Grief and its variations in Hlynur Palmason's Icelandic genre-jumper: A WHITE, WHITE DAY

If we don't know by this time, via its movies at least, that the Nordic island country of Iceland has a culture and character pretty damned different from all others, even those of Scandinavia, to which it most probably closely compares, then the new film, A WHITE, WHITE DAY, should bring that point home all over again. It's surprisingly quiet (especially for a movie in which a kidnapping and a likely suicide occur) and somewhat repetitive, yet days after viewing it, the film keeps coming back to mind at odd times and in odd ways. It's sneakily memorable.

As written and directed by Hylnur Palmason (shown at right; this is his second full-length feature), the film begins as we follow a car traveling down a lonely, snow-surrounded highway in a lot of fog. After the first "event," we move to a shot of a field with a house under construction in the distance, as horses graze, day changes to night and then one season becomes another.

All this (below) is both repetitive and time-consuming, and yet it holds us via its very obstinacy: We haven't even seen a human face as yet.

When we finally do, the faces belong to three generations of a family who've now lost their matriarch, leaving a grieving widower, a local policeman named Ingimundur (played by a very impressive actor, Ingvar Sigurdsson, below), as well as other family members in various states of disarray.

The character who seems for awhile in the least disarray is Ingimundur's granddaughter, Salka (below), played with amazing skill and utter honesty by newcomer Ída Mekkín Hlynsdóttir. This young actress is so good in so many ways that it's no surprise she's already won an acting award.

Ingimundur and Salka make quite the team; they easily put in the shade the rest of the supporting cast, all of whom are excellent, even as the support circles around these two protagonists, as satellites who job it is to help guide the pair to some kind of fruition.

The plot, which I will not much go into, involves everything from caring and betrayal to crackerbarrel therapy, soccer games, anger and revenge. What makes the movie work so very well, aside from the excellent performances and smart, less-is-more writing and direction, is that particular, maybe even peculiar, Icelandic character.

Perhaps because of its wintry locale and sparse population, citizens seem to be allowed to make mistakes -- some of these real doozies -- without the kind of constant supervision, reprimands, penalties and whatnot that so many countries (western or eastern) seem to inflict. There's a kind of trust implicit here that a person can and will arrive at his own place at his own pace. Call it built-in forgiveness, maybe? Along with the ability of citizens to take some real responsibility for themselves.

Whatever: These cultural "traits," for lack of better word, imbue this work with the kind of substance and oddball grace that many would-be-more-important movies never get near. Another fine and interesting film from Film Movement, A White, White Day will have its "virtual cinema" premiere tomorrow, Friday, April 17, in locations across the country. Click here to view venues and learn more information.

Responsibility, PTSD and culture clash fuel Benjamin Gilmour's unusual Aussie film, JIRGA

Australia’s pick for Best Foreign Language Film for the 2019 Oscars and winner of the Best Independent Film Award from AACTA, the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts, JIRGA, the new film by Benjamin Gilmour (shown below), despite its production history being about as fraught as they come, turns out to be -- if you can forgive one whopping bit of coincidence and unbelievability -- a remarkably unusual, thoughtful and finally very moving experience.

Why so fraught? Here's what the writer/director tells us in the press notes for his film:

“I was approached by a Pakistani producer who had found a Pashtun financier ready to put up $100K for the production of my script in Pakistan. My film was set in Afghanistan, but to benefit from the finance we'd need to shoot in Pakistan's Khyber Paktunkwha province. I approached Sam Smith, a talented actor from Sydney (not the singer) who was up for the adventure. We flew to Islamabad, only to discover the financier did not have permission to shoot from the ISI -- the Pakistan secret service -- who actively blocked the production after reading the script, considering it too politically sensitive. The Pashtun financier pulled his money out. Sam Smith and I were stranded in Pakistan with no team and no money and were now being tailed and harassed by the secret service. We could have flown back home then, but instead decided to shift the whole shoot to Afghanistan, risking our lives and investing some crowd funding and personal savings to make it…”

The result certainly proves worth everyone's time and finances (including ours, at least in terms of 78 minutes spent, together with the price of a movie ticket). This tale tells of an ex-soldier who committed an act somewhere between accident and war crime, and who has been hugely troubled by it ever since. He has determined to return to Afghanistan and the village/community where the event took place and offer himself up to "justice."

Fortunately the actor chosen to essay the role of ex-soldier, the generically-monikered Sam Smith (shown above and below), makes a most attractive and believe protagonist. Graced with handsome face and lean, lithe body, Smith is onscreen almost constantly, and he slowly pulls us in to his odd, difficult and sad quest. There are varied ways soldiers and ex-soldiers handle their individual Post-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder -- from group therapy or out-of-control anger to murder and suicide.

Smith's character Mike Wheeler's choice is certainly one of the more unusual ones, but the filmmaker and actor have collaborated well and made this choice strange but believable, thanks to a generally good script that shows both the difficulty of communication via language and the help that money (taped to our protagonist's body, above) can provide.

Along his journey, Mike encounters a kind and caring taxi driver (Sher Alam Miskeen Ustad, above), who bonds with our hero via music and a strange boat trip on a pink swan raft, before the two must separate suddenly when the Taliban appears.

This "escape" scene, below,  proves the movie's low point, as it is more than a tad unbelievable, as is the wandering in the desert that follows before Mike has somehow been found/rescued by a band of what seemed to me Taliban soldiers but perhaps were just a group of unattached "freedom fighters."

The leader of this group eventually bonds with Mike (thanks to the one fellow in the group who speaks enough English to communicate).

One wonders why the filmmaker did not dispense with the foolish "escape" and simply have the armed men at the road block be the group who captures Mike, keeping him in its underground lair until it eventually understands his mission and helps guide him toward it.

That said, the remainder of the film slowly coalesces into a very believable and moving conclusion involving that titular Jirga (below), as well as the family member (at bottom) of the dead Afghan man who unknowingly set Mike on his crazy but somehow understandable mission.

Though most of the supporting cast are untutored amateurs, they play their various roles well enough to pull us in, and Mr. Smith, via face and subtle acting skill, does the heavy lifting gracefully and well. Gilmour's film highlights the kind of trauma that has bedeviled so many of the soldiers who fought in the seemingly unending and certainly pointless middle-eastern wars -- both Americans and, in this case, Australians who fought in Operation Slipper.

From Lightyear Entertainment, in English and Pashto (with English subtitles), Jirga opens this Friday, July 26, in New York City at the Village East Cinema, and in the Los Angeles area on August 2, at Laemmle's Music Hall 3. More playdates should be coming soon. Click here to view the most current schedule of cities and theaters.

THE WILD PEAR TREE: Nuri Bilge Ceylan's latest, lengthy, loving dissection of family, country, religion -- but not quite politics

Nothing overtly political ever crops up in the latest endeavor from Turkish filmmaker, Nuri Bilge Ceylan. Not even a tiny aside such as the bit of "Erdo-gone" graffiti you might have noticed oh-so-briefly in that popular Turkish cat documentary from 2016, Kedi. Yet I defy any viewer who lasts out the 188-minute running time (this should not be difficult, given the quality of filmmaking here) of Ceylan's newest, THE WILD PEAR TREE, not to feel grateful that he or she lives almost anywhere else.

Mr. Ceylan, shown at left, never stints on showing us how beautiful are the Turkish landscapes, full of the kind of flora, fauna and gorgeous scenery you'd want to embrace. It is the people here, thoroughly fucked-up as they seem (which is standard in this filmmaker's work), who will give you pause.

Major family dysfunction is the rule, and while Ceylan is more than adept at spreading responsibility -- no single person, nor even an entire generation, comes off as villain here -- still, the buck must stop somewhere. And so it does. Just off-screen. The restraints that hobble anything close to a democratic society -- while inflicting helplessness and depression on that society, as it forever scrambles and strains to make ends meet by hook (or mostly crook) -- are inescapably shown.

Yet so long as Ceylan points no obvious fingers, he is allowed, thankfully for intelligent film lovers, to keep working and even to have his movies chosen as Turkey's Best Foreign Language Film submissions, as was this one. Mr. Ceylan has so far had five of his films submitted by Turkey in the BFLF category, but none have been actually nominated. TrustMovies suspects they are simply too demanding and lengthy for Academy members to appreciate fully.

The Wild Pear Tree has at its center a young man named Sinan (played by Aydin Doğu Demirkol, above) at last out of college who has written his first book -- that eponymously titled fruit tree --  and has come back to his family and home town to try to find financing for publication. How he does this involves everything from bureaucratic snivelling to family (depending upon how you perceive it) betrayal.

All this allows us to get quite an inclusive and all-angles view of his father (a fine Murat Cemcir, above), an addictive gambler; his angry yet steadfast mother (Bennu Yuldirimlar, below); and Sinan's grandparents;

as well as a look at some of his friends, a would-be lover, and a local politician, a business owner and even a successful author (Serkan Keskin, below) to whom he turns, somewhat angrily, for help.

As in his other lengthy and extremely rich movie, Winter Sleep, The Wild Pear Tree is distinguished by not only by its very strong character studies but also via some equally vital and almost shockingly lengthy conversations/philosophical discussions about writing/accommodating and religion, during which we eagerly hang on to each new turn of phrase and idea expressed. (The gorgeous, beautifully framed cinematography -- by Gökhan Tiryaki -- helps, too.)

We also find ourselves, in a tale told via occasional fantasy and dream, moving from anger and dismay to a sad and quiet understanding of the various characters and their needs and actions. The final father/son scene is as surprising and full-bodied as you could wish, ending the film on a note that is simultaneously hopeful yet might also be a mere continuation of all that has come before, now passed down to a new generation. However you choose to view it, The Wild Pear Tree takes an immediate place as one of this year's best.

A Cinema Guild release, the film opens in its U.S. theatrical premiere this Wednesday, January 30, in New York CIty at Film Forum and on February 8 in Los Angeles at Laemmle's Royal, followed by openings in another dozen cities over the weeks to come. Click here and scroll down to see all currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters.

Vahid Jalilvand's NO DATE, NO SIGNATURE: The arrival of a fine new filmmaker from Iran

New York City's venerable art house, Film Forum, reopens this coming week with a new screen and a new and most welcome Iranian film entitled NO DATE, NO SIGNATURE. As co-written (with Ali Zarnegar) and directed by sophomore filmmaker Vahid Jalilvand (shown below), the movie is very nearly as good as much of the work of Iran's more experienced filmmaker, Asghar Farhadi. Via its specific, small-scale key incident, the film slowly grows into a hugely compelling situation that encompasses an entire community and culture.

Misters Jalilvand and Zarnegar have created what you might call a "hospital procedural" in which the cause of death is paramount but just slightly unclear.

Responsibility and guilt hover over quite a number of people involved here, but the two main recipients are the husband/father Moosa (Navid Mohammadzadeh, shown below) of a family clearly having some trouble making financial ends meet, and the prominent Dr. Nariman of the local hospital (played by Amir Agha'ee, further below) who seems to be having no financial problem at all.

How these two meet and proceed thereafter is the thread that binds the movie, which is full of Iranian culture and mores, some of which are easily understood, while others may take more consideration by those of us who've not lived in a society such as this. Still, so much that we see and hear in this film is indeed "international."

How the police and judicial system proceed with their investigation, together with the way in which the medical establishment works (or doesn't quite) -- it's all here, woven into the fabric of the film with great skill and subtlety. And the death at the center of the movie is among the most surprising and quietly compelling in cinema.

Without ever raising its voice (though its characters sometimes do), the film manages to be feminist and anti-fundamentalist via the look we get into the thoughts and actions of its two major female characters: Sayeh, the doctor's lover (Hediyeh Tehrani, above), who also works as a doctor at the hospital, and Leila, Moosa's not-so-acquiescent wife (Zakieh Bebahani, shown below).

Both of these women add to the depth and strength of the film by constantly nudging their men toward (or occasionally, as in Sayeh's case, away from) greater responsibility. Class, economics, and reputation come to the fore, and are handled with just as much skill as all else in this arresting movie about ethics, morality, autopsies and chickens.

No Date, No Signature proves a fine way to reopen Film Forum, and should also greatly please fans of the immaculate and thoughtful work of Asghar Faradi. Released by Distrib Films US, running 103 minutes and in Farsi with English subtitles, the movie has its U.S. theatrical premiere this coming Wednesday, August 1, in New York City at Film Forum, and will open on August 10 in Los Angeles at Laemmle's Royal. To view all past and upcoming playdates, cities and theaters, simply click here and then click on Watch Now on the small task bar midway down the page.

Identity, change, freedom and responsibility in Atsuko Hirayanagi's oddball debut -- OH, LUCY!

When the performance of Shinobu Terajima (the blond on the poster at left) in OH, LUCY! walked away with a nomination for Best Female Lead at this year's Independent Spirit Awards, this surprised a lot of us.

Once we'd seen the movie -- which opens in New York and Los Angeles this week -- we understood. (The film, written and directed by Atsuko Hirayanagi, also garnered a Best First Feature nomination.)

This is the unusual tale of a depressed and repressed middle-aged Japanese woman who, via an odd turn of events, ends up taking a course in the English language that very quickly sends the life she's been used to into a tailspin.

Ms Hirayanagi, pictured at right, has made a very strange but completely compelling movie that pulls you in from its initial scene, in which a hushed, almost sweet, suicide occurs, as a young man whispers goodbye into our heroine's ear before jumping in front of one of those Tokyo subway trains. As we find out more and more about this woman named Setsuko, who will soon be calling herself  "Lucy," it becomes increasingly clear how problemed she is.

Her English teacher, with whom she has but a single session before her life is thoroughly upended, is played by Josh Hartnett, an actor who could upend just about anything or anyone. Hatnett took a brief respite from acting a few years back, and since then his choice of roles, as well as his performances, have only grown richer and more interesting.

As an English instructor with quite an unusual teaching style, Hartnett (shown above, center, and at bottom) soon doubles as a unlikely romantic lead, the kind of guy who just can't resist sex when it is forced upon him aggressively enough. The actor gracefully goes from teacher to heart-throb to heel without missing a beat, and there are scenes here in which he seems to have regressed to an overgrown kid, losing ten years in the process.

While Hartnett helps hold some disparate pieces and places together (the movie moves from Japan to Southern California and back), the film belongs to its star and leading lady, Ms Terajima (above and below, right), who uses that blond wig to help effect a personality change that seems at once bizarre but absolutely necessary.

We meet Lucy's sis, another angry lady (played with ferocity and confusion by Kaho Minami, above, left) and her daughter, Lucy's niece, Mika (the adorable Shioli Kutsana, below, right), who is the catalyst for those English lessons and just about everything else that follows.

Oh, Lucy! goes from dark to delightful, sweet to sad without losing its footing. The workplace in Japan is not presented as anything very good, and the fact that suicide occurs or is mentioned a number times throughout doesn't say a whole lot positive about the culture or the society. Sure, America presents a kind of alternative, but this is clearly just a stopgap before real life intrudes again and must finally be faced.

From Film Movement, in English and Japanese (with English subtitles) and running 96 minutes, the movie opens this Friday, March 2, in New York City at the new Landmark 57 West and the Village East Cinema, and in Los Angeles at the Landmark NuArt. The film's director will be making personal appearances in both New York and L.A. Check theater schedules for details.

DVDebut for the latest Dardenne brothers' moral exploration, THE UNKNOWN GIRL

Yet another moving and detailed exploration of guilt, caring and the acceptance of responsibility from film-making's most humane, dedicated and talented brother teams, Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardennes (pictured below, with Luc on the right), THE UNKNOWN GIRL (La fille inconnue) proves one of the siblings' most intensely interesting and meaningful provocations.

In it, a young doctor named Jenny Davin tells her intern not to answer the downstairs buzzer (which is rung only once) because it is long past closing time and this does not appear to be any emergency. The following day the police arrive and ask for the security videotape from outside the building. Jenny soon learns that the young woman who rang the buzzer is now dead, found earlier that day across the street with a very bad dent in her head.

Many people these days would simply shrug this event off with a "too bad for her but not my fault" response. But our good doctor does a bit more than that. It is clear from the start of this film that Jenny, played with a quiet determination that bespeaks deep reserves of caring and commitment by the fine French actress Adèle Haenel (below, and on poster, top), is not about to let this mistake of hers go uncorrected. She cannot bring the girl back from the dead nor, she suspects, even solve this crime (if indeed it was a crime; it might have been something of an accident).

Yet the idea of allowing the dead girl to remain unknown (the police have no clue as to who she was), and thus not being able to inform any family of what happened, proves so troubling to Jenny that she begins her own, very determined investigation. This takes her into quite uncharted territory, especially for a young, caring doctor more used to dealing with sick patients that with what eventually becomes some fairly dark family matters that involve the local police (below), prostitution, and perhaps sex trafficking.

In some ways the film bears comparison to the Dardennes' earlier (and weaker) movie, Lorna's Silence, but it is better in every way, thanks to the conception of Jenny's character and the strength and specificity brought to this by Ms Haenel's performance. And though the film comes close to these dark subjects mentioned above, it remains less a suspense piece or mystery than it does a surprisingly rich study of character(s) under pressure

We are also given a deeper and more profound sense of the town that Jenny and her patients inhabit via some lovely, moving scenes with people of both sexes and various ages. As we meet and become involved with these supporting characters -- above and below -- their own guilt and responsibility is (or is not) slowly uncovered, as well.

How these people respond to Jenny's pushing -- in ways both good and bad but always believable -- may remind you of the Dardennes' recent endeavor, Two Days, One Night. The Unknown Girl, I think, is an equally strong film. It deals, in its own sidelong manner, as does so much of the brothers' work, with immigration and "the other," and with justice and its untimely-if-ever delivery.

Performances are quite real, in the Dardennes' usual documentary style, in which Ms Haenel's work fits like a glove, with an unrecognizable (to TrustMovies, at least) but terrific Dardennes regular, Jérémie Renier, fine as always in the role of the fraught father (shown above, left) of one of the doctor's young patents. Especially lovely, too, is the job done by newcomer Olivier Bonnaud, below, right, who plays that young intern with family/career problems of his own

If you respond, as did I, to the importance of Jenny's search -- during an era in which so much responsibility has been shirked off, if not downright forgotten or deliberately undermined by the corporations and the wealthy who control the crap politicians throughout more and more of our world -- this single act of assuming responsibility will take on enormous importance. It should. And thanks to the Dardennes and Ms Haenel, it is brought to quivering, sad-but-still-glowing life.

From Sundance Selects/IFC Films, The Unknown Girl hits DVD this coming Tuesday, December 12, for purchase or rental. And it's now available for streaming via Netflix.