An original look at the meaning of "family" via Bettina Oberli's MY WONDERFUL WANDA

What a strange and interesting film is MY WONDERFUL WANDA (Wanda, mein Wunder) co-written, with Cookie Ziesche, and directed by Bettina Oberli. It appears to begin as one thing, then morphs into another and another until it somehow quite gracefully combines all those 'morphings' to arrive back where it began, with almost all the things we originally thought and felt turned on their head. At least twice.

Ms. Oberli (the filmmaker is pictured below) is dealing with "class" here: the 

wealthy and those who must work (and work and work) to earn their living. And while many of the expected tropes do show up, the movie's richer and more inclusive than you'll expect. Characters expand, and the very change they resist also allows them to grow. 

The plot kicks off with the arrival at the local bus station of the eponymous care-giver, Wanda, a Polish woman who is returning to the lakeside home of a wealthy Swiss family to care for the aging father who has suffered a stroke. Why Wanda left in the first place is never baldly stated  (the care-giver who replaced her did not work out) but once we get a load of the family itself -- elitist father, cheapskate mother, nasty sister and weakling brother -- it's not difficult to imagine myriad reasons for her departure.

The smart and serious Wanda is played by Polish actress Agnieszka Grochowska (above, right, with her charge, played by André Jung), and this character is both active and reactive in terms of setting the plot in motion. What happens involves and is due to the actions of all the characters, so much so that any blame you're ready to portion out soon becomes beside the point.

Marvelous Marthe Keller (above) handles the role of the mother with expected aplomb, and the weak son is given a careful, caring reading by Jacob Matschenz (below, left). The standout performance, however, comes from the actress who plays the sister: Birgit Minichmayr (center left, below), whom you may remember from the terrific film, Everyone Else. Ms Minichmayr runs the gamut here, and she takes us with her all the way home.

By its finale, My Wonderful Wanda might even qualify as a feel-good film, but as my spouse pointed out, there's an awful lot of sadness here, too. It is also the kind of movie that Hollywood -- even American independent cinema – rarely gives us. In so many ways, it's simply more adult, offering an idea of life in all its messiness, rather than pre-digested pablum. Films like this are the reason why TrustMovies began seeking out foreign-language movies back in the 1960s. And why he's still doing that.

From Zeitgeist Films and Kino Lorber, the movie -- in German with English subtitles and running 111 minutes -- opens in a limited run nationwide in theaters (both virtual and real) this Friday, April 23. Click here then scroll down to see all listed cinemas, along with more information on the film.

Netflix streaming tip: take a chance on Vicente Villanueva's film of Laurent Baffie's TOC TOC

Making fun of folk who suffer from OCD? How politically incorrect! On the other hand, TOC TOC -- the Spanish film directed by Vicente Villanueva and adapted by the filmmaker from Laurent Baffie's French play of the same name -- is so wonderfully funny, and at heart as sweet as a cuddle from someone you love, that it will be very difficult, TrustMovies suspects, to hold any sort of grudge against it for very long.

Señor Villanueva (shown at right) has put together such a glossy, amusing, expertly acted piece of utter fluff  that the poster's tag line (above) -- which translates, I believe, as "An obsessively entertaining comedy" seems absolutely on-the-nose.

The situation here involves a half dozen different characters (shown below), each of whom has his/her own different disorder, who meet in the office of a psychiatrist who is said to be of great help with OCD. Unfortunately, the doctor is not in; he's stuck abroad and on his way back, so our patients will just have to deal with themselves and each other until he arrives. And so the fun ensues.

The disorders here are wildly different, and the movie's expert cast includes some of Spain's finest performers. What a treat it is to see Rossy De Palma once again, along with Paco Léon, Alexandra Jiménez, Nuria Herrero, Adrián Lastra and especially Oscar Martinez, who I would say steals the show expect that they all do at one point or other. What a delightful group of actors is gathered here!

And the way in which Villanueva and Baffie have tossed these folk together and then made such great good fun of their fumblings and self-education proves very different from almost anything you'll have so far seen. Thanks to Netflix for gifting us with this little gem.  You can stream it now, here.

DVDebut: Jacques Doillon's 2010 whopper about theatre, THE THREE-WAY WEDDING

Only the French, bless 'em, could have come up with a movie like THE THREE-WAY WEDDING (Le mariage à trois), in which a quintet of characters talk incessantly and intelligently about themselves, their ideas, their feelings and in particular their sexual and emotional needs but make it so goddamned interesting that you hang on almost every word. France, after all, is the country that gave us Molière and Marivaux -- to whom this film, written and directed by Jacques Doillon, owes plenty.


M. Doillon, shown at right, who recently gave us the not-so-well-received Rodin but earlier brought us the very well received Ponette, has created a tale of theater folk -- playwright, producer, actors and a novice assistant who, by film's end will soon be an actress, too -- who quite literally can't keep anything to themselves.

It's as though they have to give vent, via actions and words, to literally everything they think and feel. The fact they they're in the theater makes this somehow more believable (you know how theater people behave!), as well as making almost everything they say sound like dialog from a play. Fortunately, it's a rather good play.

Even better, Doillon has cast his film with a group of actors who could hardly be improved upon. In fact, their work here proves a near high-water mark for some of them (in TrustMovies' estimation, at least). The estimable Pascal Greggory (above, left, whose work in Those Who Love Me Can Take the Train and Doillon's Raja you may remember) is the playwright, and he is pitch perfect throughout: smart, witty, narcissistic beyond belief and every bit as controlling (and vulnerable) as you might expect a playwright to be.

As his "ex" and still-possible-paramour, Julie Depardieu (above, right, and further above) matches him moment for moment. Ms Depardieu is better here than I have ever seen her: emotionally on-point through so many highs, lows, and middles that her performance astounds. (One of the several fine things that Doillon's spill-it-all-out dialog succeeds in doing is giving us enormously full-bodied characters by allowing us to see and hear their innermost thoughts and desires.)

Louis Garrel (above, left) plays Depardieu's young actor/lover, and he is as fine as always, bringing his penchant for semi-snotty self-love to the fore and making the most of it. Each actor here manages to make fun of himself/herself (and amuse us in the process), even as s/he rounds out the character to its fullest.

As the pretty little assistant with the porcelain skin and gorgeous red hair, Agathe Bonitzer (above and below) imparts just the right sense of naivete coupled to the power that comes with the realization that one is desired. She makes a lovely and not-yet-too-theatrical addition to this little group.

I only wish that the excellent actor Louis-Do de Lencquesaing (at left in bottom photo) had been given a bit more to do. He is fine as far as his character is allowed to go, but that's not quite far enough.

A word must be said for Doillon's interesting "choreography" of his actors. They almost never stop moving about -- when they're talking, thinking, even in bed. This adds an extra little surge of energy to the film and to the performances  Nothing is ever static here.

The Three-Way Wedding is such an oddball film for specialized tastes that I must recommend it with that caveat. But for folk who appreciate something brave, unusual and very well-executed, do take a chance on this one!

From Film Movement (but good luck trying to find it on that company's website) and running 109 minutes, the movie hits DVD and digital this coming Tuesday, July 24 -- for purchase and/or rental.
Perhaps via Amazon Prime...?

With BITCH, writer/director Marianna Palka gives Jason Ritter his most important role yet...

...and he runs with it like crazy. Mr. Ritter's is the best performance from an actor I've seen this year, and if the storied Academy members ever deigned to really look at small indie movies in the way they should, fit praise would be forthcoming around "Oscar" time. Don't get too hopeful; remember how they treated last year's best actress, Rebecca Hall in Christine. Meanwhile, take a chance on the unusual new movie entitled BITCH, written and directed by Marianna Palka, who also co-stars. Back in 2008 Ms Palka gave us the very fine Good Dick, also starring Mr. Ritter, and her new film is even better: stronger, original and hugely surprising.

Palka, above, plays a put-upon housewife named Jill Hart who is literally suicidal when we first meet her. At first we imagine this is due to her clueless and unfaithful hubby, Bill Hart (played by Ritter, below) and her four (count' em!) kids who we assume are the sort of impossible, narcissistic brats driving their mom 'round the bend. But things are not quite so simple. Note the dog outside their house who barks constantly, and with whom Jill may be identifying.

And, no, this is not a 21-Century update on that popular TV show, Hart to Hart. What happens here may be about as strange as American indie movies get, and yet on even a realistic level, Bitch never quite leaves the realm of the possible -- if the hugely unconventional and bizarrely, brazenly ugly. TrustMovies is not going to go into plot detail because viewers deserve to experience what happens here -- and then decide why it happens -- on their own. I'll just say that Ms Palka has been awfully brave and ballsy in her choices.

First off, she cedes the film's most important role to Ritter, who makes an absolute meal of it. From his early and very funny scenes as the self-involved, utterly clueless husband from hell to the movie's mid-section as his character falls screechingly apart (above) to the finale in which Bill begins to change, this is first-class movie-making in both conception and execution, as well as superior performing. Palka herself does a remarkable job as the titular bitch. This kind of performance is something you will not have previously seen, and yet it is also clearly a supporting role.

Also giving fine support are Jamie King, above, left, as Jill's sister, and Brighton Sharbino, Rio Mangini, Kingston Foster and Jayson Maybaum as her four children -- all of whom turn out to be more caring and helpful that we would have initially imagined. So what's the big problem? Sure, feminism rises to the surface here, but not at all in the manner we most often see it. The key lies in the relationship between husband and wife, and how this unfurls is near-miraculous in terms of original and surprising movie-making.

There is a speech given somewhat past the halfway mark that is so succinct and devastating in terms explaining the care and effort a woman brings to a marriage that hearing it should make many of us ex- and/or present husbands cringe in recognition and guilt.

Bitch is finally a love story, and considering what has come before, what occurs subsequently seems doubly moving, rich and profound. Yours truly was in unexpected tears toward the end. As much as anything he has seen in a long while, Palka's film raises and then gives a very possible answer to Freud's famous question, What does a woman want?

From Dark Sky Films and running 93 minutes, the movie opens this Friday, November 10, in New York City (at the Village East Cinema), in Chicago on Friday, November 17 (at the Facets Cinémathèque) and on November 24 in Los Angeles (at Laemmle's Music Hall 3), as well as in a number of other cities across the country this week and those following. Click here then scroll down to see (some of the) currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters (perhaps Dark Sky will want to update this list soon so that the Los Angeles opening is added).

Carlos Vermut's MAGICAL GIRL: a failed humdinger that still proves oddly memorable

No less a filmmaker than Pedro Almodóvar has this to say about the movie being covered today: "For me, the film is the great Spanish cinema revelation of the century." Now, who's gonna pass that up? Not me, baby! Having now watched MAGICAL GIRL (La niña de fuego--a literal translation of which might be "The fire girl," or maybe "The hot girl"), I can honestly say that I will probably never quite forget this film, even though there's a hole in it a mile wide -- a piece missing that is not unlike the puzzle piece needed to complete a jigsaw that one of its characters finds himself suddenly without. And yes, this is as frustrating to us viewers as it is to that very strange character named Damián, a schoolteacher whose interaction with his pretty student foreshadows much that is to come, particularly the film's finale.

In between all this, the meat and potatoes of Magical Girl, written and directed by Carlos Vermut (shown at right), is devoted to that schoolgirl's later story as an adult, as well as the tale of a father (also a schoolteacher who is now unemployed) and his very ill daughter, whose last days he wants to make as pleasurable as possible, and, of course, that of Damián, who proves to be the film's wild card. The interlocking stories, strange as they are, seem perfectly easy to follow, including how and why they connect. Yet certain events have been left out that would explain some rather important information about these "connections." Without this, we can still play along, as it were -- and because the film is so fascinating and creepy and unsettling, we do -- but at the end, there remains a void where more content and/or explanation ought to be.

But that may be the director's main point: his own way of struggling with the eternal problem nature of the Spaniard, as one of the film's subsidiary characters -- a rich wheelchair-bound fellow who likes to inflict torture for payment -- explains to us and our heroine along the way. Don't worry: All of that torture is left offscreen. But sight of the the naked body of the film's title girl, played with exactly the right amount of inner strength and outer madness by Bárbara Lennie (above, left, and below, right), makes what has and what will happen perfectly clear.

Still, this wheel-chair fellow's insistence on the "bullfight" as a symbol of Spain should go some distance in letting us know what's important here. How people treat each other is always front and center. Why they do this is something else again.

Vermut's style is one of quiet and foreboding, mystery without conclusion, and he has chosen a cast that near-perfectly complements his aim. You simply cannot help asking yourself, post-viewing, what all of it means, but your answer(s) -- a search for justice, connection, closure; payment for past sins; balancing out the country's national character with some death and destruction -- will not really fill the bill.

There's that piece that's gone missing, I guess, and we're never going to be able to find it. Yet the elegance of the filmmaking, along with the excellence and correctness of the performances will go along way in making the movie slide down your throat smoothly. I can understand why our boy Pedro was so impressed.

As the father and daughter, who in the course of the film go from would-be heroes to mere pawns (and not-very-nice ones, at that), Luis Bermejo (below, right) and Lucía Pollán (above) could hardly be better. And Ms Lennie is, as usual, something else.

But it's José Sacristán (above, left, and below), as that wild card, who eventually steals the movie. And also, through no fault of his own, leaves it twisting in the wind. But that, I suspect, is exactly as the filmmaker wants it to be.

Magical Girl, running a lengthy but never boring 122 minutes, is one of the rare narrative movies released via First Run Features (they're rare, yes, but they're almost always worth seeing). The film hits DVD today, Tuesday, April 19, for rental or purchase.

SAM KLEMKE'S TIME MACHINE: Matthew Bate offers up a sad, beautiful, profound bombshell

Every so often (more like few years), it seems, comes along a movie so original, so different from anything else you've seen that it seems to speak to something quite profound about our humanity, our strivings and our limitations. Back in 2014, it was a small documentary entitled Magical Universe; this year it would seem to be another small-budget-but-huge-in-its-concerns doc called SAM KLEMKE'S TIME MACHINE.

Sam Klemke, the film's "star," as well as one of the filmmakers here, is a rather ordinary fellow (that's he with cat, above in teenage days, and below, as an young adult) who hoped to become a well-known filmmaker when he was younger, back in the early 1970s. To this end he began filming himself and his surroundings from that time onwards (the invention of affordable home video equipment made this more possible and practical), and has ended up with what is perhaps the largest archive of film-about-oneself that exists today.

When Klemke posted a condensed YouTube video of his filming over the years that went viral, one of its viewers was Australian-based filmmaker/pop-culture excavator, Matthew Bate, who with his co-writer Sandy Cameron, made this 90-minute movie that distills Klemke's oeuvre into an amazing portrait of himself, his world, our world and humanity's strivings, foibles, needs and desires. Mr. Bate has assembled something so different and profound that it will be like little you've so far experienced from movies.

Someone -- I would guess this to be Bate, Cameron or both -- had the just-about-perfect notion of placing Klemke's story against that of the famous space probe, Voyager, with its Golden Records that supposedly demonstrate mankind's glorious achievements.

The Voyager was sent into space in the same year -- 1977 -- that Klemke began his filming and was sent, it was said, in hopes that some other life forms would eventually find it and learn all about mankind and what we have accomplished. (Conveniently left out, as the narration notes, were "accomplishments" such as The Holocaust.) Oh, the chutzpah! And I mean this in terms of both projects: the Voyager's and Klemke's.

To his everlasting credit, Bate had the good sense not to ram home the incredible differences in those Golden Records and Sam's home movies. He simply alternates the stories of Sam and Voyager, bringing up various facts and tales about each and letting us draw our own conclusions. Yet the manner in which all this is threaded and unfurled allows us to reach some pretty interesting assumptions on the way to being amused, moved and provoked into thinking about, oh, so many things.

One of the funniest and most telling of these involves the fact that the late scientist/entertainer Carl Sagan wanted to include photos on the voyager of a man and woman completely nude so that other life forms could see and understand how human beings of both sexes were built. Oh, the ruckus this began amongst Republicans and religious fundamentalists who felt that nudity was not to be tolerated. So the idea is scrapped, and guilt, shame, stupidity, hypocrisy and denial triumph -- as usual.

Contrast this with our Sam, who not only features himself nude and full frontal but with an erect cock -- both in his younger and his middle-age years. (From the look and size of his member, our guy might have had a more productive career making porno films.) The contrast here of western culture's hypocrisy and denial against an ordinary guy with a camera is breathtaking. As it is, almost consistently, all the way along in this fascinating film.

Whether Bate found (or had made) the soundtrack voice we hear narrating the Voyager footage, it was a brilliant notion to have it all in French, so that we can then take in the beauty of spoken French, even as we read the lovely, poetic subtitles that build a case for the importance of the voyager and its golden records. Without undue pushing, all this makes ever stranger, funnier and sadder the contrast with Klemke's life and "art."

So who is Sam Klemke and what has he achieved? On one level he is a sad and deluded young, then middle-aged, then finally elderly male. We meet, briefly, many of the women who pass through his life as an "entitled" man (patriarchy is ever-present). but it is not in Sam's interest to allow us to get to know them or their attitudes beyond the cursory.

Sam does not finally achieve much of anything -- he fails at everything except his knack for good caricature, which he markets at locals malls -- and he often has to move back in with his parents. (How mom and dad felt about all this goes mostly unexplored.)  And yet Sam persists. And endures. The movie may bring to mind Samuel Beckett -- but with a lot more blather than minimalist poetry.

In any case, this juxtaposition of Klemke and Voyager is a brilliant move. Even as the documentary draws inward into Sam's tiny world, it simultaneously opens out into so much else. (The few moments in which we experience 9/11 through his and his girlfriend's eyes are remarkable.)

Again and again we are drawn up short and made to think, contrast and compare. Sam Klemke's Time Machine is a singular experience, one that should not be missed by thinking/feeling adults and very probably by their teenage children, as well. It has been a long, long while since I have witnessed a movie so ripe for discussion and exploration, both during and after its viewing.

From Virgil Films and Visit Films and running just 90 minutes, the movie is available beginning tomorrow, Tuesday, March 29, on DVD and Digital HD -- for purchase or rental. To view the movie (via either rental or purchase), simply click here and then click on WATCH NOW.