All about art, architecture, storytelling, owner-ship, sharing and love: Jill Magid's one-of-a-kind THE PROPOSAL opens

Are you aware of the work of the late Mexican architect, Luis Barragán? I was not until I saw the new documentary, THE PROPOSAL, in which what we view of Barragán's architecture reminded me quite a bit of the paintings of Giorgio de Chirico: full of beauty, simplicity and solitude. The film was conceived and directed by visual artist and writer Jill Magid, pictured below. Since this is the artist's first film, I am linking her name to her Wikipedia page rather than to the IMDB. For a first film, however, this is one whoppingly good and original piece of work.

From what we learn and see in this documentary, there is a limited amount of Barragán's work (the architect is shown below) available to be appreciated by the public, thanks to ownership of his archives and "brand" by a corporation located in Switzerland. Ms Magid wants to visit that archive and explore what's there, but the corporation -- via a woman named Federica, who is in charge of the archives -- says no. Ms Magid is a persistent little thing, however, and this one-of-a-kind, funny, provocative, unsettling documentary tells us the story of what happens after this request is refused. And -- oh, boy-- Magid is a very good storyteller.

Storytelling, in fact, is part of what this doc is all about. In it, we meet the artist, of course, along with quite a few members of the Barragán family (one of whom is now in memoriam, as we learn via the end credits) and see that they, as well as the Mexican government, want the archives returned to Mexico. So we travel from the USA to Mexico to Switzerland and back, as Magid attempts to help this process along. To talk a lot about content here would simply give away too many spoilers, and the movie is really so much fun that we oughtn't do that.

We do learn that Magid has her "artistic" quirks -- a mystical side, that includes includes leaving a plate of Barragán's favorite cookies by the bedside in the room he used to sleep. If that provokes, an "Oh, please" response, just remember that all artists (human beings, after all) have their quirks -- Picasso on down (or up, depending on your taste). Artists are crazy, right? And Magid often proves crazy like a fox. How she has organized her documentary, so that viewers learn just what we need to know, and in the way and time we need to know it, proves exemplary storytelling.

Along the way the architect's ashes (well, some of them, anyway) are turned into something quite wild and wonderful, and what happens to what-they-become is paramount here. We follow along as Jill chases the elusive Federica, and all this is like a marvelous mystery somewhere between Hitchcock and Nancy Drew. And by movie's end, its title takes on enough delight and irony to have you leaving the theatre walking on air.

That titular proposal is quite something. We learn part of it, but Magid wisely leaves all of it until the finale -- which could hardly be more mouth-agape perfect if some storied, award-winning filmmaker had done this work. By the end of The Proposal, you will have confronted art and ownership, morality, the meaning of provenance and control, seen and heard greed and hypocrisy in action, witnessed an art installation that you suddenly become part of, and been treated to some unusual ideas about love of art (and artists), plus so much more. And you'll have viewed a documentary that TrustMovies thinks is one for the ages. It's that special.

Distributed via Oscilloscope Films and running 86 minutes,  the doc opens theatrically on Friday, May 24, in New York City at the IFC Center, and the following Friday, May 31, in the Los Angeles area at the Monica Film Center. As of now, it will also hit a few other cities and theaters; click here to view currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters.

Alone at sea, and then a refugee: Wolfgang Fischer's provocative morality tale, STYX opens

The new movie STYX appears to be named for that titular river of myth that one must cross to get to the underworld (or from the underworld to our living earth). Though TrustMovies does not recall the word being mentioned aloud in the film, its significance will not be lost on those who see this disturbing work. In it, co-writer (with Ika Künzel) and director Wolfgang Fischer introduces us to a medical doctor, evidently a very good one, whom we initially see in action saving the life of a victim of a car accident.

Immediately after, our gal is in her very well-equipped sailboat, off on a long sail to an island she wants to visit (and which we see only in a picture book she's taken with her on the boat).

The film opens -- in Gibraltar -- with a shot of wildlife that makes you imagine you're in the tropics or jungle, but as the camera opens up, you realize, oh -- it's civilization. Or perhaps an unusual meld of the civilized and the wild.

Herr Fischer, the Austrian filmmaker shown at right, has put together a movie that is as visceral as it is thoughtful and provocative. The scenes of our heroine -- strongly and vividly brought to life German actress Susanne Wolff (below and whom the press kit tells us is herself a credentialed sailor) -- managing all that is required for safe, smart seafaring, are handled by the actress, director and cinematographer (Benedict Neuenfels) with utter aplomb.

Once out to sea, our good doctor, Reike, meets (via shortwave radio) a nice, helpful fellow who warns her of an upcoming storm. It hits but is not especially harmful. The next day, however, she encounters a boat full of what looks like African refugees seeking European asylum. They appear to need immediate help, so she calls this in. The Coast Guard tells her to keep her distance, turn around and leave; they're handling it all. But as the hours pass, they are clearly not, and probably intentionally so.

Several of the refugees have jumped overboard and are trying to swim to her sailboat. One of them (Gedion Oduor Wekesa, above) manages the distance, barely, and from here onward, Styx becomes a kind of moral parable involving everything from the Hippocratic Oath to lawbreaking, common decency (or perhaps only how we used to define this term), survival and a whole lot more.

There is damned little exposition to the movie. What we see (and hear) is what we get, so the viewer must decipher more than is necessary in most films. This is nowhere near impossible, however, and soon we are placed firmly in the mind and moral quandary of Reike and her rescue as she and he do what they must, so far as they understand this. (The film's ending made me hope for a sequel, in which the legal and moral ramifications of Reike's -- and the Coast Guard's -- actions are further explored.)

Considering the question of immigration and what it means to Europe the rest of the western world, the movie could hardly be more timely. Yet Styx proves a good deal more than mere agitprop. It is also a very well-made movie that functions on one level as superior entertainment, even as it forces the viewer to question what s/he would do in a circumstance like this one. It may bring to mind another memorable film, Italy's Terrafirma, which in one particular scene takes an even more difficult look at immigration and the choices we face.

From Film Movement, in English and German (with English subtitles) and running just 94 minutes, Styx has its U.S. theatrical premiere this Wednesday, February 27, in New York City at Film Forum, after which it will play 25 or more cities across the country, including, come March 15, Los Angeles (at Laemmle's Royal) and Boca Raton (at the Living Room Theaters). Click here and scroll down to see all currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters.

Art and life beautifully, cleverly, sadly explored in Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's Oscar-nominated NEVER LOOK AWAY

German filmmaker Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck has made only three full-length movies over the past dozen years, but two of these -- The Lives of Others and the current NEVER LOOK AWAY are keepers. (His third, The Tourist, was a mostly flashy-crap remake of a better, shorter film.) His two good films have their flaws, and I don't think they are as profound as the filmmaker might imagine. But I also don't think that matters much because they are plenty good as is: rich in theme and ideas, well-written and directed, and performed to a "t" by actors that could hardly be improved upon.

Herr von Donnersmarck (shown at left) has also done something of a service to art in his approach to this film because he actually offers us an artist/hero who cares about art more than he does about money or prestige -- and thus spends his life (and the movie) trying to produce art that's worthwhile.

If this sounds pompous and tiresome, the result proves anything but, as the filmmaker has surrounded his themes with a crackerjack melodrama that fascinates, troubles, and -- finally -- quite beautifully adheres.

The film begins in the Nazi era in a German art gallery, during which a rather nasty and pompous tour guide (above) takes his group around an art show made up of the kind of "decadent" modern art that Adolf Hitler so loathed.

Within that little tour group is a very pretty young women named Elizabeth May (Saskia Rosendahl, above, right) and her small nephew, a bright and open little boy, Kurt (Cai  Cohrs, above and below) who will grow into our artist hero. Both aunt and child seem to possess an understanding of and love for this so-called decadent art.

Although Elizabeth departs the film early and very sadly, it is her spirit that most hangs over the remaining movie. It is she who tells our hero the titular words, Never look away! The reason why resonates throughout this very long (three hours and nine minutes) movie,

which tracks both our hero's career and his love life (he is now played by the very skillful Tom Schilling, above) as well as the constant repression of art by dictatorships both fascist (the Nazis) and communist (the post-war German Democratic Republic), together with the eugenics and euthanasia practiced by the Nazis during World War II.

Regarding the latter, we have the character of Professor Carl Seeband (played by the fine Sebastian Koch, above), who is the man responsible for the murderous action that sets so much into play here.

After the many recent jibes at art and artists and the marketing of both, seen in everything from last year's fabulous The Square to the current and quite entertaining Velvet Buzzsaw on Netflix, what a joy it is to find a movie that not only takes art seriously but tries to genuinely show us the constant struggle involved in producing meaningful art. Sure, even in this film we see plenty of would-be artists trying to come up with the "new idea." But what counts is something else. (That's Paula Beer, below and above, right, as our hero's one true love -- other than art.)

Yes, the movie is a little long (TrustMovies thinks 15 minutes so could have easily been shorn with no great loss), yet it strong enough in theme and execution to withstand this. It also refuses to easily tie up certain loose ends regarding justice and punishment. (How many ex-Nazis were allowed by the Allies to work for them, go free, or emigrate elsewhere in the world?)

There is not always -- nor, I am afraid, need there be -- a connection between morality and art. "Never look away, Kurt," Elizabeth tells her charge, "because everything that's true is beautiful." Which helps explain the conception of a lot of very strange art. That's an opinion with which artist/revolutionary Joseph Beuys might agree. Beuys is clearly the model for the art teacher (played by Oliver Masucci, above) who most affects our troubled hero.

All told, a grand combination of melodrama and ideas, Never Look Away has been nominated for two Oscars, as Best Foreign Language Film and for its cinematography (by Caleb Deschanel). Distributed by Sony Pictures Classics, it opened on the coasts at the end of last year and will finally hit South Florida this Friday, February 15, at Miami's Tower Theater and Fort Lauderdale's Classic Gateway.  On February 22, it opens in Palm Beach County at the Living Room Theaters and Regal Shadowood in Boca Raton, and at the Movies of Delray and Movies of Lake Worth. Wherever you reside around the country, click here then click on WATCH NOW to find the theaters nearest you.

Jason Reitman's absorbing, chastening walk down our political/journalistic memory lane, THE FRONT RUNNER, wrestles with vital ideas

I swear you could almost hear the audience at Tuesday evening's preview screening thinking about, piecing together and struggling to fully comprehend the many moral conundrums -- personal, political, journalistic -- they were faced with while viewing THE FRONT RUNNER, the new film co-written and directed by Jason Reitman (shown below).

Based on the book, All the Truth Is Out, by Matt Bai (who co-wrote the screenplay, along with Jay Carson), the movie details the 1988 campaign of Colorado Senator Gary Hart to gain the Democratic nomination for the upcoming Presidential election. Hart was indeed the "front runner" in the campaign, having lost the previous 1984 nomination to Walter Mondale, who then lost the election.

As shown us in the film, Hart appears to have been the most intelligent and wisest Democratic hopeful since Adlai Stevenson, with perhaps even better organizational and "realpolitik" skills -- with one major, if usual, flaw for high-level politicians: an inability to keep his dick from wandering in younger pastures.

He also failed to understand that journalistic mores, just as all other customs/conventions, were evolving over time. (Or, depending on your viewpoint, devolving.) As played by that fine and versatile actor, Hugh Jackman (above and below), Hart proves the focal point of the movie but not -- and this is very much to the film's great credit -- its hero. Hart is simply a little too flawed for that.

What TrustMovies remembers best (he was 47 years old at the time) about the scandal that erupted over Hart's extra-marital dalliance was how, when asked about his private life, the candidate actually taunted a member of the press to investigate him, so certain was he of somehow being protected from having his private life exposed. After all, many Presidents before him (and he probably would have been elected) had been granted this privilege. This time, however, the privilege was withheld, and the result is now history.

The way in which Reitman's movie explores all this is to give us everyone's viewpoint -- Hart's, his staffers, his family, that of the press, and even that of the woman with whom he cavorted, Donna Rice (played beautifully and tellingly by Sara Paxton, below) -- and it gives these as fully and honestly as seems possible in the space of 113 minutes. You may find yourself almost constantly shifting sides, at least a bit, which is a rare reaction to have in most American films.

Consequently, issues of personal privacy are weighed against political necessities. Is the duty of the press to inform readers or titillate them? How much of what we are seeing harks back to white, male power and privilege? All of this consistently bounces around, as Reitman, Bai and Carson, along with film editor Stefan Grube, weave it all together so well that you won't have time to take an extra breath. And listen well because there is always something intelligent and pertinent being tackled here.

Most especially, you will not be able to help comparing then with now. Hart felt that the American people would never stand for a politician's private life being put on this kind of display. Hell, now we can't seem to live without it. The citizenry has devolved every bit as much as press, politics, and all else.

In the film's fine supporting cast are luminaries like J.K. Simmons (above) as Hart's chief of staff; Vera Farmiga (below, right) as his wife, the personal moral center of the film; Alfred Molina (four photos up) as Washington Post editor; and especially Ms Paxton as the put-upon Ms Rice.

The scenes featuring Farmiga and Paxton are so rich and well-drawn that, without ever seeming to unduly try, they turn the film into absolute and full-bodied feminism. But, again, The Front Runner takes no sides. It simply shows. And it does this so damned well it ought to be a front runner for the Best Picture Oscar.

From Sony/Columbia Pictures, the movie opened on the coasts last week and moves further throughout the nation on Friday, November 16. Click here to locate the theater(s) nearest you.

Emma Thompson, superb as usual, in Richard Eyre and Ian McEwan's THE CHILDREN ACT

If you are looking for a movie full of ideas, excellent performances and situations that will move you and make you think -- without actually forcing you into some preordained box -- THE CHILDREN ACT may be exactly your cup of classy British tea.

As written by Ian McEwan (from his novel) and directed by Richard Eyre, the film probes subjects such as oddball religion beliefs, the law, justice, and most especially, what your responsibility is to someone whose life you have entered and irrevocably changed.

Mr. Eyre (Stage Beauty, Notes on a Scandal), a director of theater, opera, film and television, pictured at right, has had an up-and-down movie career, and this is one of his "ups," encompassing so much so gracefully that you may find yourself thinking about the film as much after viewing as during.

The film's main character is a noteworthy British judge named Fiona Maye, played exceptionally well by Emma Thompson (below), whose workload seem to concentrate most on cases involving children at risk. She soon finds herself embroiled in a case involving a family of Jehovah's Witnesses whose teenage son desperately needs a blood transfusion that the son and his parents all reject for religious reasons.

Simultaneously Judge Maye is going through a bad time in her sexless, emotionless long-term marriage to her University professor husband Jack (a tamped-down but still effective Stanley Tucci, below), who is about to embark upon an extra-marital affair. When the judge decides that she must meet with and question the son regarding his reasons for not agreeing to the blood transfusion, everything suddenly begins to change.

How and why this happens provides the meat of the movie, and, my, is there a wealth to chew on. All of it is held together via Ms Thompson's very strong performance -- which is spot-on moment to moment. The actress takes us through changes minute and major, allowing us to see clearly her character, flaws and all, helping us understand the reasons for each new decision that she must make.

In the pivotal role of the son, Dunkirk actor Fionn Whitehead (above) is even more remarkable here. He captures both the closed-off strength of the religious cult believer and then the strange, sad, buoyant freedom that can come via the release from that brainwashing. A word, too, must be said for the fine Jason Watkins, who plays the judge's aide, a kind, quiet fellow would clearly do anything for his boss yet is treated by her as something approaching the invisible.

What happens in the course of this thoughtful, deeply felt and surprisingly realistic film involves such sudden and life-changing events that even the possibility of these happening to our cast of characters offers more real nourishment that a year's worth of the overdone plots of mainstream soap operas. Viewers who insist on melodrama and cliché may go away unsated, but those who appreciate genuine feeling -- along with characters who struggle with right and wrong and all the stuff in between -- will come away from this film richly rewarded.

From A24 and  running 105 minutes, The Children Act seems to have opened here in South Florida one week prior to its originally scheduled playdate. It hit theaters this past Friday, September 21, at the Movies of Delray and Lake Worth, the Living Room Theaters, and the Tower Theater in Miami. Wherever you live across the country, click here to find the theaters nearest you. If you can[t find a theater close to you, note that the movie is also playing simultaneously via DIRECTV.

Catching up with one of 2017's best films: Cristian Mungiu's quietly riveting GRADUATION

Out now on Blu-ray/DVD from The Criterion Collection and brimming with first-rate Special Edition Features, GRADUATION, the latest film from terrifically talented Romanian writer/director Cristian Mungiu, was first seen theatrically in the USA back in April of 2017. It is by far the best of the four of his films I've so far seen -- which also include Beyond the Hills, Four Months Three Weeks and Two Days, and the smart, ironic and underseen Tales From the Golden Age -- and it is a major leap forward for the amazing Mr. Mungiu, shown below.

Graduation is all about connections and their usage. So many of the movies that have come out of the Eastern Bloc over the past decade -- since the fall of that wall and the splitting off of the Soviet empire -- have dealt with this idea of how all-important were/are  "connections" during and since the end of Communist rule.

Once again the Romanian writer/director bears out this idea in his story of a family soon-to-be in crisis, due to its use of connections, together with a very slippery morality amongst just about everyone involved in this sad, gray tale.

A bricked tossed through an apartment window begins the film. Why? And by whom? We wonder, as does the family at the center of the film: a father (Adrian Ttitieni, above) and mother (Lia Bugnar, below) intent of having their only daughter graduate with honors so that she can attend a university and then a medical school in the west. Present-day Romania, it seems, is nowhere in which you'd want to your beloved offspring to grow into adulthood.

The daughter herself (Maria Dragus, below), as we learn from the outset, seems not so keen on this idea, having grown a little too close to her boyfriend and not wanting to leave behind her other friends. When the girl appears to have been attacked on her way to school and may not be able to take the tests she'll need to graduate, Dad goes into immediate action, using every connection he has and calling in every debt he is owed (or imagines that he is owed) to ensure his daughter's welfare/endeavor.

Then morality of all this is suspect from the outset and simply grows worse as the movie moves along. How everyone involved proves so easily corruptible, together with the lengths to which most of them will go to ensure their own welfare, is handled just about perfectly: neither too heavy-handedly nor too easily. We see each person's problems, as well as the "bigger picture," and so we understand how this is all happening, even as we also wonder how we would react in such a situation.

Mungiu is by now a master at this kind of dark social satire. He is also uber-competent at finding just the right situation -- important yet nothing too awful or life-threatening -- to bring out the kind of behavior he wants to point up. Yet he is also a grand entertainer with an ability, via exceptional casting, writing and directing, to bring out the worst in the best way.

The film fairly drips with irony, though the drips are so light and frequent that you barely notice some of them. Eventually, they're a flood. TrustMovies is sorry he did not see this film sooner, for it would have made his 2017 Best List for certain (he'll place it there now, in any case). From Criterion, in Romanian with English subtitles and running a lengthy but consistently engrossing 127 minutes, it is available now on Blu-ray and DVD.

Among the grand Special Features included on the disc is a terrific new interview with filmmaker Mungiu, and wonderfully informative video of the Cannes Film Festival press conference from 2016 featuring a Q&A with the director and several of his actors, including the very hot-looking young man (Rares Andrici, below) who plays the daughter's interesting but quite unsettling boyfriend.