set in this location. Our hero, in fact, could be an older version of that young Palestinian student in A Bottle in the Gaza Sea, or even the doctor that one of The Other Sons hopes to become. Yet this film takes us further into the heart and mystery of motive and identity, in a way that is less facile, for it finally confronts the question of what it is like to live among "them," when, until now, we've been one of "us."

This movie certainly does not make Israel look good, but as it was filmed there (and evidently, according to its director, because it does not demonize Israel), it has now been banned in the Arab nations. Idiots all (and I would have to include Israel's current policies in those two words). As much as The Other Son points toward reconciliation, this movie takes us closer to Armageddon. And yet so well made and honest is it that I think you 'll be willing to follow along. On a personal level, the finale is as specific and powerful as you could possibly wish. As usual, art wins out -- but among the powerful, few, if any, see or understand.

The Attack -- from Cohen Media Group and running 102 minutes -- opens today, June 21, in New York City at both the Angelika Film Center and the Beekman Theater. On June 28 it will open in the Los Angeles area at Laemmles' Royal, Town Center 5 and Playhouse 7 -- and elsewhere.

Steve Mims'/Joe Bailey, Jr.'s INCENDIARY: THE WILLINGHAM CASE is that -- and more

TrustMovies had never heard of Cameron Todd Willingham prior to seeing this movie about him, his family and the case of supposed arson that put the man on the Texas map. Ah, Texas: Here is yet another movie (one more--Texas Killing Fields--will open next week) that makes you thrilled not be a citizen of the back-ward state that has managed to elect George W. Bush as its governor, offering the fool a platform to the Presidency -- and then the likes of the god-pushing, sleazebag supreme, Rick Perry. If INCENDIARY: THE WILLINGHAM CASE does nothing else (it does a damn lot more, actually), what our country will learn from the film (if any retention remains in the American people) should put the permanent kibosh on Perry's Presidential aspirations.

Don't imagine that this movie by Mr Bailey (above, left) and Mr. Mims (above, right) is a broadside. Though their attitude and feelings seem fairly clear-cut, they go out of their way to give the "opposing viewpoint" its day. And were that viewpoint not so horrifyingly stupid and brutal we might be able to accept it with less suspicion, for what the movie does, finally, is convince you that a terrible injustice was done in the state of Texas. Yet, instead of owning up and making things right, even posthumously for the defendant, the powers-that-be, led by Governor Perry, do their best/worst to see that right never rears its head.

What the filmmakers let us understand about the whole affair -- which, by the way, cracklingly combines politics, forensic investigation, justice, the death penalty and the rights of a defendant -- raises a bunch of questions, whose answers raise even more. We learn the history of Mr. Willingham (above, right) and his extended family; we see "politics" at work, both in open meetings and behind closed doors; and we meet a defense attorney, the likes of which no defendant should ever have to endure. This movie is incendiary, all right, and not simply because it deals with (and explains a hell of a lot about) fire and how the determination of arson is arrived at -- both in the recent past and today, under a more modern methodology.

The filmmakers and their camera manage to be in a lot of places over time and what they've captured is, for the most part, exem-plary. We hear from the best, most reliable sources in fire forensics field (one of whom is shown above, and another at the bottom of this post); see up-close and nasty the ex-wife of the defendant, who appears to be lying through her teeth; and see and hear, over and over again, that putrid defense attorney who manages, in the same breath, to invoke attorney/client privilege even as he tries to incriminate his late client. In some of the best scenes, such as the one shown below, we're flies on the wall at political meetings during which the push for transparency is consistently undermined by the man Rick Perry appointed to do his dirt.

You're likely to leave this documentary fuming. Should you suddenly burst into flame, let's hope you're not in Texas -- where they'd no doubt charge you with arson and stick you on death row.

Incendiary: The Willingham Case -- one of the best and most important documentaries so far this year -- (distributed via Truly Indie and Yokel) opens this Friday, October 7, in New York at the  IFC Center; on October 14 at The Magnolia in Dallas; on October 21 at the Bijou Cinema at The University of Iowa; and on November 18 at Laemmle's Fallbrook 7.