A second DISCLOSURE -- this one Australian from Michael Bentham -- hits home video

To immediately differentiate, the DISCLOSURE under review here is an Australian narrative movie about possible child abuse (by another child), rather than the recently debuted Netflix documentary about the transgendered.

Beyond that, how interesting it is -- one day after another -- to view a movie whose theme is the problematic malleability of something so encompassing as the "truth" of a situation.

The last film reviewed here was indeed The Truth, and now today we have another in which that truth of a particular situation is hugely complicated by everything and everyone that surrounds it.

While Kore-Eda Hirokasu's movie questions how important the truth actually is to the well-being of the family at its center, Disclosure -- written and directed by Michael Bentham (pictured at right) -- does precisely the opposite.

The actuality of learning what happened between the children involved in the abuse is vital, yet the concerns of the two sets of parents slowly come to control the narrative and run roughshod over everything -- including that difficult-but-necessary-to-determine "truth."

Disclosure is Mr. Bentham's first full-length narrative film, and as such it's a worthwhile endeavor. Beginning with a scene of one set of parents filming their own fucking session, Bentham's camera moves to a gliding, slo-mo look at what seems like an idyllic, lily-white, upper-class community, coming to rest on and into one particular house in which mom chats on the phone as a child's screaming is suddenly heard behind a closed door. Mom opens the door and angrily orders those inside to take their problems outside.
End of that situation.

Except it's not. The mother, Bek (Geraldine Hakewill, above) clearly ought to have been paying more attention. We do -- but then we know a bit more about what to expect here -- and that child's scream does resonate. The remainder of the movie takes place on a warm, sunny afternoon around the pool and large, verdant grounds and/or in the home of the parents of the little girl who appears to have been the victim of the abuse. Here, Bek and her husband Joel, a local (and by the looks of things highly successful) politician, played by Tom Wren, below, show up unannounced, determined to make this whole untidy affair go away. Bek and Joel's two sons, you see, were somehow involved in the abuse allegations, while Bek herself was a victim of abuse as a teenager.

This set-up is riveting enough, and the more we learn about these two couples -- the little girl's parents, Emily and Danny are played by Matilda Ridgway and Mark Leonard Winter, shown respectively, left and right, below -- the more complicated everything becomes. Though it does seem clear, from nearly the get-go, that while Emily and Danny may enjoy filming their own fuck sessions, much more toxic is the fact that Bek and Joel are unwilling even to explore what has happened between these children.

Further complications ensue via the raising of the question of what makes "good" parenting (pitting helicopter parent Bek against somewhat absentee parent Emily), an upcoming election for Joel, and an important book deal for Danny. As the needs of the parents slowly seem to outweigh those of their kids, tensions rise and tempers flare, leading to a finale in which you will wish that these four people could be able to stand back a bit and openly laugh at themselves -- before you do it for them. This scene suddenly leaps into near-black comedy.

If the film unfortunately rises to melodrama instead of the drama you might hope for, it certainly holds your mind and emotions taut throughout. And its last shots beautifully convey the importance of what really is at stake here, and who might most benefit from (or be destroyed by) the outcome.

From Breaking Glass Pictures and running a just-right 86 minutes, Disclosure made its home video debut this past week -- on VOD and DVD. It is certainly worth a look.

Argentine Jews on parade again in Daniel Burman's comedy-drama THE TENTH MAN

Like clockwork every two years another fun film from Argentine writer/director Daniel Burman appears on the international scene to garner another award or nomination for him or one of his actors. Starting wth Waiting for the Messiah (from 2000, and his first film to be seen here in the USA and internationally) through this year's little number -- THE TENTH MAN (El rey del once), Burman has shown us, via his signature comic and dramatic quirkiness, the Jewish community in Argentina, generational divides, and parenting styles of all kinds. Most often, though, that style seems to be via a dad who goes absentee in either body, spirit, or both. In his latest endeavor, Dad is present, all right, but he's always been one of those guys more interested in "being there" for others than for his own son. Yes: He's a "pillar of the community."

That dad is also Jewish, as are most of the other fathers and sons I recall from these films -- Lost Embrace and Family Law are two of his best that come quickly to mind -- and Burman's exploration (the filmmaker is shown at right) of that religious community as found in Argentina is one of the hallmarks and strengths of his films. One of the occasional weaknesses of his movies, however, is that this writer/ director sometimes telegraphs a little too obviously where his film is going. This is the most troublesome aspect of his latest work.

Burman's heroes are often named Ariel (they have differing last names, however), and so it is again in The Tenth Man, as Ariel (Alan Sabbagh, above) is about to leave the USA for a visit with Dad, after years and years away. At the last minute Dad asks Ariel to pick up a pair of velcro sneakers for one of his clients in need (Dad runs a charity foundation in the Jewish district). Once arrived, Ariel, who, over the years, appears to have become a mostly non-believing Jew, is sent on errand after errand by Dad, helping here, helping there, aiding this one, abetting that one until -- oh, my gosh: Have you figured out where this movie is going already?!

In a film such as this, in which the destination is never in doubt, it's the journey that counts most. Fortunately, Burman makes the trip reasonably enjoyable, if artfully predictable. Along the way we meet an attractive woman (Julieta Zylberberg, above, right) who's an Orthodox Jew and therefore, it seems, is allowed neither to speak to nor to be touched by an "outsider." Of course our Ariel manages to get to know the gal, anyway.

Though it's been said that You Can't Go Home Again, this movie proves that not only can you, but that the place'll grab you, suck you back in, and change your whole life. If only. Yes, in the scene above, our hero is getting one of those religious ritual baths. (A non-religious person just might view the film as an example of how faith can turn us all into sheeplike vessels.)

There's currently a crisis in the ghetto -- little to no meat or poultry to be had for Purim -- so our boy must handle this one, too. And we meet that oddball patient who needs the velcro shoes, along with a few others bizarre charmers. It's all very cute, not-quite-real, and certainly not very deep. But it is reasonably enjoyable and short enough not to bore (the movie lasts but 81 minutes). But next time, Señor Burman, surprise us a little, please.

The Tenth Man, from Kino Lorber, opens this Friday, August 5, in New York City at the Cinema Village and Lincoln Plaza Cinema and in Los Angeles at Laemmle's Royal and Town Center. Elsewhere? A few more venues are up and coming. Click here and then click on PLAYDATES to see all currently scheduled cities and theaters.

Deep, rich, thoughtful and vastly entertaining: Matt Ross' captivating CAPTAIN FANTASTIC

Along with Anne Fontaine's The Innocents, the new film -- CAPTAIN FANTASTIC -- from actor/writer/director Matt Ross -- looks to be a shoo-in for one of 2016's best movies. Mr. Ross graced us back in 2012 with the lovely little indie 28 Hotel Rooms, so his newest work does not come out of nowhere, as they say. But as charming and real and special was the "Hotel Rooms" debut, his new film seems light years beyond it.

This is one of those big-themed movies that manages to deliver the goods on almost every front: ideas, dialog, performances -- they're all first-rate. If Mr. Ross' visual sense as a filmmaker still has a way to go, that's just fine: TrustMovies will take intelligent ideas over flashy artistry any day. Not that Ross (shown at left) doesn't deliver some of the latter, as well. Take his opening moments, for example. It's been a long while since any filmmaker startled an audience this much by tossing us in media res quite so drastically. At the critics' screening I attended the fellow to my left screamed aloud, as though there was clearly something wrong here and that the theater had not begun the film properly. (This is not unheard of: I've already been to one press screening down here in Florida where we had visuals and no sound, and another in which we had sound but no visuals. And once, at a public screening yet, the film remained noticeably out of focus for its entire running time.)

But, no. It was soon clear that Ross had us right where he wanted us. And then the film's title appeared on the screen, and we knew were exactly where we should be in this unusual work. That initial scene, taking place in the middle of what looks like a forest in the Pacific Northwest, involves a father (Viggo Mortensen, shown above, right, and below, center) and his six children faring for themselves -- and I mean really roughing it -- in terms of everything from housing to hunting for food and insuring clean and accessible water.

This is no summer camping trip. The family has been in this situation for some years, except that now, its mom is in the hospital, and dad has to do all the parenting, such as it is. Yet these are highly skilled children. It almost seems as if the family is preparing for some sort of post-apocalyptic living. But, no. Dad and Mom had simply given up on Capitalism and its increasingly meagre results and so have been teaching their kids to live "off the grid."

An event soon occurs that forces the family to rejoin the "normal" world, at least partially and for a time, and it is from there that Ross' film leaps off into a wonderful, problemed, difficult, disturbing, rich and mysterious look at what "good parenting" might mean in our ever more trying times.

To his credit as writer and director, the filmmaker does not turn anyone here into an outright hero or villain. Even grandpa (another very good turn by Frank Langella, above, left), who initially seems like an ornery creep, turns out to be more nuanced and understandable that we might have imagined. (The wonderful Ann Dowd is grandma.) Also in the cast are the always-fine Kathryn Hahn and Steve Zahn, who play our hero's sister and brother-in-law.

Sure, we're meant to be on Dad's side in all this (even though it is soon apparent that his choices for his kids may not always be the right ones), and Mortensen does his usual terrific job in a role that calls for him to go too far and then have to face the consequences of his "journey." This actor -- whose career has encompassed everything from little-seen indies (The Reflecting Skin) to little-known foreign head-scratchers (Gospel According the Harry) to ever-popular art-mainstream movies (A Walk on the Moon) to international blockbusters (that Lord of the Rings trilogy) -- is always good. You can count of him for reliability, reality, depth, versatility, and of course that gorgeous face and breath-taking body (all of which we view here, including one sustained full-frontal shot). The actor even got an Oscar nod back in 2008 for Eastern Promises; maybe 2016 will be his year to win.

What makes the movie work especially well are the excellent performances given by the six children on view, all of whom, as characters, have been home-schooled, and damned well, by their parents. The kids include a swell mix that ranges from the oldest boy, now of college age -- a great job by that terrific Britisher George MacKay (above, left) -- to one of the young girls (Shree Crooks, at right, below), who can quote you our Constitution and know exactly what she's talking about, as well as understanding the importance of a fellow like Noam Chomsky.

One of the film's loveliest scenes involves a mother and daughter (Erin Moriarty and Missi Pyle, below, respectively, left and right) that the family meets on the road and who discover the joys and oddities of the McKay character's personality.

The kids are amazing (both their characters and their performances). They can scale the side of sheer cliff and hunt their own prey, as well as discuss the likes of Nabokov's Lolita. While they've been given a fine education in so many ways, they have not, it soon becomes clear, been socialized enough to mix in properly with the world as we know it.

How all this resolves (and it does not, thankfully, do so in any pre-formatted fashion) is where Mr Ross goes with his movie, which is part road trip, part coming-of-age tale, and part coming-to-terms with compromise while caring for one's children. The trip is a stunning one. You may disagree with some of the characters and their choices now and again, but you will not easily -- nor should you -- forget their journey.

Captain Fantastic, from Bleecker Street and running just under two hours, after opening in New York, and L.A. two weeks back, opens today, Friday, July 22, here in South Florida at the Cinemark Palace 20 in Boca Raton and Cobb's Downtown at the Mall Gardens Palm 16 in Palm Beach Gardens. This amazing movie is now playing all across the country, and you can click here to view all currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters. There'll likely be one near you.

A love story, finally, and a believable one, too, centers Nicole Garcia's drama, GOING AWAY

The routinely titled GOING AWAY (in its original French, it was the much better Un beau dimanche, or "A Beautiful Sunday") is so much more interesting and specific than that silly moniker lets on that you might want to take a chance on this strongly character-driven drama about fitting in and opting out. As co-written (with Jacques Fieschi) and directed with economy and the kind of realistic style at which actress/ writer/director Nicole Garcia excels (this is her tenth film, among then the very good Place Vendôme and The Adversary), Going Away turns out to be an easy watch: burgeoning and scattering small surprises as it moves along.

Ms Garcia (shown at right) has cast her film quite well, with the two leads played by an actress I like better each time I see her, Louise Bourgoin, and an actor, Pierre Rochefort, whom I've seen before but never in a leading role until now. Both play characters who are afraid to commit, and their behavior, while understandable if annoying, is also quite enjoyable to watch. Garcia and her co-writer give the pair plenty to do and say and feel, and the duo comes through in fine fashion, with the beautiful Ms Bourgoin (below/above) adding another good role to her versatile resume.

For his part M. Rochefort (above) proves a fine co-star for this actress; he's attractive, manly (if diffident and retiring), and something of surprise in the sudden-fisticuffs department. Also along for the ride is the Bourgoin character's little son, Mathias (played well by newcomer Mathias Brezot, below), who also proves to be the set-up for the movie's combination character-study/road-trip plot.

In a relatively large and somewhat starry supporting cast (members of the Comédie-Française make appearances, as is often the case in French films), most prominent and welcome is the opportunity to see Dominique Sanda (below) once again, looking older, yes, but still sporting those special qualities of class and classic beauty we remember so well from The Garden of the Finzi-Continis and The Conformist.

All about parenting, family and responsibility (in ways that movies don't generally demonstrate), Going Away is, finally, a love story that arrives slowly (which is all the better) but seems that much more believable for taking its own sweet time.

With locations that range from a small provincial town to the seaside (above) to a verdant mountain range and a quite impressive French estate, the movie (which, visually, is a vacation in itself) -- from Cohen Media Group and running just 95 minutes -- arrives on DVD, on Amazon Instant Video and on VOD this Tuesday, June 21, for purchase or rental.

Hot doc: Crystal Moselle's THE WOLFPACK and its film-educated, home-schooled family of men

Do audiences seek out documentary films without first knowing the theme and/or subject involved? I would doubt it. Narrative movies can pull in a crowd by virtue of their stars, their popular genres and more often simply via their much larger budgets -- which allow for mammoth advertising. With their usual miniscule budgets, docs must rely upon at least some advance word-of-mouth via film festivals and the ensuing publicity these can bring.  So it is with THE WOLFPACK, the new documentary from first-time filmmaker Crystal Moselle, which won the Grand Jury Prize at this year's Sundance Film Festival and was nominated for top awards at three other fests.

Ms Moselle, shown at right, tackles the subject of a particular New York City family, living at the time of the filming on the Lower East Side and made up of six male adolescents, ranging in age when filming began from eleven through eighteen, and their one sister, of whom we see very little, and who seems to be maybe handicapped. Ruled by their Peruvian emigrant father's somewhat iron hand, home-schooled by their midwestern American mom, and confined for almost their entire life to the four-bedroom apartment in which they grew up (they were supposedly allowed outside only briefly and sometimes but once per year), their entire cultural life appears to have been built and groomed via the many, many movies they were allowed to watch and re-watch on videotape and DVD over the years.

Their story has now been told in various places (newspaper and magazine articles), though it is likely to reach its largest audience via this new documentary. The idea of young men raised only by two parents and a library full of films -- and what has become of them, how and why -- would seem near-irresistible for anybody who loves movies and thinks that film offers some meaning and importance to our lives. Ms Moselle has stated her first encounter with the boys was pure serendipity: She was walking down First Avenue in Manhattan in the spring of 2010 when one boy, dressed in a black suit, sporting dark glasses and weaving through the crowd, ran past her -- followed by another and another and another. Her instincts took over, she says, and she simply had to run after them. From that meeting, this movie -- finally finished five years later -- was born.

Viewed from any perspective whatsoever, the story would seem to be a major keeper. So how is the documentary that Ms Moselle has made from it? Interesting, that's for sure. It raises every bit as many questions as it answers, given Ms Moselle's decision to to film it with almost no exposition about the family or how her film came into being. She simply sits us smack in the middle of things and lets her young men do the talking and showing. There seem to be none of those "re-creations" so favored these days by some of our documentarians. And because Moselle seems to have been taken in and accepted as part of the family, she does little of the usual talking-head-interview type of thing. Instead she catches her subjects on the fly, as it were, mostly inside their apartment, but occasionally, as above with a day at the beach, outside of it.

We learn some of the boys' favorite films (Reservoir Dogs, The Godfather and The Dark Knight lead the list) and we watch them stage their own re-creations (above, below, and in the penultimate shot -- the last of which I don't believe was included in the film itself) from the movies they love. Yet we learn almost nothing about what movies have meant to the kids in terms of life lessons, ideas, culture, morality, and the like. What does their preference for movies that are heavily violent say about anything? Is this simply machismo coming to the surface, their father's choice of films, or what?  The boys certainly seem well-spoken and intelligent, but Moselle prefers to not engage them in any philosophical or deeper way. She prefers to simply watch and listen.

We see and hear the boys' mother (below, in a publicity shot, surrounded by her brood; sorry, I could find no photo of their dad) and thus learn something of the family's history. There appears to have been some abusive behavior going on, but perhaps nothing so horrible that it could not be worked out or around. We finally, after maybe half the film, view the father, who seems uncomfortable around the camera, perhaps from residual guilt, or maybe from the same fear he has always had of the manner in which New York City treats its immigrants and anyone who can be construed as "the other" -- a fear that initially led to his keeping his children always in the home.

The boys themselves seem to have matured into pretty "decent" guys. We get some sense of differentiation between them, though not nearly enough, by the time the movie ends (it lasts only 84 minutes). I do wish Moselle had better identified each young man during the end credits, when she introduces them by name and sight, yet often with their face obscured by some costume or mask. Her decision to let the family speak for itself and to leave herself, as filmmaker, mostly out of the picture was certainly brave -- as well as wise in some respects, if disappointing in others.

To have told it all would have no doubt meant making a three- or four- (or more) hour movie. Yet the one that has emerged, even at less than an hour-and-a-half, seems at times attenuated and repetitive. My feeling is that Moselle's decision as to what to include and what to leave out could have benefited from some different choices. As it is, this documentary, which certainly could have been better, is still unmissable for folk who enjoy the genre, believe in the power of movies to affect us, and care to get at least some sense of how autonomous lives can be formed -- even under pretty trying and unusual circumstances.

The Wolfpack, from Magnolia Pictures, opens this Friday, June 12, in New York City at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center and the Landmark Sunshine Cinema, and in Toronto at the Bloor Hot Docs Cinema. In the weeks to come, it will play many more cities across the country. Click here to see all currently scheduled playdates.

Kornél Mundruczó's amazing, troubling WHITE GOD: like no canine movie you'll have ever seen

Old Yeller was never like this. Kornél Mundruczó's Hungarian masterpiece, WHITE GOD, (Fehér isten) will leave you in some kind of state -- grace, shock, awe, or maybe just amazed at the proficiency of this filmmaker, the only other work of whose I've seen is the odd, and oddly memorable, Delta from 2008. I believe it is safe to say that there has never been a "dog movie" anything like this one -- which within (or, hell, without, too) its genre, also becomes a revenge thriller, an allegory about "the other," ode to "dumb" animals, sci-fi/fantasy epic and more. It jumps so many genres so thoroughly that it simply becomes sui generis.
And then some.

Directed and co-written (with Viktória Petrányi and Kata Wéber) by Mr. Mundruczó (shown at right), the film begins with a scene of marvel -- and one that does not look particularly CGI-ed. I can't claim to be any expert on special effects, but when they look as real, as genuine and "special" as they do here, attention must be paid.

The film then flashes backward to a previous time, in which its story carefully unfolds, before eventually catching up with itself. We've seen this done many times before. What we have not seen is all this taking place in what can best be called a "dog movie."

That dog -- a character called Hagen (he is actually played by two dogs - one of whom is shown at left, sporting a bowtie at Cannes, where he was evidently the toast of the festival) -- is a keeper. You'll fall in love with him instantly, but be warned: What happens to Hagen is not easy to bear. Dog lovers won't want to miss this movie, but they may have a damned difficult time getting through it.

Hagen is the beloved pet of a high school girl named Lili (talented and beautiful newcomer Zsófia Psotta), about to spend three months with her estranged father due to her mom's having to go abroad for work. Dad is not much of a caretaker, and he most definitely does not like dogs. Trouble ahead.

The movie will make you wonder if Hungary, the country from which it comes, is particularly anti-canine. Or if perhaps this goes with the territory of most of Eastern Europe. From what we see here, much of the populace couldn't care less about the creatures -- who are, evidently, not considered the Eastern European man's best friend -- unless he can make a killing off them, in the process perhaps killing the animal itself.

A large section of this film deals with what happens when Hagen comes into contact with a man who trains dog for fighting. This is by far the most difficult portion to watch, and yet it is also one of the film's strongest, calling into question the old nature/nurture theory once again.

Parenting is another major theme, as is coming-of-age, and to its credit, Mundruczó's movie doesn't shy away from the difficulties here, either. What make it work so well is how all these themes -- including that of the unwanted, the "other" -- are so thoroughly fused that you finally cannot (nor would want to) separate them.

Music and its uses are paramount, as well, bringing to mind again those "charms to soothe the savage breast." The finale -- fierce, rich, suspenseful, emotional -- is both monumental and mysterious. I suspect this is a scene you will never forget.

White God (even that title is loaded and mysterious), one of the finest films Magnolia Pictures has yet released, recently screened as part of the New Directors/New Films series, opens theatrically this Friday, March 27, across Canada and in New York City at the IFC Center and the Lincoln Plaza Cinema. The Friday following it hits six more cities, including Los Angeles (at the Landmark NuArt) and then makes its way across the country in the weeks and months to follow. You can see all currently scheduled playdates, with cities and theaters, by clicking here.