On Video -- Ned Benson's THE DISAPPEARANCE OF ELEANOR RIGBY: HER, HIM & THEM

TrustMovies may be selling this unusual compilation short, since THE DISAPPEARANCE OF ELEANOR RIGBY arrives in a single and complete package that includes all three versions: Her, Him and the one titled Them, which, I imagine, includes at least some of both the "her" and "him" stories. Because time is fleeting and I seem to have less and less or it at my disposal, I decided to view the Them version first, and then, if I liked it well enough, to move on to the two individual accounts. Not to keep you in undue suspense, Them -- which runs just over two hours -- proved tiresome enough to keep me from further viewing.

Written and directed by Ned Benson, pictured at left, who moves up from making short films to making a much-more-than-full-length one, the movie contains the kind of dialog that, despite the best attempt of a crack cast, often rings false, alternating between cliché and pomposity. Early on we're told that "Tragedy is a foreign country." Well, it ain't. Japan and Afghanistan are foreign countries (unless you happen to have been born and raised there, of course). Even taken metaphorically, the sentence can only remind of you of a much better one, "The past is a foreign country," from L.P. Hartley's The Go-Between (book and movie), which actually resonates on various levels.

Later in the film, à propos the death a very young child, the hero is told, "A shooting star lasts only a second, but aren't you glad to have seen it?" This is "poetic," all right, but it pretty much misses the entire point of the wreckage that occurs because of that death. And then there's "family": Notes mother to daughter at one point along the way, "I don't want you to take our relationship too personally."

Mr. Benson's dialog is full of this sort of nonsense, and given the excellent work of a fine cast -- including Jessica Chastain (above), James McAvoy (below), Ciarán Hinds, William Hurt (at left, two photos below), Isabelle Huppert (center left, two photos below), Viola Davis, Jess Weixler (at right, two photos below), Bill Hader and Nina Arianda (at bottom, left) -- the performances raise our enjoyment level, while keeping our minds off some of the sillier give-and-take.

Even the use of the old Beatles' Eleanor Rigby song for the movie's title and the lead character's name is good for a so-what joke about character history and little more. It's simply misjudged, like much else in this movie.

But there's another big problem, too. Everything here is finally about the death of that child. Unfortunately this seems to rule out the film's being about much of anything else, including character, history and the marriage in question. We learn so little else about these people that they remain attractive ciphers mouthing pompous proclamations. Everything is surface: employment, desires, relationships. Yes, a child's death is indeed major, but the environment that surrounds it must be brought to deep and meaningful life if we are to be made to care.

Perhaps the Him and Her sections solve this problem. I'm afraid I don't have the time to invest to find out. If you do, please watch and then advise me. Meanwhile, The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby in all its incarnations -- from Anchor Bay Entertainment and The Weinstein Company -- hits DVD, Blu-ray and On-Demand today, February 3, after an early digital download window that opened up last month. With the Blu-ray and DVD, you can see all three versions for the price of one. 

Barbara Celis' SURVIVING AMINA: a child dies, parents struggle, filmmaker records

If death is always difficult, untimely death is more so, and that of a small child worst of all. The situation at the heart of SURVIVING ANIMA is a one-year-old with leukemia cared for by her Swiss mother (who has adopted Italy as her home country) and her Italian father. With uncommon empathy and simpli-city, filmmaker Barbara Celis leads us immediately into the heart of things. She does nothing fancy; she simply shoots and shows.

Ms Celis, shown at right, came to this project without remotely knowing the extent of it. She was initially asked by her friend Anne to record the birth of her second child. A few months after that birth, the baby Amina was rushed to the hospital and emerged with a diagnosis of leukemia. Celis continued filming over a period of nearly three years, and what she records takes us into unusual territory.  We get to know Anne, her husband Tommaso, and their son Francesco and of course little Amina -- a baby everybody seems to love, and it's easy to see why. Plump and adorable, she is -- from what we gather here, at least -- almost always in a good mood.

Raising two kids is hard enough, but this situation proves taxing in ways for which no parent can be prepared. And Anne (above with Amina) and Tommaso (below with both children) aren't. They squabble, withdraw, cry, reach out, then begin the cycle all over again.  In the midst of it all, a month behind with their rent, they discover their landlord wants to evict them.

Through this Ms Celis navigates the line betwen watching and prying with surprising grace. Only once or twice, coming in close, then closer on Tommaso, are we even much aware of her camera. She also shoots the city in Italy where the husband and wife first met with such beauty that you know why this place is so important to them both.

Anne is a performer and theater director, Tommaso a sculptor (one of his pieces is shown in the foreground, above); New York would seem the perfect place for the couple and their family, but after the death, they return to Italy.  We see a family gathering at which Anne insists on showing videos of Amina; Tommaso, who says he does not need these, departs.

Title cards explain what happened to this famiy -- it's bittersweet -- and then comes a charming, surprising epilogue, in which an old relative, also called Amina (below), explains the meaning of the name. If nothing else (and there's a lot "else"), Celis' documentary should stand as the record of a situation that no family ought to have to endure -- and of the little girl who proves one of the most memorable babies this viewer has encountered.

Suviving Amina (65 minutes long), which has now been shown in two documentary festivals -- Semana Internacional de Cine de Valladolid, Spain, and Visions du Reel Film Festival, Nyon, Switzerland -- as well as on Swiss TV, is having its New York debut this comng Tuesday evening, April 5, at Anthology Film Archives as part of the New Filmmakers Series. Tickets go on sale at 5:30 pm that day. See you there?