Jeanine Meerapfel's MY GERMAN FRIEND: See an excellent, undiscovered film from 2012

It is possible that, despite the current pandemic's making the making of movies more difficult, the flip side of this is that a number of older films, earlier passed over for any kind of international distribution, are now getting their chance to shine -- even if tardily. On the basis of how intelligent, unusually put together, and ever-timely is the newly released movie titled MY GERMAN FRIEND, I would say that, as is often the case when bad things happen, there can be an occasional surprising and worthwhile upside.

Written and directed by Jeanine Meerapfel (shown at left), the movie tracks, beginning in the 1950s, the hugely changing relationship between childhood friends who live just across the street from each other: Friedrich Burg, the son of German Nazis relocated post-war to Argentina, and Sulamit Löwenstein, daughter of well-to-do Jews fleeing Europe for Argentina to escape the Holocaust. 

We're with Sulamit and Friedrich as young children, adolescents, older students and finally adults (Celeste Cid, below, right, and Max Riemelt, below, left). The two have loved and cared for each other all along the way, and yet their paths toward adulthood -- including career, philosophy, priorities -- could hardly have been more different. 

By refusing to take sides but instead showing us how each of her protagonists thinks and feels and thus why they behave in the ways they do, Ms Meerapfel is able to give us a wonderfully expansive and very real love story, without for a change slighting the necessary themes -- politics, protest, history, economics, education, rebellion (and its consequences), even feminism -- that should figure (but so seldom do) into any genuine love story. (Think of this one as The Way We Were, but set in Argentina and Germany, and without all the soap suds.)

The film begins on a train as Sulamit makes her way toward... something, though we don't yet know what. We only learn this as the movie is more than halfway along, as the present moves to the past, catches up again, and plows onward. 

My German Friend is indeed a love story, but it is one that offers so much more than simple romance, a little lust and some feel-good filler. It shows us different forms of love and how help and support figure into all this. 

And if the filmmaker will win no awards for style and/or breaking new ground, she should win a few for showing us life's broader perspective that include what is going on in our world politically, economically, culturally, and freedom/repression-wise. 

By the time of Meerapfel's lovely conclusion -- in which anything simple-minded or obvious has no role -- we are made to realize that love is in ongoing thing in which small battles must be fought, won or allowed to be lost in order to keep the relationship healthy. This movie is a small-but-genuine "find."

From Corinth Films -- which has been giving us a lot of lesser-known but very-much-worth-viewing attractions -- in German and Spanish (with English subtitles) and running 104 minutes, My German Friend hit DVD and streaming earlier this week -- for purchase and/or rental. Amazon Prime members can watch it free of charge.

A kind of canine Kedi arrives on DVD: Mary Zournazi's doc, DOGS OF DEMOCRACY

Since both the very popular cats-of-Istanbul documentary, Kedi, and the just-now-arriving-on-DVD doc about some Athens canines, DOGS OF DEMOCRACY, were made in 2016, I don't think you can accuse either of any kind of plagiarism. Yet it's very difficult to watch the latter without constantly recalling the former. Kedi is the longer film (by 21 minutes) and the better one -- more graceful and professional -- too. But writer/director/ cinematographer Mary Zournazi's 57-minute movie is still very much worth seeing.

Ms Zournazi (shown at left) is the Australian daughter of a pair of Grecian ex-pats who only recently made her first trip to that "cradle of democracy," which was at the time (and still is) going through an economic crisis which has put that country's 99 per cent into a state of what appears to be an ongoing and maybe permanent kind of "austerity" which has thrown a huge amount of its population into actual poverty (or even deeper poverty). And while the general public has done everything from continually protesting this austerity and had even elected a government that tried to do something about this, it has all been to little avail. The uber-sleazbag politicians who brought Greece to its knees seem to have gone unpunished, and, as usual in our current western would-be "democracies," it is the public who pays for it all -- over and over and over again.

While Kedi was barely political (I recall a single anti-Erdoğan slogan appearing as graffiti; anything more and its filmmaker might not still be among the living), Dogs of Democracy definitely is. Like the cats of Kedi, these dogs live on the streets and are cared for only via the good will of the humans who help them.

Yet they seem to have taken their place as canine helpers of the many protestors who regularly take to the streets. The dogs have endured tear gas attacks, just as have the protestors, and have had their already short life span made even shorter.

We hear from one of the people who care for the dogs -- himself a homeless person -- that a stray dog's life expectancy is around three years, due to the probability of being hit by an automobile or poisoned. As in Kedi, we meet a number of the folk (above and below) who make it a point to care for these animals, and we're also given a little history of Greece and its dogs, in particular one famous canine who regularly visited a POW camp during World War II and which, more than any of the Germans in charge of the camp, attested to the humanity of the prisoners there.

The movie is a pretty interesting -- but also pretty uneven -- mix of interviews, visuals, poetry, prose, dogs and history (and, finally, even a single cat!). For animal lovers of any sort, I should think it will be a slam dunk, given how bracing and often moving is its mix of animals helping humans and humans helping animals always turns out to be.

Among the various folk we meet, the most famous face probably belongs to Yanis Varoufakis, the economist/academic/politician who served for six months as Greece's Minister of Finance back in 2015 -- though he, like some of the others interviewed here, are identified only by their first name. This may be cozy but it's not particularly professional. The movie could have used a bit more rigor.

From EPF Media and released via MVD Entertainment Group, the documentary hit the street earlier this month and is available now for purchase or (I would hope) rental.

DVDebut for Matt Tyrnauer's timely, thoughtful doc, CITIZEN JANE: BATTLE FOR THE CITY

Of course Jane Jacobs is the hero is this new documentary, while Robert Moses is its chief villain. This is to be expected of any work that explores our cities, their past and (we can only hope) their future. What is maybe not so expected is that the movie fairly teems with humanity, diversity and life. I suspect that Ms Jacbos, who died more than a decade ago, would be pleased with what producer/director Matt Tyrnauer (shown below) has put together here. CITIZEN JANE: BATTLE FOR THE CITY is a combination of history, personality, struggle and (for a change) success in preventing the powers-that-be from imposing their too-often stupid and destructive ideas upon cities such as New York and (eventually) Toronto. Jacob's landmark book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, is explored at length and in some depth, and bits of her glorious writing are prominently featured, too. Together all this makes for an exultant look back at what can happen when a woman who's both a talented writer with smart and important ideas also discovers her ability to organize and protest, in the process garnering some amazing results.

Mr. Tyrnauer has filled his film with great archival footage -- of New York, Philadelphia, Jacobs (and her nemesis, Moses) and especially of the wonderful diversity and energy present in cities that ought to be harnessed, rather than destroyed by the kind of projects of which Mr Moses was so in favor.

We see Le Corbusier and how his work was often bastardized in the name of modernity to create sterile and non-productive low-income housing. Instead, as Jacobs told us, the city should be a place where "enterprises and people are mutually supportive."

We're there with Jane and others, as she leads the fight to prevent Moses' highway through Washington Square Park. His now infamous quote that "Nobody's against us except a bunch of mothers" is shown to be all too true -- and effective.

Jacobs' real test comes as she opposes Moses and his ludicrous Lower Manhattan Expressway, which would have destroyed the entire neighborhood of Soho and displaced thousands of citizens. Her goal was not to prevent change, but to manage it well, rather than simply "freezing time."

Sure, the film is anti-Moses, but it does give the man, along with some of his better projects, his due. But mostly it's about the miracle of the city -- when it works the way it should and could. It's all about "the safety of the street and the freedom of the city," two ideas that Jacobs cherished. Best of all, perhaps, the documentary helps us understand Jacobs' "new" theory about cities and how she arrived at it. The final quote we get from her glorious book, describing the city as a kind of wonderful dance, is so perfect and beautifully realized that you may want to watch the movie all over again, just to hear it once more, spoken against those enticing visuals. (Jacob's voice is read by Marisa Tomei, while Moses' words come via Vincent D'Onofrio.)

From IFC Films and running a just-about-perfect 93 minutes, Citizen Jane: Battle for the City will hit the street on DVD this coming Tuesday, September 12 -- for purchase and/or rental. 

Vincent Perez's World War II, anti-Nazi oddity, ALONE IN BERLIN, makes its DVD debut

That handsome, exotic-looking hunk, Vincent Perez (shown below), has had quite an acting career -- some 66 roles already (his 53rd birthday arrives this Saturday) -- topped off in my estimation by his performances in Queen Margot and the late Patrice Chereau's masterwork, Those Who Love Me Can Take the Train. His career as a director has remained pretty much a non-starter, however, and his latest endeavor, ALONE IN BERLIN, will not do much to burnish this.

Alone in Berlin is not an awful film by any means, but it never somehow takes off, instead simply sitting there, waiting to happen. As my spouse noted about a half-hour in, "I can't figure out the focus here." In a way, this at least means that M. Perez is not hitting us atop the head with his "point," but on the other hand he could easily has made his movie crisper, tighter and more compelling. As director and co-adapter (with the team of Achim and Bettine von Borries) from the novel by Hans Fallada, Perez seems content to simply let the story tell itself, with pacing that seldom varies as incident (very) slowly piles upon incident until, at last, the viewer is drawn in.

The movie's cast is certainly A-1, led by Emma Thompson and Brendan Gleeson (above), with Daniel Brühl (below) bringing us another of his naughty Nazi performances, à la the recent Zookeeper's Wife. Thompson and Gleeson plays a German couple in 1940, in the midst of the Second World War, whose son is killed -- this is the first thing we see in the film -- on the front lines in what I suspect is France.

The couple, who were never, it appears, pro Hitler or pro-Nazi (it is made clear that the husband is not a party member) are so angry and unsettled by their loss that they -- in particular, he -- begin writing post-card size messages against the Nazis and Hitler and leaving these in odd but public places where they are sure to be found. (Such a thing, along with the couple who perpetrated it, is evidently a part of German history.)

Now, as partisan/agitator/protest goes, this is very small potatoes. But it is also what makes the movie at least unusual. We know how little real good this can do, and yet it is all these two people seem capable of, and in fact, simply must engage in due to their anger and loss. And indeed, it does seem to make the local Nazis -- leaders and underlings -- lose their cool.

There is some suspense generated as our protagonists place their little cards and once are almost caught, and there is interest aroused in the way that Brühl's investigator goes about tracking the couple. (Oddly, the film's most compelling section has to do with the sleazy fellow falsely accused of planting the cards, and what happens to both him and his investigator in the wake of all this.)

I suspect you will keep watching (we certainly did) just to learn what happens and why. Alone in Berlin is not great cinema, to be sure. But neither is it anything like a total loss. From IFC Films and running 103 minutes, the movie arrives on DVD this coming Tuesday, June 13 -- for purchase and/or rental.

Protest that comes from an unusual place in Apkon/Young's doc, DISTURBING THE PEACE

Of all the many documentaries we've seen regarding the ongoing Israeli/ Palestinian conflict, DISTURBING THE PEACE, the new one from filmmakers Stephen Apkon and Andrew Young, is certainly among the most unusual and important. This is because the film details the coming together of a group of Israeli military and former Palestinian fighters who have joined forces to challenge the seats of power on both sides by insisting, Enough! Really now: Doesn't "Give peace a chance" resonate a lot more strongly when it comes from those who have served in the military and/or devoted so much of their former life to war?

Filmmakers Apkon (shown at left) and Young (below) certainly see it that way, and so, I think, will you, once you've witnessed their thoughtful and moving documentary with its rather ironic title: "Peace," after all, is what the folk we meet here are looking for. Yet the "peace" they are disturbing is actually the status quo found in both a majority of Palestinians and Israelis who would rather go on fighting forever than join forces to find some way out of the death

and destruction that keep raining down upon them. To counter this seemingly endless trend, Apkon and Young offer up first a history of the principals involved in this joint effort. They show us the background of these people, embedded of course, in the history of their cultures: How the Jews lost entire families to the Holocaust, and how the Palestinians lost their land, homes and sometimes family members, as Israel took over their former homeland. This is history, writ both large and small, and once we learn where these Israeli military and Palestinian fighters came from, we also begin to learn, understand and appreciate how and why their attitudes slowly evolved and changed.

Most of this history has been "re-created" for the documentary, but once we get into present-day affairs, the film relies on real footage. While TrustMovies is growing somewhat tired of these re-creations, he admits that they do make for a more engaging entry into the tale being told. Otherwise, this documentary might be little more than talking heads reminiscing for maybe half the running time of the film. Here, the re-creations are bolstered by historical footage (one shocking scene shows workers cleaning up literally buckets of blood in a disco after a bombing) that helps keep the movie on track.

One of the most surprising and deepest moments arrives when a Palestinian fighter sees his own mother crying for the dead children on a recently bombed bus. "But they weren't Palestinian, they were Israeli," he tells her. She sets him straight with an answer that resonates and burns into him. And then there is the case of the Palestinian mother (below), planning on becoming a suicide bomber, and how she handles the explanation of this to her young daughter. Because this movie first builds up a very good case for how angry the men and women on both sides really are, it can then build an even better case for peaceful resolution by showing how change did come. For them, at least.

Some of the Israelis shown screaming "Traitors!" at members of this coalition at various rallies show the state of that nation and may remind you of similar happenings when Rabin was still alive. These "traitors" are people who believe so strongly in working for peace that they have been put in prison for years for their beliefs. The world needs more of this kind of "traitor." In one surprising scene, we're made privy to a family in which the father wants his daughters to join in a protest march for peace. Notes his wife: "You've gone to the other side, and it makes me crazy."

The film provides some good history, too, taking us back to the letter signed by these Israeli military men refusing to fight any longer in the occupied territories. "We are not against serving in the army but we refuse to turn that army into a mechanism of repression." At the first meeting of the two sides, tensions are shown to be high ("I wanted to kill them. To eat them!" one person recalls). Over time this tension lessens and major progress is made.

The 2015 uprising proved a real setback to the cause, but by the finale of the film, we see both sides taking to the public platform and engaging their audience with the idea of peace. "Don't listen to your leaders!" they exhort the crowd. "Challenge them!" And that, of course, would be leaders on both sides of the equation. Disturbing the Peace left me in tears -- for all that could be done but has not been. Yet.

The documentary -- from Abramorama, in Hebrew, Arabic and often in English (with English subtitles used when needed) and running 87 minutes -- opens this Friday, November 11, in New York City at the Lincoln Plaza Cinema and the Landmark Sunshine, and on November 18 in the Los Angeles area at Laemmle's Music Hall 3. Elsewhere? Yes, Click here to view all currently scheduled screenings, along with special screenings (with free admission, or for veterans) and to see the schedule for the many personal appearances by the directors.

Frederick Wiseman's documentary IN JACKSON HEIGHTS opens at New York City's Film Forum

My cousin Paula Carroll, a relatively wise-in-the-ways-of-the-world woman, used to say (and undoubtedly still does) that if you know a particular subject well and then see a movie about it, you'll find that movie wanting. TrustMovies has more often than not discovered for himself that this is true. Depth, specificity and honesty are not necessarily synonymous with mainstream entertainment. Having lived in Jackson Heights for 22 years and only recently relocated to southern Florida, I know my ex-community relatively well and so was looking forward to the Frederick Wiseman (the filmmaker is shown above) documentary, IN JACKSON HEIGHTS, about as much as I've awaited the coming of any movie I can recall. I've been impressed with other of this documentarian's works -- from Titicut Follies (1967) and High School (1968) onwards to Crazy Horse (2011) -- and now, here he is tackling my own stomping ground!

Yeah, right. I should have lessened my expectations and recalled what cousin Paula said. Also, I should have noticed that the title of this film is not Jackson Heights (as though it were going to be any kind of definitive picture or history) but In Jackson Heights, as instead, "This is what's happening in the neighborhood right now." As such, Wiseman's movie is a not uninteresting look at a place that, like the borough of Queens of which it is a part, offers as ployglot a community as you're likely to find anywhere in the world (167 languages are said to be spoken here!).

Inclusive is also a term you can use about this place which is and has been for some time open and relatively welcoming of the GLBT community (some of its seniors are shown above), of new immigrants (legal and otherwise), and of the various cultures these immigrant represent (the number and variety of ethnic restaurants alone are legion). All this is catnip to Wiseman's eye and camera, and so we get a cursory look at food and restaurants and culture and mariachi bands (below).

What really interests the filmmaker, however, are certain groups -- from those in a senior center, to the GLBT population, to young social activists trying to help a beleaguered Hispanic business community survive an attack by wealthy real estate investors, to a support group for recent U.S. immigrants, a member of which (below) tells the tale of her daughter's very frightening and near-death experience getting into the country.

Also covered in some depth and detail is the office of Danny Dromm, New York City Council member for the 25th district, which includes Jackson Heights. We watch and listen as his staff handles various phone calls, and later watch and listen again as Dromm and staff tackle a thorny education question. (The movie certainly works as an endorsement of Councilman Dromm.) The funniest moments probably arrive as the camera and microphone capture a class for new taxi drivers (below) who need to learn about Brooklyn! This is clever, unusual stuff, and their teacher seems like a born New Yorker (that is to say, himself a somewhat Sammy Glick-like immigrant striver).

My spouse stopped watching the film after two hours (it runs a total of three hours and ten minutes). He found it too repetitive and not very eye-opening. I watched that final hour and was glad  I did, even though I, too, did not find myself surprised or educated by much I saw.) I suspect that none of the critics who are currently praising the film to the skies live in Jackson Heights, or they would be aware of all that is going on here. And more. The movie barely cuts into the community, save for these few "group" experiences that we see.

Wiseman is a filmmaker who prefers to show rather than tell (some of his subjects do plenty of that, however). So he does not use narration or go into history.  He simply points his camera -- savvily, it must be said -- and records. What he has captured In Jackson Heights is a community undergoing change, as communities always do. Earlier, Hispanics pushed out an older population of Irish and Italians; now they are being pushed out by gentrification and wealth. There was a time when Jews were not allowed to purchase in the Jackson Heights Historic District -- a beautiful, landmarked area within Jackson Heights that this movie barely shows or mentions -- but you wouldn't learn anything like that from watching this vibrant, colorful but somewhat shallow film. There is a limit to what simply pointing the camera and shooting can do, and when one goes into a community this diverse, there is a price to be paid in the kind of depth achieved.

The movie, from Zipporah Films (Wiseman's own distribution company) opens this coming Wednesday, November 4, in its world theatrical premiere in New York City at Film Forum. In the weeks to come, it will make its way around the country and elsewhere. To see all currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters, click here and scroll down.

On Blu-ray & DVD -- Lee Daniels' THE BUTLER

Given the kind of movies filmmaker Lee Daniels has graced us with so far (and I am stating upfront that I am a fan of his work) -- Shadowboxer, Precious and The Paperboy -- could anything have prepared us for his suddenly offering up a mainstream movie as predictable and pedestrian as THE BUTLER?  I admit that the idea of following the progress of America's black population via a single family -- the father of whom served in The White House as butler to eight American Presidents, even as his son grows up amid protests and the Black Power movement -- is an interesting one that would seem to be able to reflect our times while remaining relatively truthful and telling.

The film does this, but in an utterly paint-by-numbers fashion. Not only can you predict just about every moment in the movie prior to its happening, you can also pretty much gauge the kind of performance you'll be seeing from each actor on view -- many of them first-rate and all of them used here for their ability to bring a cliché to further tired life. In the past, Mr. Daniels (shown at left) has worked with clichés, all right, but he's usually turned them on their heads, bounced them black-and-blue, or had his cast barrel through them with such relish (The Paperboy) that they come out the other side. In the 2-hours-and-12-minutes-long The Butler -- with screenplay by Danny Strong from an article (later a book) by journalist Wil Haygood -- these cliches are treated with such reverence that they seem to ossify before our very eyes. This is mainstream movie-making with a vengeance.

As a typical example, let's just take the opening segment in our butler's history, as a boy on the southern plantation -- that's a wasted Vanessa Redgrave above, right -- and compare it to 12 Years a Slave. (I can't tell you how many times now I've heard people who've seen The Butler tell me that --oh, my -- they wouldn't think of sitting through 12 Years.
It's too violent!)

In this cotton-picking episode, our man, remembering his childhood, speaks almost happily of the times in the field with his father. Then we witness, in very quick succession, his mother (Mariah Carey, above, right) being taken off by "Massa" (Alex Pettyfer, above, left) to be raped, and then Massa killing his father right in front of the kid's eyes. Some delightful time in the cotton field.

Granted, movies that cover a long period must telescope, but this is ridiculous and doesn't even, on the face of it, make much sense. If this kind of behavior went on often, the cotton field would be the last place you'd want to your kid to be, but if he had to be there, he'd know to keep his mouth shut and eyes right -- instead of goading his father to act. Compare this to the cotton field of Mr. McQueen's movie, and the erratic, horrible (but utterly specific and frighteningly believable) behavior of Michael Fassbender's Massa. The horror here stems from film-making and performance that point up how utterly subjugated were the blacks to any odd whim (at any given time) of their masters.

The casting of big-name actors in so many roles also makes The Butler an almost constant source of "Oh, look, it's so-and-so!" playing this or that President or first lady."  Jane Fonda (two photos up) does a fine and utterly ironic job, playing Nancy Reagan absolutely straight, while Liev Schreiber (above) does a smart Lyndon Johnson, and James Marsden (below, center), infinitely cuter (and shorter) than JFK, leads the charge as head of the Kennedy White House. All this is fun to watch in a silly-movie kind of way.

The heart of the film must belong to its black family at its center, and here a tamped-down and clammed-up Forest Whitaker (below) takes the title role. Whitaker is always good, but his nearly-one-note performance grows a tad boring. He is meant to know his place and blend into the wallpaper, and he does this a mite too well. And when he finally shows us his sad, inner self, we know all too well what's coming.

Oprah Winfrey, below, gets both glammed-up and glammed-down as his wife, and she has a number of dramatic scenes, played just as you'd expect them to be. It's that kind of movie.

The versatile and hugely talented David Oyelowo (shown below with Yaya Alafia: Compare his work here to that in The Paperboy) as the couple's rebellious elder son provides most of the movie's heat. Everyone does the expected, however, so we can all go home happy and satisfied with how far our country, white and black, has come. Indeed it has, in some ways. But movies this safe and obvious serve the status quo rather than the possibility of real change. 

I am actually pleased to see Mr. Daniels have a big hit on his hands, but I wish it had come in a film of more intelligence and stringency. I hope he'll soon go back to challenging us again, rather than continuing to feed us overly-sugared-with-just-a-pinch-of-salt pablum. The Butler, from The Weintstein Company and released to video via Anchor Bay, hits the streets this coming Tuesday, January 14, on Blu-ray and DVD, for purchase and/or rental.