Father & son bond over the loss of their women in Robert Jan Westdijk's charming WATERBOYS

Yet another fine European movie rescued-from-obscurity (so far as American audiences are concerned) by Corinth Films, WATERBOYS takes its title from the renowned (in Scotland, anyway) British-Irish folk rock band formed in Edinburgh in 1983, The Waterboys, whose sound has gone through various iterations during the nearly forty years that the band (with a severn-year hiatus during the 1990s) has been making music.

Music, in fact, play a major part in this alternately funny, charming and moving tale about two men -- father and son -- whose behavior has gotten them tossed out of the homes of both their women: the father's wife and the son's girlfriend.

As written and directed by the Dutch filmmaker Robert Jan Westdijk (shown, right), the movie offers parents who've long been smitten with The Waterboys' music, while their son, not especially a fan, makes music of his own via the cello, which, we eventually see and hear, he plays quite beautifully. 

The father, Victor, is essayed by a noted Netherlands-born actor Leopold Witte (below, right), while son Zack is brought to slowly resonating life by the younger Dutch actor Tim Linde (below, left). 

Initially, we're not terribly taken with either of these guys, nor do they seem to be with each other. But as we get to know them, we begin to understand both what is going on between them and how and why each man continues to struggle with his own individual problems. Which are certainly noticeable -- particularly Dad's.

While we meet the very pretty (and very angry) girlfriend of Zack, we never even see Victor's wife, Elsbeth. Yet so well-written and -conceived is Westdijk's screenplay that Elsbeth comes quite marvelously to life in any case. She's always there, somehow working behind the scenes, and her importance to both her husband and son comes ever clearer as the film moves on.

With suddenly having nowhere to live, Zack must accompany his dad -- who's a successful crime fiction writer -- to a book-signing in Edinburgh, where Dad is confronted by a woman from that branch of his publisher who refuses to put up with even an ounce of his bullshit (the very fine Helen Belbin, shown above, with her back to us) even as Zack meets and bonds with a lovely young hotel worker, played by Julie McLellan, below. 

By the gentle, moving finale, no major bridges have been crossed, nor tons of growth achieved. But a small change can be even more believable and certainly important, and so it is here. "We are who we are," this movie seems to say, but even who we are can be tinkered with and perhaps improved a bit.

From Corinth Films, in Dutch (with English subtitles) and English, and running just 93 minutes, Waterboys hits home video this coming Tuesday, April 20, on DVD, and is available via digital streaming on Prime Video (members can view it free).

Blu-ray debut for Gérard Corbiau's under-rated musical/visual/sexual spectacle, FARINELLI

When FARINELLI was first released theatrically in the USA, back in 1995, it rather divided our major critics, winning Best Foreign Language Film at the Golden Globes but losing its BFLF Oscar nomination to the winner, Burnt by the Sun.

When TrustMovies first saw the film he was hugely impressed by its visual beauty, its music, the castrati subject matter, along with the two gorgeous and sexy young Italian actors in the leading roles: Stefano Dionisi and Enrico LoVerso. Seeing the film again, 24 years later, it seems even better: deeper, stronger, more unusual, and every bit as beautiful as I remembered.

As directed and co-written by Gérard Corbiau, at right, the movie grabs you from almost the first few frames as a nude young man shouts down a warning from high above to another, younger boy, singing in the chorus below. What happens next is awful and riveting, setting the cinema table for so much that is to be served -- theme-, character-, and plot-wise over the nearly two hours to come.

Though the film moves cleverly and easily back and forth in time, it more formally begins as our young- adult Farinelli, played by Dionisi, below,

accompanied by his older brother, Riccardo (Lo Verso, below), impresses a surprised crowd with his amazing vocal skills and then shares a sexual conquest with his brother.

They share everything, it turns out, from their music to their finances to their women. (Farinelli was a stage name for Carlo Broschi, born in 1705 in what is now Apulia, Italy; brother Riccardo eventually became a noted composer and conductor.)

Carlo is by this time a castrato (having earlier been, or so he and we are told, in a terrible horseback-riding accident in which his scrotum was crushed). This has given him amazing vocal skills and range, while still enabling him -- said to have often been the case with eunuchs -- to achieve erection and full sexual union without ejaculating that life-giving sperm. Think of the fellow as the ultimate in pleasurable birth control.

As the film winds on and around, we're treated to other interesting subjects -- from the theatrical competition between the London theater that housed the work of Handel, the most famous composer of the time (played by Jeroen Krabbé, above, standing) and a lesser-known theatrical venue; creativity and its discontents (brought to sad life by brother Riccardo); the meaning of family (both birth and choice) and what one person might do to another to achieve his desired success.

Along the way we meet a raft of fascinating subsidiary characters, too -- from a continuing romantic interest (Elsa Zylberstein, above) to a mother and her beautiful but infirm son (below), both of whom provide our Farinelli with help and affection.

What holds this all together, however, are the gorgeous music and eye-popping visuals -- sound, production and costume design to die for -- giving us quite a splendid view of how 18th Century theatricals might have looked and sounded.

There's a lot of drama here -- melo and otherwise -- and the performances of Dionisi and LoVerso are exquisitely on target as the loving/feuding brothers. (Dionisi, as it turns out, had to learn to sing for this role and does a terrific job of lip-synching.)

The Blu-ray transfer in 2K helps preserve a truly splendid piece of moviemaking about a subject of which we've seen far too little. And don't miss the nearly hour-long Bonus Feature, Nostaliga for a Lost Voice, which details how so much of this amazing movie was researched and filmed -- with special attention to the way in which Farinelli's unusual voice was recreated, using the voices of two different singers, a female soprano and male counter-tenor, then seamlessly joining the two in the sound studio. Fascinating!

From Film Movement Classics and running 111 minutes, Farinelli hits the street this coming Tuesday, April 23, on Blu-ray, DVD and digital -- for purchase and/or rental.

NICO, 1988: Susanna Nicchiarelli's splendid three-years-in-the-life bio-pic in U.S. premiere

The name Susanna Nicchiarelli rang a familiar bell to TrustMovies and, sure enough, he'd seen two other of her films in past years via the FSLC's Open Roads series of new Italian cinema, both of these child-centered but very different tales: Cosmonauta (click, then scroll down) and Discovery at Dawn (La scoperta dell'alba). Both were worth seeing, though they did not give him a clue to how far this talented filmmaker has come with her latest work, NICO, 1988. The subject here is the German rock singer, Nico (whose real name was Christa Päffgen), who rose to fame as one of Andy Warhol's "superstars," and was vocalist for the rock group The Velvet Underground before embarking on a music career on her own.

Interestingly, Ms Nicchiarelli (shown at right) seems to also see this bio-pic as a kind of child-centered film, for Nico's paramount object of affection (and guilt) is her son, Ari, a young photographer prone to suicide attempts whom she did not or could not care for properly when he was a child. While this child connection is not the be-all/end-all of the film, in terms of emotional connection, it provides Nico's, as well as the viewer's, strongest bond.

Bio-pics are not my favorite genre of film, but I have to say that Ms Nicchiarelli, who both wrote and directed the movie, has given us one of the best I have seen. It may not tell us everything we might want to know about this unusual singer/performer, yet everything it tells us works. All of what we see and hear comes together to create an odd and arresting look at Nico/Christa in the final few years of her life.

The film's ace-in-the-hole is its superb cast, beginning with star Trine Dyrholm (above), whom we are more used to seeing in much more glamorous roles (from The Commune to A Royal Affair and Troubled Water). Dyrholm is glammed-down to the max; she sings her own songs here, too; and what a voice she possesses! This Nico is not an easy person to deal with, but Dyrholm makes her utterly real and often surprising. (The real Nico was a good deal more beautiful than Dyrholm, but no matter: The actress will own this role, I suspect, in perpetuity.)

Drug-addicted bigtime but still able to perform up a storm,  the star is about to tour Europe when the film begins, with a new manager (the fine John Gordon Sinclair, shown below, right: remember Gregory's Girl?) and a new but mostly talented back-up band.

We get to know and care about -- only to the extent necessary, but this is enough -- all of the characters on view via a script that gives each his/her due with without being over-expository or obvious. Nicchiarelli uses a very welcome documentary-like visual approach, which adds a layer of reality all its own, along with the expert period detail of the production design (it's simply there, without having to call attention to itself).

Further, the film has been shot in the old-fashioned aspect ratio of 1.37 : 1, which helps take us back to the not-so-distant past.  The filmmaker juggles it all -- dialog, story, performances, visuals and period -- so very well that we're hooked from the outset and only grow more impressed and concerned as the movie progresses and characters seem to pair off into interesting duos. The music runs a fascinating gamut, too -- from Nature Boy and These Days to the marvelous Nibelungen.

In the supporting cast is the wonderful Anamaria Marinca (Five Minutes of Heaven, Storm) as the band's violinist, and the gorgeous Sandor Funtek (above, right, of Blue Is the Warmest Color) who plays Nico's son Ari. (Ari is given special thanks by the filmmaker during the end credits). I don't think you need be a fan of Nico to appreciate the movie -- I was certainly not: As a young man, I abhorred all things touched by Warhol -- yet the movie may indeed make you a fan. And of Ms Dyrholm, as well.

From Magnolia Pictures and running a sleek 93 minutes, Nico, 1988 has its U.S. theatrical premiere this coming Wednesday, August 1, in New York City at the newly renovated Film Forum. It will opens in Los Angeles on Friday, August 3, at the Landmark NuArt, and in Santa Barbara at the SBIFF Riviera Theater on August 17. To learn of further playdates across the country, click here. (If you don't find further playdates just now, check back later, once word-of mouth on the film has taken hold.)

Sophie Fiennes' documentary, GRACE JONES: BLOODLIGHT AND BAMI, gives us the performer, the musician and the woman

TrustMovies has long felt that cinema has rarely, barely ever, shown off that most unusual performer/singer Grace Jones to good advantage. Of her three major movies -- the second-rate Bond film, A View to a Kill; a lesser Eddie Murphy vehicle, Boomerang; and the surprisingly entertaining vampire movie, Vamp -- only in the latter did the filmmakers put this strong and visually striking woman to anything approaching maximum use.

Now, in the new documentary, GRACE JONES: BLOODLIGHT AND BAMI, filmmaker Sophie Fiennes (of The Pervert's Guide to Cinema and Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow) manages to do this larger-than-life presence cinematic justice -- and then some.

Ms Fiennes, shown at left, seems to have been given remarkable access to Jones, her family, friends and co-workers -- and over a period of several years, at that --  and although the filmmaker does not identify time frames, or even places, her documentary provides a surprisingly good entryway into the life and times, as well as the music and performing abilites of this remarkable woman. Ms Jones turns 70 next month, but you would hardly know it watching and hearing her sing, prance, move and command whatever stage she is on.

As a young man, I found myself in awe but also somewhat frightened of this incredibly statuesque and sexual icon. With age and a better understanding and appreciation of who Jones is and what she is doing, I am now a major fan. You may be, too, once you've spent the nearly two hours of time that Fiennes, as both director and editor, has cobbled together in such a free-form but oddly gripping fashion.

There is no way around the fact that this entertainer cuts such as formidable figure -- the lithe/lean body, the bizarre head-gear, and those endless legs! The movie begins and spends a good deal of time in a musical number or two, and then lets us see her adoring fans, with whom she interacts  The music we hear seems more impressive than I remember from decades past. But, then, perhaps my tastes  have changed for the better over the years.

Fiennes spends a good deal of time with Jones' family -- mother, siblings, kids, even I think, a grandchild -- and almost as much behind the scenes as she works to bring about another concert. There's a little of her love life, too. And even some casual, full-frontal nudity (yes, she looks justs as fabulous unclothed).

She goes to church, where we hear (I think it's her mom singing) His Eye Is on the Sparrow. Later the preacher fills us in on Jones' history as a naughty little girl. Along the way, we get snippets of her philosophy: "Sometimes you have to be a high-flying bitch!" and "Deep love is like a beating with a cloth belt." Family history and her father's death crop up, too.

The documentary ends with the idea of possibly building a house in the hills of Jamaica (where Jones was born) and where an earlier house was destroyed by a hurricane. Set to this is one of her more recent songs, Hurricane, which is an impressive piece of music sung with all the strength and power one might expect of this phenomenon.

Watching the viewing link I was sent, I sometimes wished for English subtitles to help decipher the soundtrack's dialog that was occasionally hampered by too-loud ambient sounds and/or the Jamaican accents. Otherwise, this documentary proved engrossing and impressive -- a "must," I think, for any Jones fan, and a film that will most likely convert a number of newcomers, too.

From Kino Lorber and running 115 minutes, Grace Jones: Bloodlight and Bami opens tomorrow, Friday April 13, in New York City at the Metrograph and Film Society of Lincoln Center and at BAM in Brooklyn. On April 20 it hits Los Angeles at the Landmark NuArt, and then over the weeks to come open in cities all across the country. Click here and scroll down to see the complete list of playdates, cities and theaters.  

FÉLICITÉ: Alain Gomis' DRC-set character/ culture/music study opens in theaters

You'll undoubtedly be taken -- and almost immediately -- with the face, body, and soon the voice of Véro Tshanda Beya, the woman who makes her acting debut in the title role of FÉLICITÉ, the new movie from French filmmaker Alain Gomis.

Ms Beya is, by any standard, quite a woman, and for awhile at least, she is enough to keep us on track in this combination character-and-culture study set in the city of Kinshasha in the Democratic Republic of Congo, aka the DRC or sometimes the DROC.

M. Gomis, shown at left (this is the first of his several films that TrustMovies has seen), strikes me as someone given to creating an impressionistic, rather than a solidly grounded, linear and easily-read creation. His movie begins at a Congolese indoor-outdoor night club at which our heroine is a singer.

Her face, so expressive that you want to read it like a map, sits atop a body seemingly made for amour. The snippets of dialog we hear from the crowd at the night club involve everything from sex to politics to the economics of everyday life.

The next morning, however, Félicité is seen haggling angrily and determinedly with a repairman regarding why her refrigerator -- only just repaired -- has ceased to work again. From every interaction in which our girl is involved, she comes across as proud, poised, fierce and independent.

Until that is, she is informed that her teenage son Samo -- a character (played by another newcomer, Gaetan Claudia, above) we did not until now even know existed -- has been in an accident and may die. Suddenly all has changed and Félicité spends most of the rest of the film racing around trying desperately to raise enough money to get Samo his necessary operation.

Health care in the DRC might make you grateful, momentarily at least, for our own here in the USA, and as we watch our heroine beg, bargain and get stolen from (she must bring in the police regarding the latter matter), you'll be put in touch with what, from all we view here, passes for Congolese bourgeois life and culture. The lengthy scene in which Félicité meets with someone whom I am guessing is the town's big-shot criminal is scary, degrading and quite powerful.

In between all this, Gomis inserts something like dream/fantasy/maybe memories sequences that finally grow repetitive and don't tell us much more than we already know. And then there are the music scenes, both in the club and with a group that seem to be either rehearsing and performing elsewhere. The press information on the film explains that the music acts as "a secondary script that transports us through Félicité's journey" -- a double journey, actually, "through the punishing outer world of the city and the inner world of the soul."

If only any of this seemed at all organic. Instead the movie clunks along from reality to memory to music and back again in an all-too-obvious and repetitive routine. Love enters the picture, too, as Félicité must finally give over some of that independence, even as young Samo seems to be finally coming around to health and maybe even a touch of happiness.

You may have more patience for this unusual film than did I. Its leading lady is certainly something, while the supporting performances seem believable, as well. I suspect that the main reason I could not warm up to this movie more easily is because the culture of the place simply seemed too foreign in too many ways. If there are actual rules in place here in the DCR -- economic, legal, social and more -- I couldn't begin to figure them out. 

From Strand Releasing and running too-long at 124 minutes, Félicité opens this Friday, October 27, in New York City at the Quad Cinema and in Atlanta at the High Museum of Art. On November 10 it opens in Los Angeles at Laemmle's Music Hall 3. To see all currently scheduled playdates, theaters and cities, click here, then click on SCREENINGS and scroll down. 

AMNESIA: Marthe Keller stars in the versatile Barbet Schroeder's latest surprise

Say what you will about the career of Iranian-born, raised-in-African-and-South-America, studied-at-the-Sorbonne director, writer and often producer, Barbet Schroeder, but this hugely versatile and usually successful fellow seems to be able to make movies both documentary (Terror's Advocate) and narrative, the latter in multitudinous genres -- from More to Maîtresse, Barfly, Reversal of Fortune and now his latest addition, an intimate little drama of past, present, guilt and sound, entitled AMNESIA.

Mr. Schroeder, shown at left, certainly chooses interesting projects, as a quick scan of his IMDB resume will prove. His latest, the bittersweet story of a German expat woman in her senior years coming to terms with her past, also gives this senior-years filmmaker (he'll be 76 next month) the opportunity to explore things like guilt, courage, memory and retribution.

For his lead actress and star, Schroeder is fortunate to have a woman who seems to have grown ever more beautiful and able over the years. That would be Marthe Keller, shown below and further below, who plays a character named Martha, about whom we know almost nothing as the film begins. By its end we've learned plenty.

Though set on the uber-photogenic island of Ibiza (in the 1990s), Amnesia deals more with Germany than with Spain, where a German fellow named Jo, played by the current face and body of young Germany, Max Riemelt (below, of The Wave, Free Fall and the often silly but lots of fun Netflix series Sense8), moves in nearby the gorgeous house occupied by Martha and begins what becomes a fast friendship.

Jo has come to Ibiza to work on his music, as well as (or so he hopes) perform as a DJ in a local club (named Amnesia), and soon we and Martha are listening to his music, learning a little about him, and watching as this May/November friendship grows.

Martha is keeping a lot of secrets, and the closer our pair grows, the more we and Jo learn about this lovely, buttoned-up lady. Those secrets involved Martha's past, as well as Germany's, and when Jo's mother (Corinna Kirchhoff), second from right, below and grandfather (played by the great Bruno Ganz, below center and two photos down, the face and body of an older Germany) come for a visit, the shit -- quietly and understatedly -- hits the proverbial fan.

Much of this movie is devoted to sound -- Jo's music, and the quiet, lovely conversations between him and Martha -- and the secrets, those of Martha as well as the grandfather, are revealed simply via talk. This makes the movie much less melodramatic than it might have been in the hands of other filmmakers and/or cast members.

Instead, we are forced to slowly and quietly confront what we see, hear and learn, and then make what we can of it all. There are no villains here, only people who had to make urgent, sometimes horrible decisions, resulting in guilt that leads to a kind of forced amnesia.

And yet the movie, thanks to its simply gorgeous location scenery and its even, thoughtful tone, is never difficult to endure. In fact, it is a genuine pleasure to see and hear Ms Keller in a role that makes such fine use of her skills. Ditto Mr. Riemelt, and the rest of the small cast.

Especially well-done is the very genuine and loving relationship that develops between Martha and Jo and which, though we do not see its consummation, becomes a momentarily physical one, too, I suspect. This sort of thing is tricky, but it handled here about as well as can be.

Mr. Schroeder, as co-writer (with Emilie Bickerton, Peter F. Steinbach and Susan Hoffman), frames his story as mostly flashback, with its opening and closing segments set a decade hence. This works well, too, giving us both closure and a lovely sense of necessary continuity.

From Film Movement and running just 96 minutes, Amnesia opens theatrically this Friday, July 21, in New York City at the Cinema Village, and will then hit several other cities in the weeks to come. (It opens in South Florida at the Coral Gables Art Cinema on Friday, August 11.) Click here then scroll down to view all currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters. For those of you not in or near the cities where the film will open theatrically, it will simultaneously be available to view on July 21, via VOD.

Note: Barbet Schroeder will be at the opening night 

screening at New York City's Cinema Village this

Friday, July 21, to introduce the film and do a Q&A.