Haifaa Al Mansour's THE PERFECT CANDIDATE explores the (very) slowly expanding opportunities for women in the UAE

Watching the many and frequent hoops that a woman -- this one a noted doctor at a small-town clinic -- in the United Arab Emirates must constantly jump through called to mind the statement attributed to Ginger Rogers about what it was like to dance with Fred Astaire: "I had to do everything he did -- but backwards and in heels." Had Rogers resided in the UAE, she might well have added, "With one hand held behind my back and one foot tied to the sofa, and completely draped in black cloth that covers everything -- even my eyes!" 

THE PERFECT CANDIDATE, the new film from the Haifaa Al Mansour (shown at left, the director of  the popular film Wadja, as well as of Mary Shelley) gives us that scene of our heroine, an almost-by-accident political candidate, having to give her big speech in front of people, with nothing but her words and the sound of her voice allowed to be seen/heard. This has got to be one of the most ironic/crazy moments ever put into a film about politics and feminism, among other subjects.

Is this regime utterly nuts? Of course it is. Long has been. Fortunately, our good doctor Maryam Alsafan (Mila Alzahrani, above), along with her two younger sisters (below) and very self-involved father (mom is deceased), understands how to negotiate many of the perils of being a woman with a will in Arab countries. But not all of them, unfortunately. Nor could we expect her to. But we do see the doctor contending with nasty patriarchal patients, along with the many obstructions to simply getting a necessary form signed by the government.

And our girl is not shown to be anything like perfect. Clearly, she bought a new car because it was "on sale," and initially she seems more concered with improving her own station in life than with helping the people and patients around her. 

But as her campaign begins to take wings, we and she begin to see a little hope. Just a bit. But this is enough to buoy up the movie and its characters, and to give us a final scene (above) in which one of those patriarchal patients has something of an enlightenment. It's not a whole lot, but it is enough to make Maryam (and us) understand that you can lose, even as you simultaneously win.

From Music Box Films, in Arabic (with English subtitles) and a little English, and running 104 minutes, the movie opened in theaters (in New York City and the Los Angeles area) yesterday, and will hit further venues around the country in the weeks to come. Click here (and then scroll down  to "Theatrical Engagements") to view all currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lucas Belvaux's THIS IS OUR LAND: the frightening growth of the French far right

A uniquely disturbing (because it is so plausible) movie, THIS IS OUR LAND (originally titled as the better, simpler and more ironic Chez Nous) shows us, bit by bit, how a smart, caring, well-liked nurse in a typical provincial French town is slowly and cleverly conned into running for mayor under the banner of the "new" far-right party and its leader (think Marine Le Pen).

Though the far right, along with its neo-Nazis cohorts, has yet to win the major election in France, as Donald Trump and the Republican Party have done here in the USA, their strength in France -- as well as all across the European community -- continues to grow.

Belgian filmmaker Lucas Belvaux (of 38 Witnesses and Rapt) who co-wrote (with Jérôme Leroy, from his novel) and directed the movie has given it a remarkably true-to-life, near-documentary-like approach filled with so many on-the-nose details of small town life -- at work, at home, in relationships with friends and lovers -- that reality is captured almost at once and remains grounded throughout, despite some melodramatic turns and a finale that seems too sudden, coincidental and easy. The movie's strengths far outweigh its weaknesses, however, and what is likely to remain with you is a cautionary tale par excellence.

In the leading role is that fine Belgian actress Émilie Dequenne (above and on poster, top), who began her career in the Dardennes' Rosetta and has been giving crackerjack performances during the near 20 years since. This is another of her best, and it is hard to think of an actress (maybe Adèle Haenel in a few years) who could be any better in this role.

What the movie is particularly good at is showing us the route, led by a very successful right-wing doctor, played with his usual savoir faire by André Dussollier (above), via which the national front party seduces our heroine, along with so much of the populace, many of which are interested in populist ideals but unable (maybe unwilling) to differentiate between those and the racist, xenophobic underlay that accompanies them.

Catherine Jacob's performance -- the actress is shown above and below, center -- as the Le Pen stand-in is impressive in both its subtle conniving and its power to rouse the masses. This Is Our Land is also quite adept at demonstrating how a smart and caring woman could be seduced by this combination of praise, attention, and the support of friends already in the hands of the far right. In fact, what makes the film so particularly disquieting is how heavily we identify with our nurse/heroine and then must watch as she (and, yes, maybe we would, too) begins compromising the very bedrock principles upon which she has lived so far.

Now, all political parties do this same thing (god knows, America's Democratic Party compromised what few principles it had left by forcing Hillary Clinton upon us rather than going with the more progressive candidate whose appeal, according to all the early polls, trumped even that of Trump. But there are bad political parties and worse ones. And the French right-wing, along with America's Republicans, are clearly the worse.

The film's wild card is the character of the Dequenne character's old boyfriend (Guillaume Gouix, above and below) who suddenly appears back in her life as a possible mate.  Alternately violent and kindly, the latter especially to her children, he quickly becomes as much of a problem for the party and their candidate, as he may be for our heroine, too.

In the supporting cast, Patrick Descamps (above, left) is particularly notable as Dequenne's layabout Communist-Party father, whose reaction to her new political affiliation will not surprise you. A movie that is, as they used to say, ripped from today's headlines, This Is Our Land seems not to be asking could-it-happen-here? (it already has) than simply to be questioning how, in this "modern" age, we might hang on to whatever is left of our minuscule democracy.

From Distrib Films US, in French with English subtitles and running 117 minutes, the movies gets its U.S. theatrical premiere this Wednesday, April 18, in New York City at Film Forum. On April 27 it opens in Los Angeles at Laemmle's Monica Film Center. Click here, and then scroll down and click on Watch Now to view all upcoming playdates, cities and theaters.

Poet, politico, man and myth: Pablo Larraín's multi-faceted biopic/fantasy, NERUDA

Older Americans of a progressive slant will be familiar with the Nobel-winning Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, I suspect. But unless they are very familiar with the man's history, much of NERUDA, a new film from Chilean director Pablo Larraín, whose new film Jackie is also currently playing (and will be reviewed here next week), may strike them as surprising and bizarre. That's just fine, however, because -- from what TrustMovies can gather about Larraín's film -- this is indeed a kind of fantasia of what-if? and what-then?

The movie builds off facts, all right -- what we may already know about Neruda's life and art -- and what the screenwriter, Guillermo Calderón (of The Club), does in his very nearly completely invented story, is to wrap it all around a real time in Neruda's life (the 1940s) when he had to go on the run from the anti-Communist Chilean authorities who were (as usual and as a few decades later: remember Pinochet?) in the pocket of their North America "teachers." In filming Calderón's screenplay, Señor Larraín, pictured at right, has given us his most poetic movie so far.

Neruda may move slowly but the tale it spins is strange and gorgeous, witty and ironic, buoyant and sad. In the leading role is an actor who looks remarkably like Neruda himself (at least in some of the extant photos we can access, as the one below), Luis Gnecco (shown at left). Gnecco captures the artist, the politician, and the man equally well, succeeding in making us understand how Neruda was able to concoct the myth that surrounded him via the help of both his friends/fans and even more so with the help of his enemies.

After all, when the right wing calls you a traitor to your country, isn't it rather a badge of honor? Pablo was evidently a man of very healthy appetites, many of which are shown us throughout the movie. And yet it is hard not to love him for his excesses, as much as for his talent and political savvy. But Señor Gnecco shares screen time with a co-star much better known in America and internationally, Gael García Bernal (below), who plays a fictional character named Óscar Peluchonneau, a full-of-himself policeman who is given the job of finding and arresting (or maybe even killing) Neruda.

Óscar also narrates the film, and a more unreliable narrator would be hard to come by. But this is part of what makes the movie so often such fun. The policeman's idea of life and art and his place in it all is far afield from any reality we can see, and as the film marches forward, Óscar's ideas grow funnier but also sadder, even a bit poignant.

Mercedes Morán, a beautiful actress with wonderful access to emotional depths (shown above), plays Neruda's woman, and she's a pleasure to watch in all her scenes. Also in the cast is Larraín regular, Alfredo Castro, in a role small enough that you might miss that notable face.

The movie plays with politics and art, reality and fantasy, storytelling and the "heroic protagonist" (this is the role our Óscar dearly wants to assume) -- all to very good effect. It is beautiful to look at, as well, never more so than in the film's final scenes in the snowy Andes mountains where predator and prey will finally meet. Sort of.

Along the way we get snippets of Neruda's poetry, too, and if I have not made if clear that more than a passing interest in this poet is probably a requirement of the film, then let me do that now. I suspect that Chileans probably flocked to the film in a similar way that Americans will do with Jackie, a north-of-the-border mythmaker in her own way.

Meanwhile, Neruda -- from The Orchard and Participant Media, running 107 minutes, in Spanish with English subtitles -- opens tomorrow, Friday, December 16, in New York City at the IFC Center and the Film Society of Lincoln Center, in Los Angeles at Laemmle's Royal, and in Toronto at the TIFF Bell Lightbox. In the weeks to come it will hit a number of other cities, too. Click here to see all currently scheduled playdates.

Shear & Thom's WILD IN THE STREETS: this 1960s "instant classic" has aged quite well

When WILD IN THE STREETS hit cinemas back in 1968, no less a critic than the fine Renata Adler in The New York Times deemed the film a "kind of instant classic" -- you can read her entire review here -- and went on to praise it in terms that very few (if any) movies distributed by American International Pictures had ever earned. TrustMovies saw the film back in '68 and loved it, but when he viewed it again, maybe twenty years later, he felt that it didn't hold up so sturdily, after all. Well, here we are in 2016, with a certain con-man/liar with a very "loose" hold on reality running for President, and damned if the film doesn't resonate presciently -- and so entertainingly -- all over again.

Thanks to Olive Films' new Blu-ray and DVD release, those long-ago fans, as well as newcomers, can recall or find out what all the fuss was about. Some of that fuss centered on a hot new actor named Christopher Jones, above and below, who starred in the film as the pop singer-turned-business-magnate-turned-you'll-find-out who sets young America ablaze, as he sings to, then rounds up, his "troops" for a frontal and all-out assault on "aged" Americans (that would be anyone over, say, 30 or 35). Mr. Jones looked to be a sure-thing "star" and worthy successor to James Dean, but that star failed to rise. The actor was never again as well-cast and resonant as he was here, and after a few more films, for whatever reason(s), he fell off the grid.

As written by Robert Thom (from his short story) and directed by TV & film vet Barry Shear (Across 110th Street), this 97-minute movie barrels along -- with plot and incident aplenty, and a half-dozen good pop-rock songs that also feed the plot nicely -- at a speed rarely seen back in 1968. Today, the film seems much less speedy, though certainly not slow enough to bore. Even its editing (by Fred Feitshans and Eve Newman, both of whom were Oscar nominated for their work on the film), which looked amazingly fast and furious in its day, would probably need to be sped up a bit by our current standards.

Still the film's combo of politics (every bit as venal then as now), marketing (cornering the "youth" vote by lowering the voting age), drugs, sex (of more kinds that audiences were used to back in the day) and rock-and-roll -- all conceived around a fractured "family" tale that Brady Corbett's recent Childhood of a Leader might have learned from -- adds up to a remarkably entertaining and juicy look at how the USA can be manipulated for fun, profit and finally horror. And the filmmaker's clever use of documentary footage (as above) within their thrusting narrative works nicely, too.

What's missing is any hint of the income gap, the one per cent, and the rise of the corporations. But of course: This was well prior to Ronald Reagan's Presidential ascent and the beginning of our capitulation to wealth and power. But taken as an entertainment, the movie zings and sings. Its songs are fun, rhythmic and even have the melody that much of today's music has totally lost. The screenplay is wonderfully pointed and funny, and the movie's ironies are often a delight. (Watch for the little song about "campaign dinners" that a de-frocked politician -- played with relish, and then abandon, by Ed Begley -- chants toward movie's end.)

The cast also includes Shelley Winters (in foreground, two photos up), going all out to become one of the more memorable of movie "mothers"; Hal Holbrook (above), as the politician who thinks he is using Mr. Jones and his troops; Diane Varsi as a drug-addled hanger-on; and especially Richard Pryor (below and before we even knew who this guy was!) as a smart member of Jones' band.

The film is probably ripe for a remake, which, if it happens, should only provide as much timely fun and frolic as did this original -- available now from Olive Films, on both Blu-ray and DVD, for purchase and, I would hope, rental. (Netflix really ought to order this one -- now!)

Mothering, Bulgarian-style, in Maya Vitkova's gorgeous personal/political oddity, VIKTORIA

What a knockout (for a good while, at least) is VIKTORIA, the near-new (made in 2014) film from Maya Vitkova, shown below, which is said to be based somewhat on the filmmaker's own life -- with a little magic realism/ absurdity tossed in for good measure. We've long heard that popular phrase advising us that "the political is personal" -- or is it the other way around? -- but seldom do we see something that brings this idea to such specific life, if in awfully free-ranging fashion.

Viktoria, the character, is the spawn of Boryana and her live-in boyfriend who occupy a one-room apartment with Boryana's mom.The movie begins with their morning lovemaking, with mom unhappily listening. Well, this is Bulgaria under Communism, so there's little chance for even a separate bedroom. Though mom is still a true believer, who, according to Boryana, sacrificed her daughter's betterment for that of the Communist Party's, Boryana herself seems like a person drained of all hope. When her BF asks what they will name the baby he expects to have just helped conceive, she asks blankly, "What baby?"

And, yes, there is a baby -- an absolute delight of a cutie, above, who is born without a belly button (we won't get into how this is medically possible; that's part of the magic realism/symbolism on display) and so becomes a "hero" of the People's Republic of Bulgaria, and a clear sign to the powers- that-be that Bulgarian babies no longer need umbilical cords. What a country!

Ms Vitkova's rendition of the country's Communist leaders, along with her hilarious portrayal of Viktoria's education and elementary school years, where she is played by the very game Daria Vitkova (above, and the filmmaker's niece) -- how the power structure facilitates her every wish and need -- shows us a country that seems to have grown stupider with each ensuing decade. No wonder our Boryana is depressed.

She is also, as portrayed by actress Irmena Chichikova, shown above and below, one hell of a beauty, with a face the camera just loves. And this is where Vitkova begins to go a bit off-kilter. She sticks that camera on Chichikova's lovely, dark, deep face far too often and too long. For awhile we're so besotted with this weird tale and the pyrotechnics of the Communist nit-witticisms that we march along happily, both marvelling at and appalled by what we see and hear.

But the movie goes on for over two and one-half hours, and once the fall of Communism occurrs and Capitalism has reared its almost equally ugly head, much of the fun goes out of the film, and we're left with a little too much artsy-fartsy. feminist-to-a-fault filmmaking that drains the energy from Viktoria, both the character, who by now is a very sad young adult (played by Kalina Vitkova, another of the filmmaker's nieces, shown below), and the film itself.

This is too bad, because there is so much to recommend about the movie, from its use of symbolism -- cutting the other umbilical cord to the red-button phone (below) that links Viktoria to her country's leader, and showing us the great need for (and multitudinous ways to dispense) milk -- to its rich cinematography (by Krum Rodriguez) to the director's often buoyant and funny visual and verbal sense (Ms Vitkova also wrote the ambitious screenplay).

The film has its own rhythm, as well, and it's quite slow, and sometimes repetitious. But as the three generations of women we meet break further apart and then try to feebly bond again, the movie also begins to turn a bit too sentimental -- even if Vitkova does not, thankfully, go all out in this direction. We hope for better days for at least two of the three generations, for Viktoria especially. But given what we see and learn about Bulgaria through these eyes, the future is not particularly bright. There's an enormous and very real longing here for "elsewhere."  Venice, anyone?

Viktoria -- a Bulgaria/Romania co-production released in the USA by Big World Pictures and running 156 minutes -- opens in its U.S. theatrical premiere this Friday, April 29, in New York City at the Lincoln Plaza Cinema and IFC Center, and on May 13 in Chicago at Facets Cinematheque, and then in Los Angeles on June 10 at Laemmle's Royal. Elsewhere? Maybe, if some positive word-of-mouth builds. Goodness knows, this movie does not easily compare with much else you'll have seen. And for real film buffs, that may be enough to entice.