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.

Feminism vs tradition and the patriarchy in Mariam Khatchvani's Georgia-set drama, DEDE

Primitive, filmed in a beautiful location, and said to be based on a real-life situation taking place in 1988, as the Georgian Civil War began, DEDE, the 2017 film directed and co-written by Mariam Khatchvani, takes a number of unexpected turns, even as it purloins themes from Romeo & Juliet, the Sabine Women, and maybe every backwoods-set, honor-above-all-else, Eastern European/Eurasian movie ever made.

The film also proves an oddball mix of the modern (that stylish red dress our heroine tries so hard to get her hubby to compliment) along with the strictured and provincial (traditions that are awfully difficult to understand, let alone countenance: an engagement -- no, not ring but bullet. How sweet!).

The theme of budding feminism going up against traditional patriarchy, Georgian-style, is given quite a workout here. Ms Khatchvani, pictured at right, is deliberately, I suspect, filming in the same primitive style of the setting of her movie, as exposition couples with somewhat stilted performances and dialog, so that we always get the sense that, despite the relatively modern year, we're still in some kind of far-off, nearly ancient locale. What keeps us going during this somewhat languorous film are two things.

First, the interesting performers: George Babluani, shown above, as our heroine's first great love, a sexy, slow-burn guy who's great at staring; Natia Vibliani as Dina (below, with child), the put-upon girl at the center of all the male wrangling; and literally all the supporting performers who seem equally adept and real.

Secondly, the visuals here, thanks to the gorgeous locations, can often be breathtaking: There's one scene in which villagers carry lanterns/torches in the night on one side of the screen, even as the salmon-colored sunset hits the peaks of the mountains on the other. One question, however: Is Dede, the movie's title, somehow short for the name Dina, our main character? If not, what is its connectuon to this film?

From Corinth Films, in the Georgian language and running 97 minutes, Dede hits home video on DVD and digital streaming (via Amazon and iTunes) this coming Tuesday, June 30 -- for purchase and/or rental.

Art/criticism/truth/crime combine in Giuseppe Capotondi's THE BURNT ORANGE HERESY

You may recall the name Giuseppe Capotondi from the crackerjack mystery, The Double Hour, released in the USA back in 2011. Signore Capotondi is back this year with another (sort-of) mystery entitled THE BURNT ORANGE HERESY, which, though not as extraordinary as his earlier film, still provides a lot of surprise, sophistication and fun -- especially if you enjoy movies about art, including a critique of the approaching-nonsensical criticism often written about it.

The filmmaker, shown at left, could not have cast his new film any better, had he a billion-dollar budget to waste. His quartet of performers does an extraordinary job creating full-bodied characters that alternately amuse, surprise, move and entertain us within the brief time  -- just 98 minutes -- that the movie lasts.

That cast includes the increasingly impressive Claes Bang (shown at left, below, and further below, of the recent Dracula series, as well as another very good film about art, The Square), who plays James Figueras, a relatively famous art critic whom we first meet rehearsing for and soon after giving one of his popular talks about the subject.

Into his audience, made up it appears of mostly and probably wealthy seniors, comes a very pretty young woman, Berenice (Elizabeth Debicki, at right, above and below) who remains after the "show" to spar a bit with the speaker and then ends up in bed with him.

Soon after, the two are on their way to Lake Como to meet with a famous and wealthy art collector named Cassidy, who has set up for the art critic a rare-to-impossible interview with a famous and reclusive artist named Jerome Debney.

Now, the rich collector is played by none other than Mick Jagger (above), and what a delight it is to see him acting on screen once again. You will think, 'Why doesn't he do this more often?!' and follow that with, "Well, of course: He doesn't have to; he's Mick Jagger.'  But, damn, he is good.

As the famous artist, we have no less than Donald Sutherland, giving another of his lately low-key and close to perfect performances, so you see what I mean about this great cast. As for the film's plot, it is one of those What's really going on here -- and why? explorations. Which is just fine until, toward the end, the movie takes quite a turn for the nasty.

This is jarring, to say the least, but it is not, TrustMovies thinks, the deal-breaker you might suspect because everything that happens has, in one sense, been prepared via the themes already opened and explored: art, avarice, power and, yes, the patriarchy.

Mr. Bang does a bang-up job in all respects, whether boning up his audience on art or simply boning his lady friend. He's sexy, charming and edgy -- continuing to take his place as perhaps the most prominent homme fatal of our time. Ms Debicki, lovely as always, is here even more vulnerable than she often is.

The excellent screenplay and dialog by Scott B. Smith (from the novel by Charles Willeford) is smart, subtle and sophisticated. By the finale of this artful little movie, you may find yourself with a lot of very mixed feelings. But you'll have been entertained and maybe knocked for a loop or two.

From Sony Pictures Classics, The Burnt Orange Heresy -- regarding that title, which doubles as the name of one of the artist's works, it is, notes the painter himself, "a bone tossed to the critics. They can wear themselves out chewing on it" -- opened last week in a few cities and will hit many more in the weeks to come. Here in South Florida, it will arrive on Friday, March 20, in Miami at the Coral Gables Art Cinema, and in Palm  Beach county at the Cinemark Boytnon Beach and Cinemark Palace, the  Regal Shadowood, the Living Room Theaters and the Movies of Delray. Wherever you live, click here to learn if the film is (or will be) playing at a theater or two near you.

In EGG, Marianna Palka/Risa Mickenberg delve into motherhood, womanhood, career and men

Marianna Palka is at it again. After gracing us with the fine, thoughtful and very sexual rom-com, Good Dick, back in 2008, she went on to give us the little-seen but one of 2017's best films, Bitch. Palka wrote and directed those two groundbreakers. With her latest, EGG, she has directed a screenplay by Risa Mickenberg (her first) that seems a very good fit for Ms Palka's interests and skills.

Bitch is streaming now via Netflix. If you haven't seen it, do. It's a difficult movie that goes places I don't think any other film quite has. It turns itself -- and will likely turn you -- inside out, moving from the most intense and difficult anger into, well, you'll see. Ms Palka consistently challenges us, and her gauntlet is worth running.

In her new film, she and Ms Mickenberg explore what "motherhood" means to three very different women (and of course to us, her audience) along with some ideas about feminism, career, male entitlement and, yes, much of the rest of the usual baggage. Yet in the hands of the these two filmmakers (Ms Palka is shown at left), nothing is quite as simple nor as obvious as it may first appear.

There are three women involved in the "motherhood" here, two of which are played by Alysia Reiner, below, left, and Christina Hendricks, right, who were "best friends" in art school a decade or more ago but have not kept up with each other much since.

Reiner, a relatively successful conceptual artist, is having a go at motherhood via a surrogate, while Hendricks, who gave up art but married "well," is very much pregnant and seemingly quite proud of it. Initially these two, along with their husbands, seem like the kind of hypocritical cliche-spouters who you're going to love to hate. But wait. As usual with Palka, things proves not quite so easy.

The movie is divided into sections: first Reiner's, then Reiner's and Hendricks', and finally one devoted to these two plus the beautiful blond surrogate, delightfully played by Anna Camp, above. Everyone's views -- both their pretense and their actual wants and needs -- are aired and given their due, and you will eventually find yourself having to deal with these characters as complex and very problematic people deserving of more than any easy dismissal.

The women, at least. The two men -- nicely played to reveal depths of needy narcissism and male entitlement, by Gbenga Akinnagbe (as Reiner's hubby, shown above, left) and David Alan Basche, as Hendricks', shown above, second from right) -- are mostly poster boys for, yes, narcissism and male entitlement. But both actors make the most of their duplicitous naughtiness, so that they remain fun to smirk at and enjoy.

The movie rightly belongs to Reiner, Hendricks and Camp, and all three come through quite beautifully, though in the last analysis, the film belong to Ms Reiner. A striking presence (as she was as well in Orange Is the New Black and Equity), here, she is given the chance to open up, reveal more layers of feeling, and actually touch us.

Hendricks, in the slightly smaller role, does the same and with lovely subtlety and ease, while Ms Camp, playing a lady with less on the ball, proves able to hold her own shakier ground quite well. There's a nice sense of theatricality here -- the movie is mostly shot on a single set, so the dialog counts for more than usual -- and there is also a kind of genuine modesty at work.

Egg knows what it's about and what it needs to accomplish, and it manages all this with -- along with some anger -- surprising empathy and grace. From Gravitas Ventures and running just 84 minutes, the film opens theatrically this Friday, January 18, in Los Angeles at the AMC Universal Cinema at Citywalk Hollywood, and in New York City at the Roxy Cinema Tribeca. Simultaneously, Egg will be available nationwide via VOD.

THE MISANDRISTS proves a step backward (or, rather, a return to form) for Bruce LaBruce

With Gerontophilia (back in 2013), GLBT director Bruce LaBruce (shown below) proved at last that he could make a movie and tell a story that resonated politically, philosophically, culturally, socially, and emotionally while holding it all together. Up until then, while he'd done each of those things at some point along the way via various films, he usually did this rather clunkily so that plot and politics, humor and emotion (very little of the latter, as I recall) stood apart from each other, never really melding fluently into the whole. Characters would often spout some philosophy before going back "into" character to further the plot.

This was often done humorously (at least I suspect that was B laB's reasoning) but it grew tiresome quickly. With his latest film (made in Germany), THE MISANDRISTS, he's back into this stand-apart format during which the audience is treated to political/gender philosophizing that, despite its being so important to the tale the filmmaker is telling, is still handled clunkily enough to keep getting in the way of his story and its very real and could-have-been-major entertainment value.

I had to look up the word misandrist, and the very idea that I had to do this intrigued me. We're much more familiar with the words misogynist (one who dislikes women) and misanthrope (one who dislikes the human race in general), yet we almost never see or hear misandrist written or spoken -- so unusual is its use in our society, culture and media for us to even be aware of the possibility of singling out the male as the dislikeable object. Mr. LaBruce, no doubt, is more than aware of this. Consequently the patriarchy takes quite a deserved drubbing in his film.

The tale the filmmaker tells takes place in 1999 (for whatever reason -- pre 9-11-2001? -- I'm not sure) in the German countryside in a supposed school for wayward girls, supposedly run by a group of nuns. In reality (or what passes for same in a B laB film), this school's actually a training ground for the Female Liberation Army, which is planning to take over the state, if not the world, by virtue of a secret scheme which we eventually learn at film's finale, and which seems about as goofy and and nonsensical as all else we've seen.

One day, as two of the girls from this school frolic sexually in a field nearby the woods, they encounter a young man -- an out-of-favor leftist -- injured and on-the-run from the authorities. One of the girls decides to rescue him, hiding him in the basement of the school. A few complications ensue. And that's pretty much the entire plot.

Along the way we're treated to the usual philosophizing (sort of), satire (sort of), humor (sort of) and very camp sensibility, the special combination of which is the hallmark of B laB. There are oddball moments of fun (a sudden Charleston done by one of the nuns), lots of sex (mostly lesbian but a little homo, via some gay pornography the girls are made to watch as one of the plot points here), and the filmmaker's penchant for overkill (a pillow fight among the girls that goes on ad infinitum).

LaBruce's goal, it seems, is to convince the world that boundaries -- sexual, gender, political, philosophical -- are all somehow nonsensical. While I can understand and somewhat identify with this idea, he is neither a witty enough writer nor a good enough filmmaker to make his case with any great success. Maybe B sees his role as mostly that of prankster, in which case, he succeeds. Somewhat, at least. Why introduce a "mystery" character peering out of the school's attic window early on and seen periodically along the way, and then never explain her existence in your film -- unless pranking -- and/or upending expectations -- is your main concern?

Performances by the oddball assemble cast are OK overall (they get the job done), but the actor who best exemplifies the B laB style is his semi-regular, Susanne Sachße (shown below), who plays the school's "commandant" with the proper style, subtlety and wit.

If you're already a major fan of B laB's work (outside of Gerontophilia, which is probably way too "mainstream" for his heavy-duty fans), you will probably embrace The Misandrists with much more zest and enjoyment than could I.

You'll get your chance when the movie -- from Cartilage Films and running 91 minutes -- opens this Friday, May 25, in New York City at the Village East Cinema, and the following Friday, June 1, in Los Angeles at the Landmark NuArt. 

Iran confidential! Ali Soozandeh's animated TEHRAN TABOO serves up his birth country's hypocrisy on a rotoscope platter

Whew -- better prepare yourself for things you will not have seen in any Asghar Farhadi film.

The new TEHRAN TABOO, combining gorgeously colored rotoscope animation with the sleaziest of subject matter, begins with a woman giving a cab driver a blow-job while her young son chews gum in the back seat. When the cab driver, mid-b/j, suddenly sees his daughter holding hands with her boyfriend as the young couple walks down the street, he throws a fit. And mom stops sucking just long enough to tell him what a hypocritical asshole he is. Yes, this certainly leaves Disney in the dust -- along with even Ralph Bakshi.

From oral-sex-while-driving, we proceed to the likes of a black-market operation to restore a woman's virginity, a judge of the Islamic Revolutionary Court who sets up that prostitute and her son in a very nice apartment, a loan officer in a bank who makes shady deals, a kind of Dubai sex trade offering Iranian virgins, abortions, whoring and lots more (or less, depending on your viewpoint).

The director and writer here, making his U.S. theatrical debut with this film, is Ali Soozandeh, shown at right, and -- if he lives through the death threats sure to arise in Arab countries because of the content of his film -- I would think that we'll be hearing from him again very soon.

It will come as little surprise that Mr. Soozandeh has been living in exile in Germany since he was 25 (he turns 48 this year), and though it has taken him awhile to give us this unusual film, TrustMovies would say it has been worth the wait. Although it may seen initially that the filmmaker is "piling it on a bit thick," it soon becomes clear that it is the stupid, nasty and beyond-the-pale hypocrisy of the Islamic state and its irredeemable patriarchy, especially where matters sexual are concerned, that Soozandeh has pilloried so very well.

All these events going on are connected through the handful of characters we meet and grow to understand if not love -- from the mute son of that prostitute (above, center) and the rather sweet young man (below, left) who (on ectasy) has taken the virginity of a girl he's only just met...

...to that bank officer and his wife, mother and diabetic dad, all of whom begin acting as baby-sitters to the young boy (his mom has told them she works night at a local hospital) and even the sleazy judge himself (below, left), who handle divorces in his own inimitable manner.

As complicated, awful and perverse as life gets for these people, instead of blaming the individual, you will probably come to feel the strongest revulsion for the social/cultural/political set-up that has spawned the lives they lead.

As connections are made and the plot keeps unfurling into greater and more terrible circumstances,  most of what we've come to think we know and believe about these people is called into question. And if the black cat and its litter of kitten may initially strike you are a little too sentimental, wait a bit. Everything comes homes to roost here.

Watching this film and then thinking back to the more veiled and subtle work of that fine filmmaker Farhadi, you can better understand why so much of what he gives us must be tamped down to pass the censors. For something more "unvarnished," take a look at Tehran Taboo and be grateful that, for now at least (until the election cycle, perhaps), we here in the USA must only put up with those idiotic and venal Republicans and their unstable moron of a leader, Donald Trump.

From Kino Lorber, in Persian with English subtitles, and running 96 minutes, this unusual piece of animation has its U.S. theatrical premiere this coming Wednesday, February 14 (yes, it's a Valentine's Day delight), at New York City 's Film Forum before hitting another dozen or more cities around the country. To see all currently scheduled playdates and venues, click here and then scroll down.