The utter hopelessness of today's China: Vivian Qu's noir melodrama ANGELS WEAR WHITE

I'm not sure from where the title of this very dark and unsettling Asian-noir melodrama comes from, but the only even partial white worn in ANGELS WEAR WHITE, the new film from writer/director Vivian Qu (shown below), comes at the film's beginning, as a couple of young schoolgirls check into a seaside hotel, accompanied by an older man who seems just a tad suspicious. After that, we have to wait until the finale of this popular-at-festivals film to finally give us an all-white dress worn by its lead actress, the very good Vicky Chen, who ends this film in an oddball scene that

combines coincidence with a feel-good climax which can be interpreted, I suspect, in several ways: as an escape (but to where?), as the filmmaker's need to give us something positive at last, or perhaps as the old died-and-gone-to-heaven number in which our heroine is now one of those titular "angels."

In any case, how you react to this finale -- which includes, by the way, a marvelous and surprising use of one of Hollywood's most enduring icons -- will probably determine your approval rating for Angels Wear White.

The film tells the tale of the two little girls (above), together with their "keeper," all of whom are checked into that hotel by Mia, an only slightly older girl who, without proper identity papers, is working illegally at the hotel and soon becomes privy to a very bad event that happens there.

The first thing you may notice here, something that continues and only grows worse throughout the movie, is how venal and crooked is almost everyone we see. If Ms Qu is not saying that corruption is a -- probably the -- way of life in China, I'd be very surprised. One can't help but wonder how a film like this got by the Chinese censors. (I'm very glad it did, however.)

As usual, the more powerful are the people shown, the more corrupt and impossible-to-counter they are. This makes cops, top to bottom, the worst of the lot, with the medical profession not too far behind. Women, particularly young girls, are at the bottom of the power chain. Not to say that Ms Qu does not indict women, too. The little girl we get to know best here, Wen, has a mother (below, left) you would gladly rid the girl of, had you the chance.

In the heroics department are just two people, a female lawyer (played by Shi Ke, shown below) who stays on top of the abuse case in the center of the film, along with Wen's up-till-now mostly absentee father, Geng Le (above, right), whom we first imagine to be just another male "rotter" but who slowly takes on surprising depth and emotional strength at the movie moves along.

By the roiling and powerful climax, you'll want to take a semi-automatic to both the police and the hospital doctors. And yet what shortly precedes and then follows this seems sheer folly in terms of filmmaking. When a certain character turns out to be have been badly beaten (instead of being outright murdered, which would make much more sense, given the society we've seen here) and then a short time later appears bruise-free so that she can dress in white (like those titular angels) and give us a feel-good finale, you will wonder if Ms Qu has capitulated to Hollywood -- and not simply because of how she presents that movie-star icon at film's end.

The performances are A-1, especially from the three young girls, as well as that of Ms Shi as the lady lawyer and Mr. Le as Wen's dad. And the director's use of background shots -- as, above, with various wedding photos being taken near the beachside hotel -- speaks volumes about appearance vs reality in Chinese culture. Angels Wear White has much to recommend it. I just wish it had a little more.

From KimStim, in Chinese and with English subtitles and running 107 minutes, the movie opens this Friday, May 4, in New York City at The Metrograph, and on May 18 in Los Angeles at Laemmle's Music Hall 3.

Forget Islamic terrorism: Egyptian life is plenty awful in Tarik Saleh's NILE HILTON INCIDENT

Corruption is endemic and epidemic, top tier to bottom, in THE NILE HILTON INCIDENT, and if what we see in this dismaying, depressing movie is even halfway true, that corruption is destroying whatever is left of the country of Egypt. All this begins, movie-wise, with the police and a particular cop named Noredin (played by that excellent twin-titled Lebanese-born/Swedish-raised actor, Fares Fares), who not only takes bribes as a matter of course but actually steals a wad of money from the wallet of a recently murdered chanteuse about as easily as you or I would drink our morning coffee.

As written and directed by Tarik Saleh, shown at left, the film is set back a few years, just after a certain student was beaten to death by police, thus giving rise to what was soon to become Egypt's version of Arab Spring and those amazing street protests in Cairo's Tahrir Square. As this incident-filled film proceeds, we meet everyone from high-level police officers and their underlings to some classy prostitutes and their pimps, Sudanese hotel workers, a mammothly wealthy real estate mogul and a very funny taxi driver able to turn his beliefs and allegiances 180 degrees -- at a moment's notice. Trust is nowhere to be found, and when it appears, it's good for maybe five minutes max.

Yes, this film is depressing and distressing, offering not a chance in hell for any kind of justice for just about anyone we meet. Most don't deserve it, this is true, and the few who do are the ones with the least chance of every seeing it in action.

Yet The Nile Hotel Incident moves fast enough to keep us alert and trying to puzzle it all out. And while there is a tad too much coincidence, there is also such a firm capture of time, place and character that it is not difficult to stick with the movie.

In fact, its string of killings, with the murderer's connections kept secret until nearly the finale, is so brutal and unnerving (never shown in close-up, however, so we're spared being voyeurs at a slaughter) that the revelation of the killer's place in the scheme of things so thoroughly implicates the highest levels of power that all hope is immediately abandoned.

The movie's close takes place as the Tahrir Square demonstrations reach their zenith, even as our anti-hero Noredin is beaten to a pulp in the middle of it all. Finally, The Nile Hilton Incident delivers a good, solid peek into why that particular Arab Spring never would or could lead to anything real. After all, when everyone and everything is corrupt, to whom is one supposed to turn for help?

Is the movie simply dealing in cheap cynicism? I suspect not. This is what a country becomes when it has endured decades and decades of dictatorship and corruption. Look at Russia for another example. And Israel as a more recent newcomer to the group. My spouse asked me, as the end credits rolled, "Now, doesn't this make you more grateful for America?" Only marginally. And at the rate we're going, under the sleazy leaders (and their underlings) we keep choosing, it's just a matter of time.

From Strand Releasing and running 107 minutes, the movie opens in New York City tomorrow, August 11, at the Lincoln Plaza Cinema and Quad Cinema, and in the Los Angeles area on Friday, September 1, at Laemmle's Monica Film Center and Playhouse 7. Another 20 or so cities/theaters are in the offing. Click here and scroll down to see them all.

Down 'n dirty Russian miserablism in Yury Bykov's ironic tale of corruption, THE FOOL

Is there anyone worth salvaging out of all of modern-day Russia? You may not ask that question literally (you're certainly not as judgmental as I), but the idea is bound to cross your mind as you watch aghast and with increasing intensity as Yury Bykov's movie, THE FOOL (Durak), unfurls. Mother Russia and its venal and corrupt small-town politicians, factotums and civil servants, along with friends and family are all present here, and what a group they make!

Writer/director Bykov (at right), whose third full-length film this is (after Live! and The Major) is quite attuned to the ironies large and small of life under the new Vlad the Impaler. Here, nobody does their job so long as they can pocket a bribe, steal, lie or otherwise circumvent work. Anyone who tells the truth or behaves in a manner we would have long ago called "correct" is simply laughed off the stage, ignored completely, or -- as in the case of our hero and titular "fool," Dima (played by Artyom Bystrov, below) -- treated to an array of belittling that slowly grows to humongous, even life-threatening proportions. No one -- men, women, children, family, friends, co-workers -- can be expected to act like a civilized human being. The Social Contract? Broken, stomped upon and the burned into ashes -- just like the records concerning certain shoddy and illegal transactions that we see the town's council members lighting afire late in this riveting film.

How all this comes to be depends on a screenplay that moves ahead almost like a heist movie, except that what is being stolen, rather than any kind of booty (cash, jewels, stocks and bonds) is life itself, in the form of the occupants of a rotting tenement building (referred to here in the subtitles as a "dormitory") that has suddenly burst an architectural gut (a huge crack goes from ground to near the roof on both sides) rendering the place not just unstable but sure to collapse -- and soon.

Something must be done immediately, so Dima alerts the powers-that-be, all of whom happen to be partying in honor of one of their own at a local restaurant. How the group, which contains just about everyone involved in this sorry situations -- politicians, inspectors, builders, investors -- responds to the problem involves a manner you might call predictable-times-ten. In fact, had Bykov simply goosed things a bit further, he might have come up with a grand farce about greed.

As it is, the filmmaker's skills turn the tale into a kind of suspense thriller in which our hero must battle bad guys (and gals) that include just about everyone else in the movie. Set this nearly anywhere except today's Russia, and we might have a believability problem. Not here. And the way in which Bykov exposes each character's venality and hypocrisy not only provides juicy, ironic fun, but also allows us to see how corruption can so easily spread.

All the roles are played to excellent effect by a cast well chosen for both appearance and skill. Especially good are Nataliya Surkova (above, right), who plays the political Queen Bee, a woman who dearly wants to do the right thing, so long as she comes out OK, and Boris Nevzorov (below, left) as the most complex and closest-to-the-vest of the sinners on view.

Bykov leaves his saddest, most effective ironies for the finish, where family comes to the fore, and then those folk who live in the building that must be evacuated. This is ugly, hateful stuff, and again, were it taking place in a western country, we'd probably call it gross overkill. But Russia? Maybe not. The country's filmmakers know their homeland pretty well, I would guess. (Remember last year's corruption-special and Oscar nominee, Leviathan? That movie wore its symbolism a little heavily, and also lasted twenty minutes longer than this one.) The Fool's moral stance makes Mr. Bykov some kind of hero, I would say. And very probably, as perceived by much of the Russian populace, some kind of fool, as well.

The movie, released theatrically by Olive Films and running exactly two hours (in the screener I viewed), opens this Wednesday, September 16, in New York City at Film Forum., after which it will open in Santa Barbara (one day only!), Miami, Chicago and St. Louis -- with perhaps more bookings to be announced down the road.  To see all currently scheduled playdates, with cities and theaters shown, click here.

Russia's mammoth Oscar-shortlisted, LEVIATHAN, and a small American documentary, MENTOR, have a lot in common. Filmmaker Q&A

Normally, TrustMovies wouldn't think of comparing a nearly two-and-one-half-hour shortlist nominee for Best Foreign Language Film from Russia with a tiny little 78-minute American documentary about a high school in the town of Mentor, Ohio. But since both films were caught by me in the same week, and both deal heavily with bullying -- LEVIATHAN by the powers-that-be in a Russian coastal town, MENTOR by the entitled students of an upper-middle-class Ohio high school, abetted by the school's administration and further up the line by the state itself -- I can't help but want to cover these two interesting movies together.

Though Leviathan arrives laden with laurels (and freighted with symbolism) -- from film festivals, Cannes to Munich, Seville to São Paulo -- and is certainly a worthwhile movie, it is Mentor that proves the more important film. Bullying, it seems, is the watchword of our times. And though most folk imagine it has all to do with school kids and their peers, bullying is a behavior which, when rewarded -- as our modern world more and more tends to do -- simply carries right through the bully's entire life, whether he be Barack Obama, going after inconvenient whistle-blowers or Vladimir Putin going after just about anyone who disagrees with him. Strength and numbers create schoolyard bullies, access to power and resources create the adult variety. Once either type is allowed to flourish, the bully grows more difficult  to control. These days -- as both these movies demonstrate -- almost no one even bothers to try.

Or when they do try, as, again, both films show us, they are doomed to fail. If co-writer (with Oleg Negin) and director Andrey Zvyagintsev (shown at right) had decided to make a documentary film rather than the narrative he's created in Leviathan (and I am certain he could have, as more than enough incidents worth documenting exist in today's Russia), he would probably be in prison or dead just now, rather than tub-thumping the Oscar and Golden Globe circuits. So he chose, rather sensibly, to create a fictional tale of some lovely seaside property, coveted by the Mayor of the town, who uses eminent domain and his many lackeys (he seems to be in league with just about everybody we meet, from judges to churchmen to police) to wrest control of said property from its rightful owner, while paying him a pittance rather than market value.

In Mentor, filmmaker Alix Lambert (shown at left) who earlier made the Independent Spirit Award-nominated The Mark of Cain, takes us to the town of Mentor, Ohio, chosen in both 2006 and 2010 as one of America's ten top cities in which to live, and does a superlative job of indicting Mentor High School for failing to stop the bullying that has led, over several years, to the suicide deaths of five students. Ms Lambert concentrates on two of these deaths, as we meet the Vidovic family, whose younger daughter, Sladjana, killed herself in 2008; and the Mohats, Jan and Bill, whose son Eric killed himself the year previous.

What makes this film and its documenting so appalling is that while the bullying was apparent to the student body and to many of the teachers and the administration, nothing -- and I do mean nothing -- was done by those in charge of the school to prevent it. Mentor, by the way, is a much stronger film than the more-talked-about but all-over-the-place Bully.

While the Mowats (pictured above) did not know about the bullying their son was going through because the boy chose to keep it from his family, the Vidovics (below) knew just about everything, as Sladjana would come home day after day with horror stories that drove the parents to visit the school often to plead for help. None was ever given.

There is a section of the film in which Ms Lambert chooses to simply show us, one after another after another, the daily printed records of visits to the school nurse because of physical bullying incidents. This section is shocking and finally devastating. The girl was once pushed down a flight of stairs by one of the school's top football players. The reason given has got to be among the most offensive and stupid I've ever heard.

Mentor, Ohio, evidently wanted to keep secure its reputation as one of America's top cities, which meant sweeping any untoward behavior under the proverbial carpet. The children of its upper middle class bourgeoisie feel entitled, and that entitlement has grown into a kind of class warfare between the entitled and the outsiders. Mentor has a fairly large Croatian population, too, of which the Vidovics are a part, who are considered "lesser" by their wealthier and/or less-speech-accented counterparts.

What happens to the law suits of the two families is indicative of the manner in which these suicides were handled right down the line. As usual, power makes its hold over the individual known, so that nothing can be addressed and no justice achieved. (The Mowats note that they were shunned by former friends, once they pursued their lawsuit.) Also, as usual, in documentaries of this sort, no school official or representative would agree to be interviewed by the filmmaker. If the film ends up one-sided, there was hardly much recourse. The side shown, in any case, is clearly pro-justice. (The photo below is of Eric Mowat.)

In addition to visiting at length with the two families, Ms Lambert also corrals three very intelligent and knowledgeable experts: Dorothy Espelage, Professor, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, an expert on the study of Bullying; Kenneth D. Myers, the attorney who represented both families in their suits against the school; and Meghan Barr, a reporter for the Associated Press, who became interested in the story after reading about the Mentor suicides and then exploring further. The information and evidence that these three offer is more than conclusive. It would have been interesting, too, to know more about the other three suicides. But perhaps those families weren't talking. (You can read more about this in the Q&A at the bottom of this post.)

If the last few minutes of the film seems a bit repetitive and overly sentimental, Mentor will still leave you about as angry as a documentary can. You -- and certainly your children -- won't want to get within five hundred miles of this disgusting school and its surrounding community, unless, of course, you're one of those duly entitled who enjoy pushing girls down the stairs or get your jollies from appearing at her funeral and laughing aloud with your friends over the dress she's wearing in her casket. Yes, the bullies did that, too. (The photo above is of Sladjana Vidovic.)

Mentor -- from Garden Thieves Pictures and running 78 minutes -- was released to DVD last week, and can also now be seen via Amazon Instant Video, for sale or rental, and on SnagFilms and iTunes.

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Interestingly enough, if Leviathan were set here in the USA, its bullying mayor (acted by Roman Madyanov, shown above) might have played football for and then graduated from Mentor High School, taking with him a slew of his pals and gals to fill various slots on his town's payroll. But Leviathan takes place in a coastal corner of modern Russia, from which we expect little but corruption and drunkenness. The film delivers both --
in spades.

Filmmaker Zvyagintsev (Elena, The Return) understands how to weave corruption, bullying, love, infidelity, parenting, some deep psychological problems and a good dose of metaphor and symbolism into his mix and keep us glued to the screen. He refuses to explain everything, however, or even to allow us to know with any certainty what has happened at some major moments.

We accept all this, I think, because so bleak and unforgiving is what we are viewing that it really doesn't finally matter much what did occur: Might will overcome decency in every case, for this being Russia, it's all just business as usual. And, as good as Leviathan is, this is also its biggest problem: the sense of been there/done that that hovers over the movie in its entirety. Whether it's a throw-away American spin-off like A Good Day to Die Hard, an excellent documentary such as Khodorkovsky, or Leviathan, we've seen it and seen it and seen it all again.

You could hardly ask for better performances from the fine cast assembled here, however. They go a long way toward making the movie so watchable. Aleksey Serebryakov is terrific as our put-upon hero, with so many problems of his own (he's a hot-headed drunk) that he barely needs this additional one. Ditto Elena Lyadova as his spouse, a second wife unloved by the family's problemed son, a sad disturbed boy given unsettling resonance by young actor, Sergueï Pokhodaev.

The fly in the ointment, who initially looks more like the family's savior is Dimitri, Dad's best friend and even more to certain other family members. As played with understated strength and grace by a gorgeous hunk named Vladimir Vdovichenkov, "Dimi" proves a wild card in more ways than one. We meet this family's friends and co-workers, the religious crew, judges, police and more. And by the end of this often wonderful and always wearying movie, you may want to shrug and paraphrase those immortal, final words of the popular Polanski classic:
"Forget it, Jake. It's modern Russia."

Leviathan, from Sony Pictures Classics, in Russian with English subtitles, and running 140 minutes, opens tomorrow, December 25, in New York City at Film Forum and the Lincoln Plaza Cinema.  In the Los Angeles area, look for it on Wednesday, December 31, at Laemmle's Royal, and then on January 9 at the Playhouse 7 and Town Center 5. The movie will eventually play the limited release/arthouse circuit across the country.

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TrustMovies had a very quick telephone chat with filmmaker Alix Lambert, shown below, on Christmas Eve, just to ask a few question about her oh-so-necessary documentary, Mentor. My questions/comments appear in boldface, while Ms Lambert's answers are in standard type.

TM: I have to say that I liked your film even better than Bully, about which, only two years later, I can barely remember most of the specifics. Your film sticks so closely to the two families and what happened to them and builds its case against the school very well. 

Alix Lambert: Thank you.

TM: Why hasn’t this film been seen and covered more? 

AL: (she laughs) I would love to know the answer to that. When you make smaller independent films, you have a harder time because of funding. Making it is one thing, but getting it out there can be really frustrating. You finally finish it, you feel proud of it, and then it’s…. You just want to get it out to the world so that it can be used in a way that is educational.

TM: Did Ohio/Mentor try to sink it? 

AL: I don’t know about sinking the film. They certainly have been hostile toward me. I received a lot of threatening messages. But I have no reason to think that they are trying to sink it. On the other hand, I have also gotten a lot of emails from people who are really appreciative of the film but must remain anonymous because of their connections to the school or community.

TM: Your film mentions five suicides but you cover in depth only two of these. Did you try to reach or include the other families in your film? 

AL: I did contact other families but there were things that influenced my final decision to go with only the two. These were the two families that brought a lawsuit, so it was clear that they wanted their stories to be public and to be talked about. I always feel that one must err on the side of caution -- and not put someone through something when they’ve already been through something so horrible.

You want to make sure your people really want to participate. Also, the more you kind of spread things out among a lot of different people, you water them down. It's true that in The Mark of Cain you see many, many people. But in this one I am focusing on just two families. And because these other families were not sure they wanted to go public, I didn’t want to press them.

TM: Anything you want to say that you aren’t usually asked by journalists? 

AL: Hmmm... (She thinks) Well, just to say that what I would really like is to see people treat each other more kindly.
A little empathy can go a long way. 

Streaming "must" -- Sally Wainwright's HAPPY VALLEY offers British television at its best

In these days of long, long maxi-series (Grand Hotel lasted something like 42 episodes), what a surprise and joy to come upon a real mini-series of six hour-long episodes that provide something very much like what sitting down to read a good novel entails. Here are rich characterizations, a driving plot fueled by several smart strands and a roster of real characters, with performances that rise to this very high occasion. HAPPY VALLEY is the name of the series, as well as the town in which it takes place.

The creation of a woman named Sally Wainwright (shown at right), Happy Valley, because it is a kind of police procedural -- the main character is a police sergeant named Catherine Cawood, played in award-winning style by Sarah Lancashire, shown on poster, above, and in the shot below -- you will of course want to take that title with a bushel of irony. The beauty of this series is that so many things in it work both ways.

Yes, Happy Valley is a hotbed of criminal activity, depending on where you are and whom you're with. At the same time, this place seems like it would be a wonderful little community in which to live -- where so many of its people are kind, thoughtful and caring. The final shot at the end of the series in fact, brings this duality home in spades, as we see the same shot we've seen previously -- but now with a greater, deeper understanding of what kind of community this really is, as well as what it could be, if only our police sergeant had her way.

The crime -- a kidnapping -- that takes center stage here derives almost accidentally from a conversation between boss and employee about a raise in wages that would help pay for a child's education. So much of what happens here come from the characters' lack of understanding that actions always have consequences -- now or later, intended or unintended -- and so must be better thought out prior to taking that action.

Over and over we see come home to roost results that might have been so easily avoided. All this gives the series real weight, yet it moves quickly and surely toward its outcome(s). Another theme of the series is how power in high places corrupts -- finally tampering with the ability of the lower-level police force to do its job. The series handles this theme beautifully -- allowing us to see only shards of the corrupting power yet enough to understand and feel how it is helping to destroy the community.

A series like this one is so much better than the recent BBC endeavor Broadchurch (now running here in the USA in its remake format of Gracepoint) because its characters are much more real, the plotting is tighter, and the the writing is not crammed full of characters and events too quirky for their own (and the series') good. Ms Wainwright probes depths in Happy Valley -- of event and character -- unheard of in Broadchurch, which relied to often on cliche and shorthand to develop its people and plot.

You'll remember the characters of Happy Valley, good ones and bad, for a long time, I think  And as evil and unconscionable is the series' special villain (played exceedingly well by James Norton, above, left, with the also excellent Adam Long), even he manages to move us, surprisingly at times.

But it is finally the work of Ms Lancashire, who allows us to see more deeply into her character as the episodes continue, that cinches the deal. This is superlative acting -- as well as writing and directing -- taking us into the byways of a small community like few other series have managed.

Happy Valley conflates the police procedural with the "family" film, the charming country town with its rancid underbelly, and in the process gives us something very close to the whole picture. You can stream the series, a Netflix exclusive, now. It is absolutely not to be missed.