Gay, under-age and semi-closeted in Brazil: Alexandre Moratto's moving debut, SOCRATES

In the very first scene of SOCRATES, the fine, full-length debut from Brazilian-American filmmaker, Alexandre Moratto, our hero, the eponymously named Socrates, is suddenly orphaned. Or so we think. Once we meet his abusive -- physically and religious-wise -- father, later in the film, we realize that orphaned would have been better by far. Moratto (shown below) plunges us immediately and thoroughly into the fraught world of this young man, and though it isn't pleasant, movie-wise at least, it sure is interesting, as well as believable.

As the fifteen-year-old he is, finding work simply to eat and pay rent on the apartment in which he and his mom lived proves a near-constant task, but it is one that Socrates seems more than up to. If only the society around him would help a little. He's a smart, game kid who tries just about everything, quickly pulling us over to his side and keeping us there, despite his occasionally being too hot-headed for his own good.

Moratto never has his movie, nor his hero, beg for sympathy. He doesn't need to, for this is built into the situation and the character. And while the society around Socrates might want to help, times are bad enough already, not to mention the law about hiring minors for work.

Our hero (beautifully played  by Christian Malheiros, above, right, and below) turns to friends, relatives -- close and more distant -- possible employers, a little would-be whoring, and a sudden love-and-sex interest (Tales Ordakji, above, left) first seen in the workplace as an antagonist, who soon becomes a helpmeet. Of a sort, at least.

Along the way, we get good glimpses of the Brazilian workplace, of the country's less-than-impressive housing, and its beachfront playtime, as Socrates keeps trying and trying. Moratto, however, makes certain that his filmmaking is never trying. At only 71 minutes, Socrates moves continuously along at a quick, smart clip.

By the time we and our hero end up at a new seashore with a special task ahead, we've been treated to an impressive little movie that offers as kind and honest a look as possible, TrustMovies believes, at what under-age gay youth must contend with in an increasingly precarious world.

From Breaking Glass Pictures, Socrates opens this Friday, April 9, in Los Angeles at Laemmle's Music Hall 3, and the following Friday, August 16, in New York City at the Cinema Village -- after which it will arrive on DVD via and on VOD two weeks from today, Tuesday, August 20.

Lila Avilés' pitch-perfect THE CHAMBERMAID gives Oscar-winner Roma a run for its money

It's not simply that both films are from Mexico, nor that their leading ladies seem to have an awfully lot in common, nor that Alfonso Cuarón's Roma and Lila Avilés' THE CHAMBERMAID tackle class, race, and the dominant culture so very well. It's all this and more. Specifically, both movies offer up the plight of maids/caretakers in Mexico. Though Roma's works for a somewhat wealthy bourgeois family several decades in the past, while Ms Avilés' labors in a present-day, high-class hotel, not a whole lot appears to have changed for the country's indigenous underclass. Even more astonishing, The Chambermaid proves Roma's artistic equal in many ways.

Granted, we don't have that gorgeous black-and-white cinematography to salivate over, but the excellent color work by Carlos Rossini brings a crisp documentary-like sheen to all we see -- from the mammoth laundry room and maintenance quarters to the exquisitely designed hotel rooms that would seem to have genuinely earned this establishment its five stars.

Even more surprising is the fact that Ms Avilés, shown at right, who both directed and co-wrote (with Juan Carlos Marquéz) has kept us viewers in a single location through her entire film. Yet so full of fascinating life and detail are the (very long) days our heroine must put in at her place of employment that each scene we observe holds us enthralled.

When, at last, in the film's final shot, we see the street outside, TrustMovies was suddenly jolted into the awareness that he'd been kept inside the hotel for the entire duration. And he had not minded at all. This is thanks in equal measure to Avilés, her crack technical staff, and especially her exceptional leading lady, the wonderful Gabriela Cartol, shown above and below. Ms Cartol may initially appear, as her character Evelia, rather mousy and unprepossessing, but by the finale, I suspect you will find her, as did I, beautiful, intelligent, enterprising, sexy and as full of life as you could ever want any woman to be.

Along the way, we discover many different aspects of Evelia's existence -- how she works (and what a very good worker she is), her life outside the hotel (even though we only hear and/or hear about this), her co-workers, and even to an extent (in a very surprising scene) her "love" life. We get a feeling for how things "work" at this hotel -- politically and otherwise -- even we meet a few of the hotel's guests. And, yes, they're just as wealthy and entitled as you might imagine. But they're also not -- some of them, at least -- total creeps.

There's a GED class on premises, too, as well as a possible promotion in store for our girl, and maybe even a lovely red dress she has found and placed "dibs" on, should it not be claimed by the guest who left it. There's a child (the infant of a guest) for whom she is suddenly caring during her busy day, along with her own child, whom it is clear she seldom sees. And there's a funny, slightly strange co-worker (played with great verve and humor by Teresa Sánchez, above and below, right) who bonds with Evelia, even as she uses her.

By the finale, you'll be as firmly in the shoes and soul of Evelia as would seem possible in the space of just 102 minutes in this graceful, lean-yet-packed look at the Mexican workplace that offers up class, economics and culture without ever jamming its ideas down our throats or creating typical hiss-worthy villains. Oh, everything's there, all right, but the great strength of the movie is how Evelia can, by virtue of character, rise above it.
Well, almost.

From Kino Lorber, in Spanish with English subtitles, The Chambermaid has its U.S. theatrical premiere this coming Wednesday, June 26, in New York City at Film Forum. The following Friday, July 5, it opens in San Francisco (at the Roxie) and Los Angeles (at Laemmle's Royal) before venturing out to a few more cities. Click here to view all currently scheduled playdates and theaters.

Solitude in company: Thomas Stuber's original, bittersweet and beautiful IN THE AISLES

It may not be the first film to adapt a Strauss waltz to an unusual visual, but for the most part IN THE AISLES, the new film from Thomas Stuber (he directed and co-wrote it with Clemens Meyer), is an original work of humanist art.

Beginning with its locale -- a kind of German version of Costco during, mostly, the graveyard shift -- the movie introduces a set of characters who slowly grow on you until you come to love them and want to care for them as though they were your very own.

Mr. Stuber, shown at right, takes his sweet time with all of this, so if you demand action and car chases, do please move along. Yet as quiet as all this is, it is also never for a moment boring.

This is due to a screenplay that doles out its information haltingly and pretty much in the manner that these characters themselves would offer it. They don't like to intrude -- on each other or even, it seems, on themselves.

The actors chosen for these roles are very good indeed, and even if you've seen them previously, the characters they play here will seem ideally matched with the performers.

The young man who acts as a kind of guide for us -- because, as the film begins, he is being trained for his first day on the job -- is Christian, played by Franz Rogowski (above, of Transit and Happy End). The object, soon, of Franz's affection is a pert and pretty co-worker named Marion (Sandra Hüller, below, of Toni Erdmann) .

Our "newbie" (Marion's pet name for Christian) is under the tutelage of long-time employee Bruno, whose initial gruff manner belies a sad heart of gold. As played by Peter Kurth, below, left -- the lead villain (one of them, anyway) from Babylon Berlin -- Bruno is a wonderful character, rich, deep and quiet, and one who grows and grows on us, until....

All of the night shift employees, no matter how small the role, are brought to fine and specific life here. Eventually this small group and its place of work becomes a world in itself, one that we are only too happy to abide in for the 125 minutes we're allowed to. In the Aisles proves a small, alternately bright and dark, wonder.

From Music Box Films, in German with English subtitles, the movie opens this Friday, June 14, in New York City at the Village East Cinema, and in Los Angeles on Friday, June 21, at Laemmle's Royal and on June 21 and over the weeks to come expanding to another 15 cities and theaters, including the Bill Cosford Cinema here in the Miami area on July 5. Click here, then scroll down to click on Theatrical Engagements to view all currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters.

A great film arrives: João Dumans and Affonso Uchôa's quietly magnificent ARABY

"Stick with it, please." I've said this before, but I don't think it has ever been more necessary or appropriate than with ARABY, the new movie from the writing/directing duo of João Dumans and Affonso Uchôa: If you stay with this quiet little film -- despite its leisurely pacing, refusal to overly dramatize, and a protagonist who suddenly shifts from the expected one to an entirely different person -- by the time you reach the conclusion of this 98-minute movie, you will have experienced labor, the workplace, love, life, death and maybe as close to the whole of humanity as any single movie is able to provide.

Filmmakers Dumans (above, right) and  Uchôa (above, left) build their small monument to the life of 90 per cent from this statement uttered by their protagonist early on: "In the end, all we have is what we remember." From this, they have crafted a tale that concentrates on but one man (Aristides de Sousa, shown below) yet takes in much of our world, building via an aggregate of detail to a conclusion that, though in no way surprising, still suddenly seems to expand into enormous compassion and understanding.

How in hell did the filmmakers manage this feat? As best TrustMovies can tell, it comes via a kind of visual and verbal poetry that, like all else here, goes nearly unnoticed -- until it suddenly begins resonating like crazy. (I may simply be slow; all this might resonate a lot earlier with you.) Maybe it has to do with that trickly transfer of feeling for a single human being into an understanding of humanity itself.

This is a Brazilian film, after all. I've long thought that Brazil seems to treat its people about as cavalierly, if not in downright uncaring fashion, as any supposedly "democratic" South American country. We see this in a government that spends oodles to host the Olympic Games only to put its populace in ever more dire straits. And via films from Elite Squad and its follow-up (that bang you atop the head with violence against the people) to the quieter, probing films of Kleber Mendonça, the great preponderance of humanity is alway given the shaft.

In Araby, this is true all over again, and yet via its protagonist and the people he meets along his journey of laboring-just-to-survive, we enter the world of the masses in a manner subtly different from other films. Here, it's via a kind of memoir our hero has composed (when we at last learn why and where he began this memoir, it becomes ever more meaningful and humane) that tells his story as best he is able.

The lovely, heartbreaking irony here comes from the fact that our hero, Cristiano, feels that he cannot communicate or express himself very well. Yet the filmmakers provide him voice and view so that he is able to give us everything we need to understand the love he feels, the loneliness he experiences and his constant need to not simply survive but to communicate.

I would think that there must be millions of workers in China and India -- hell, even some Trump acolytes here in the USA -- who could identify with and understand this movie.  There are no "labels" attached to any view here, and yet Dumans and Uchôa offer up enormous political commentary. By the time the film has come full circle, its impact has burgeoned into such collective power and momentum that, days after I've viewed it, I am still reliving and thinking about this movie.

From Grasshopper Film, in Portuguese with English subtitles, Araby opens this Friday in New York City at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, and then will hit another four cities on either coast, with -- one hopes -- even more cities to follow over the weeks to come. Click here and then scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on Where to Watch to view all currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters. 

Women power at OPENS ROADS 2018: Marco Tullio Giordana's NOME DI DONNA and Francesco Patierno's DIVA!

Two of the eight films I've been able to view for this year's OPEN ROADS are decidedly feminist -- but in quite differing ways. One is a documentary about the famous Italian actress (still alive but not longer making movies), Valentina Cortese, the other a fictionalized account of the journey one single mother must make in bringing to justice the powerful workplace boss who has propositioned her and then made her work life miserable after she rejects his "proposal." Both are worth seeing, though the documentary is the stronger and more interesting work.

DIVA! is the over-used but still appropriate title for the film that gives us a very oddball yet fascinating and surprisingly intelligent and even sometimes moving account of the life and career of Ms Cortese, who began her film work in Italy, moved on to Britain and finally America, before returning to her homeland and Europe to continue performing in movies and legitimate theater.

The filmmaker is Francesco Patierno (shown below), who last year made a much-heralded documentary titled Naples '44, narrated by Benedict Cumberbatch, and back in 2003 the well-received narrative film, Pater familias.

For whatever reason(s), though Cortese is still alive, only archival footage of her and from her movies is used here. When the Cortese character is "shown" us, she is portrayed by eight different actresses, each standing in for a specific time frame. You might think this would be confusing or simply too strange to work very well, and yet it really does. The actresses include some of Italy's best, and the words they speak -- which appear to come from Cortese's oww diaries, letters and reminiscences -- resonate and sparkle with acute intelligence and feeling. Cortese certainly had a way with words (really: what a command of language she has!) and hearing her words spoken so well, with such understanding and emotion, makes the documentary continuously alive and riveting.

The actresses include the likes of Isabella Ferrari (above), Anita Caprioli and Barbora Bobulova (below), each one quite different and yet seemingly a fine stand-in for the actress herself, as the bio-pic documentary skips back and forth in time, resonating more on an emotional plane than via any strict time line.

Intercut with these actresses speaking the words of Cortese are numerous clips of the star's film work, as well as archival photos of her younger days. (That's she in her heyday, below, and as an older actress, further below, and at bottom in one of her earliest films.)

We meet Cortese's various lovers, co-stars, directors and producers -- among them Dassin, Truffaut, Zeffirelli, Losey, Gilliam, Zanuck, Richard Basehart and many more -- as they get screen time (or at least verbal remembrances), in which Mr. Zanuck comes out worst of all. As the film rolls along, even as crazily back-and-forth in time as it goes, there's a character, a personality and a strength here that is genuinely surprising.

I have never seen another bio-pic-doc anything like this one, and I doubt I would recommend that other filmmakers try it this way. But Patierno has certainly achieved something unusual and memorable. When I think of Ms Cortese from now on, in addition to her many fine performances, this documentary is sure to come immediately to mind.

Diva! plays at Open Roads this coming Wednesday. June 6, at 8:30pm. Click here for further information and/or tickets.

Marco Tullio Giordana (shown below) has long been one of my favorite Italian filmmakers. His The Best of Youth still stands as an amazing movie achievement. He has been represented at Open Roads before, and his latest film, NOME DI DONNA could hardly seem more timely, dealing as it does with sexual harrasment of a woman by her powerful and wealthy employer. What's more, it is beautifully photographed and acted, and features a lovely supporting turn by Adrianna Asti (at left, two photos below), as one of the residents in home for the elderly into which our heroine, at the film's beginning, is hired to work.

That character, Nina, is single mom with a young daughter and a genuinely caring and thoughtful boyfriend (who in not that daughter's dad) in tow. Nina is played by Cristiana Capotondi (shown below, right and further below), an actress whom I've enjoyed since first encountering her in the wonderful Italian film, Kryptonite! (click and scroll down). She is very good in this role, as well.

As directed and co-written (with Cristiana Mainardi) by Signore Giordana, Nome di donna proceeds quickly and smartly along its designated path, with never any doubt about the kindness, strength and overall quality of heroine, which Ms Capotondi brings to fine life.

Nor is there any doubt about the incident of sexual abuse that sparks the action of all that happens for the rest of the movie. It is also more than clear that the abuser has practiced this on more women in his employ than merely Nina.

The movie is particularly good at showing us the ins and outs of the Italian justice system, workers' unions, and how the workers at this home for the wealthy elderly, when their employment is threatened by the one woman who stands up for herself, will band together against this woman and allow the sexual abuse to continue. It also shows us, via Nina's daughter and what she "learns" at school, how immigrants are so easily demonized in Italy (as they are elsewhere throughout Europe) these days.

So how to fight all this? While Giordana, his cast and crew deliver the goods, all right, and his film is consistently interesting as it moves along its charted course, everything begins to look a little too easy -- almost pre-ordained. "I don't want to brag, but I've won every case," her lawyer (Michela Cescon, below) tells Nina. One wonders, what with the Italian courts so noted historically for their rather lax understanding of justice where the powerful are concerned, how all this can work itself out so easily. Well, maybe Italian courts are changing these days? God knows, American courts certainly are -- for the worse.

In any case, once the movie reaches its conclusion, you can feel free to bask in good feelings. Whether or not you'll be able to believe it all is another matter. I wonder if even Giordana actually believes it. The film's final nasty joke involving a newscaster, together with the ironic song played on the soundtrack, indicates that, for all the feel-good going on here, there remains an awfully long way to go toward gender equality.

Worth seeing, Nome di donna screens at Open Roads today, Saturday, June 2, at 3:30pm (with a Q&A with the director following the screening) and again Tuesday, June 5, at 4:30pm. To see the entire Open Roads schedule, click the link preceding. And to see TrustMovies' earlier posts on this year's series, click here, here and here.

Film Forum debut for famous Fassbinder TV series: EIGHT HOURS DON'T MAKE A DAY

When TrustMovies was young and Rainer Werner Fassbinder was alive and his internationally acclaimed work was in full bloom, that work seemed to me bracing mostly because of its "newness," strangeness and transgressive qualities.

One of the tests of time regarding how well art that initially shocks actually holds up decades later involves how meaningful it remains. In this regard, most of Fassbinder's oeuvre -- for me, at least -- has certainly stood that test.

As I've grown up, slowly and haltingly to be sure, Fassbinder's films seem to have opened up to include so much more than I initially could appreciate or understand.

That funny, chubby little artist, pictured at right, who possessed such an understanding and rather dark appreciation of women, men, sexuality, the workplace and the post-war Capitalist system that was slowly strangling his own country of Germany, as well as the rest of the western world, was able to transfer his knowledge into cinema (and television) at a rate that can only be called astonishing. Fassbinder completed in all some 48 films (as writer) and 44 (as director) in only 17 years, prior to his untimely death in 1982 at the age of 37.

Though his theatrical movies made the most noise overseas, it now turns out that his best work -- Berlin Alexanderplatz and the just-now receiving-its-U.S.-theatrical-debut EIGHT HOURS DON'T MAKE A DAY (Acht Stunden sind kein Tag), to use two stunning examples -- were made for German television.

The latter of those television series, first shown on German TV in the fall of 1972, is made up of five parts and runs 478 minutes (just a shade under eight full hours). At this point I've only had time to watch the first section, a 102-minute piece entitled Jochen and Marion that details the evolving love story/work story between the two title characters, a smart fellow who labors in a tool manufacturing plant, and his new girlfriend who takes classified ads for a local newspaper.

This striking pair is played by actors from Fassbinder's "repertory": an impressive man of near-Neanderthal beauty, the late Gottfried John (above, and below, underneath), and that still-stunning actress, Hanna Schygulla (below, on top), who made her mark in the title role of The Marriage of Maria Braun.

The two performers are magic, alone or together, and their story is the focal point around which revolve so many of Fassbinder's major interests -- from politics and economics to industrial design, love, lesbianism, child abuse, workers vs the Capitalist system, bathroom usage and necessity as the mother of invention. (And that's only a very incomplete list.)

This first part ends with a funeral (in the rain, of course: Fassbinder does love cliche and melodrama, but he manages to use most of this in ways both appropriate and slightly twisted) followed by a lovely, charming, deeply humane scene in the bedroom between our two lovers.

The workplace gets every bit as much attention as do the leading characters and their family life, and the scenes on the job are full of life, anger, surprise and lots more -- including a power play by management and some blackmail from the workers, along with some very interesting takes on the relationship between men and women. To call this director prescient does not begin to do him full justice.

How Fassbinder orchestrates all this is quite wonderful. Because he was working in television, his movie never "shocks" (even a near-full-frontal workplace shower scene is modulated just enough to pass the censors) yet he is able to give us a look at this surprisingly large-yet-distinct canvas in ways that are both specific (Jochen's family is made up of quite an eccentric bunch) yet pretty universal, too.

In the supporting cast are a number of Fassbinder vets -- from Irm Hermann (above, left) to Kurt Raab -- which should only increase your appetite to view the entire project. Released by Janus Films, Eight Hours Don't Make a Day will have a 2-week engagement, March 14 – 27, at New York's Film Forum and will be screened in three parts. Part 1 (202 minutes) and Part 2 (184 minutes) are separate admission. Part 3 (90 minutes) is free of charge for the viewers of the other two parts. The full screening schedule can be viewed here. Bookings elsewhere around the country? Nothing appears on the Janus website yet, but I can't believe there won't be more cities in which this series can soon be seen. In any case, a Blu-ray and DVD will surely be in the offing from Criterion at some future point.