A second DISCLOSURE -- this one Australian from Michael Bentham -- hits home video

To immediately differentiate, the DISCLOSURE under review here is an Australian narrative movie about possible child abuse (by another child), rather than the recently debuted Netflix documentary about the transgendered.

Beyond that, how interesting it is -- one day after another -- to view a movie whose theme is the problematic malleability of something so encompassing as the "truth" of a situation.

The last film reviewed here was indeed The Truth, and now today we have another in which that truth of a particular situation is hugely complicated by everything and everyone that surrounds it.

While Kore-Eda Hirokasu's movie questions how important the truth actually is to the well-being of the family at its center, Disclosure -- written and directed by Michael Bentham (pictured at right) -- does precisely the opposite.

The actuality of learning what happened between the children involved in the abuse is vital, yet the concerns of the two sets of parents slowly come to control the narrative and run roughshod over everything -- including that difficult-but-necessary-to-determine "truth."

Disclosure is Mr. Bentham's first full-length narrative film, and as such it's a worthwhile endeavor. Beginning with a scene of one set of parents filming their own fucking session, Bentham's camera moves to a gliding, slo-mo look at what seems like an idyllic, lily-white, upper-class community, coming to rest on and into one particular house in which mom chats on the phone as a child's screaming is suddenly heard behind a closed door. Mom opens the door and angrily orders those inside to take their problems outside.
End of that situation.

Except it's not. The mother, Bek (Geraldine Hakewill, above) clearly ought to have been paying more attention. We do -- but then we know a bit more about what to expect here -- and that child's scream does resonate. The remainder of the movie takes place on a warm, sunny afternoon around the pool and large, verdant grounds and/or in the home of the parents of the little girl who appears to have been the victim of the abuse. Here, Bek and her husband Joel, a local (and by the looks of things highly successful) politician, played by Tom Wren, below, show up unannounced, determined to make this whole untidy affair go away. Bek and Joel's two sons, you see, were somehow involved in the abuse allegations, while Bek herself was a victim of abuse as a teenager.

This set-up is riveting enough, and the more we learn about these two couples -- the little girl's parents, Emily and Danny are played by Matilda Ridgway and Mark Leonard Winter, shown respectively, left and right, below -- the more complicated everything becomes. Though it does seem clear, from nearly the get-go, that while Emily and Danny may enjoy filming their own fuck sessions, much more toxic is the fact that Bek and Joel are unwilling even to explore what has happened between these children.

Further complications ensue via the raising of the question of what makes "good" parenting (pitting helicopter parent Bek against somewhat absentee parent Emily), an upcoming election for Joel, and an important book deal for Danny. As the needs of the parents slowly seem to outweigh those of their kids, tensions rise and tempers flare, leading to a finale in which you will wish that these four people could be able to stand back a bit and openly laugh at themselves -- before you do it for them. This scene suddenly leaps into near-black comedy.

If the film unfortunately rises to melodrama instead of the drama you might hope for, it certainly holds your mind and emotions taut throughout. And its last shots beautifully convey the importance of what really is at stake here, and who might most benefit from (or be destroyed by) the outcome.

From Breaking Glass Pictures and running a just-right 86 minutes, Disclosure made its home video debut this past week -- on VOD and DVD. It is certainly worth a look.

DISAPPEARANCE AT CLIFTON HILL: Albert Shin's look at Pontius Pilate's famous question

"What is truth?" the Roman governor Pontius Pilate is said to have asked Jesus of Nazareth, prior to ordering his crucifixion. His now famous question gets quite a working over by Albert Shin, the director and co-writer (with James Schultz) of the new movie DISAPPEARANCE AT CLIFTON HILL.

Though the film is hardly what you'd call religious, "truth" and the difficulty of procuring it -- let alone knowing if you've actually nailed the goddamned thing -- sits front and center throughout this intelligent, tricky, and sometimes startling little movie. You could also think of it as a perfect film to showcase the current and sickening Presidency of that uber-liar, Donald Trump.

Mr. Trump lies constantly because either he cannot help it and/or he has found it the best way through life when you're a born scam artist. The heroine of the film at hand, played quite well by Tuppence Middleton, shown above, an actress who seems to be cornering the market for dark, sad, problemed characters (Sense8 and MI-5, among others), is here giving us one of the least reliable narrators the movies have yet offered.

And yet, the event that opens this film -- the disappearance of the title, which looks an awfully lot like a kidnapping -- is so well staged and filmed that it grabs us (along with Middleton's character, Abby, as a little girl) and simply never lets go. As an adult, when Abby returns to the Canadian side of Niagara Falls, where she grew up, she immediately begins to investigate this thing that has stayed with and so riled her over the years.

Filmmaker Shin, shown at right, offers us a Canadian Niagara that, even with its seedy carnival-like atmosphere, seems about as dark and dank a place as you've seen. Even by day, it's usually gray.

As Abby investigates, she comes upon everyone from an elderly diver (a fine and feisty role for David Cronenberg, above) who doubles as a podcast host and is certain he knows who was responsible for that kidnapping/disappearance -- and why -- to the wealthy family who apparently runs the town, whose scion just might be a child-molesting murderer, to the missing kid's mother and father, a kind of low-rent Siegfried & Roy (exceptionally well-played by Marie-Josée Croze and Paulino Nunes, shown right and left, respectively, below). The scene in a diner between Abby and the parents is probably the strongest in the entire movie.

Nothing quite pans out the way we or Abby might like it to, yet at the same time, everything sort of does, too -- in its own odd way. As the film winds along, Abby herself is exposed as something of a fantasist (some might simply say "liar"), which only add to the confusion about what the "truth" might be. The film's final scene -- between Abby, now working as a clerk in a semi-posh local hotel, and a new guest -- proves the cherry on top of the sundae. Or maybe the grenade inside the gift box.

Either way, Disappearance at Clifton Hill, even if it's a tad too schematic for us to completely suspend our disbelief, certainly takes its place as one of the more inventive, compelling mysteries of late. From IFC Midnight and running a just-about-right 101 minutes, the movie opened theatrically last week and simultaneously arrived on VOD, as well. (That's Hannah Gross, above, in the role of Abby's kindly and very frustrated older sister.)

Coming-of-age in East Germany, 1956, in surprising, wrenching ways: Lars Kraume's marvelous THE SILENT REVOLUTION

Ah, kids, and the things they can up to! What those of THE SILENT REVOLUTION get up to during their final year of high school in East Germany back in 1956 begins as something of a lark, as well as a genuine and sympathetic feeling for those young people active in the protests taking place in Communist-controlled Hungary. The Berlin Wall hadn't even been built back then, so access between East and West Berlin was easier than it would be a few years hence.

What a couple of students see during the newsreel portion of the screening they have snuck into in a West Berlin movie house -- footage of the Hungarian Revolution they would never be allowed to view in their home country of East Berlin, now controlled by the USSR -- influences them to talk their classroom into staging a couple of minutes of silence to honor the Hungarian protesters.

That's all. Nothing special. No big deal.

Based on a real situation that arose in this particular classroom, the movie -- directed and adapted (from the book by Dietrich Garstka) by Lars Kraume, shown above -- turns out to be one of the more compelling, engrossing and moving films I've seen this year.

In fact, the film is right up there with Oscar-winner The Lives of Others in the detailed manner in which it captures life under Communist rule: when anyone -- say, those two boys who go to the movie theater (Theo, played by Leonard Scheicher, above, and Kurt (Tom Gramenz, below) -- proves foolish enough to, even slightly, question that rule.

As the kids' two minutes of "solidarity" slowly becomes "counter-revolution," once the higher-ups -- from teachers to principal to government flunkies and ugly high-level bureaucrats -- become involved, things turn simultaneously ridiculous and frightening, as entire families' lives begin to disintegrate.

The Silent Revolution is particularly good at demonstrating the ways in which this Communist/Fascist bureaucracy invades and threatens the individual, and as this threat increases and the kids are further worn down, your blood will start to boil.

Herr Kraume refuses to make the students simply good or bad; all of them are mixed bags, managing wrong and right as best they can and for reasons that are genuine but sometimes flawed. They try their best to present a united front, but their masters engage in lies and betrayal to break them.

The student for whom all this takes the greatest toll is Erik (dazzlingly portrayed by Jonas Dassler, above and below, left), whose journey from belief to belittlement is excruciating and surprisingly moving. Getting to the truth is one thing but getting any kind of justice is quite another

The film's Spartacus-like climax is just fine, but it's the very final moments that seal the deal. "I'm getting goosebumps," my spouse exclaimed, as The Silent Revolution came to its brilliant, beautiful, breathtaking end. I think you will remember these kids and their predicament for a good long time.

From Distrib Film US and released via Icarus Home Video, the movie -- in German with English subtitles and running 111 minutes -- hits the street on DVD and via VOD this Tuesday, October 1 -- for purchase and/or rental.

A murder mystery from Hirokazu Kore-eda? Yes, as THE THIRD MURDER opens in theaters

Really? A murder mystery from Hirokazi Kore-eda, the fellow who has made all those wonderful Japanese films about family and relationships and philosophy and responsibility? Yes.

And THE THIRD MURDER is indeed about family and relationships and philosophy and responsibility. And also, especially, about justice, motive and character --  that last in every sense that you can imagine for this hugely encompassing word.

Mr. Hirokazu, pictured at right, whose classic Maborosi (the new Blu-ray release of which TrustMovies covered only last week) rather set the Japanese standard for films concerning all of the above themes, has now taken those themes and applied them to the murder mystery genre.

The results will most likely please his current fans a good deal more than they may satisfy those who expect anything remotely like a conventional murder mystery.

The Third Murder begins in a dark and deserted field at night in which a rather grizzly murder (followed by a cremation) takes place. Thanks to Hirokazu's skill and subtlety, sound effects jar us more than the visuals.

It seems clear from the beginning exactly who the murderer is. But who he is in terms of his character and why he has done the deed remain murky yet continually compelling. And Kôji Yakusho, above, who plays this very unusual role is equally compelling.

We learn something of the Japanese justice system, meet friends and family of the victim, as well as of that of murderer's defense attorney (Masaharu Fukuyama, above) -- who initially does not want this case but slowly grows closer and closer to the man he is defending.

What is learned about the victim will hardly ingratiate the guy to viewers, and once we've met his sleazy wife and hugely troubled daughter, this third murder begins to become as understandable as the first two, which we learn of in the course of the investigation.

Still, this is murder, and so justice must be served. But how? The defense attorney's father (above, who is himself a judge) offers one solution, but his son keeps soldiering on, hoping for a way to get his client a life sentence (or less) rather than death.

Religious motifs -- yes, that cross (seen above and below) -- figure in prominently,

as do dead birds, a thank-you note and peanut butter. Motives are mulled over and seem initially promising but then unclear, while truth, as ever, is utterly elusive.

Toward the finale, there is a scene of such supreme visual power, depth and even a weird kind of suspense as our two heroes come as close as possible to "joining."

Now, I have seen this kind of visual done previously on a number of occasions, but never as well as here. The sense of separate entities trying their best to understand each other and become one has rarely been brought to such vibrant, emotional and philosophic life.

If you are in the market for any cut-and-dried procedural or even a mystery with some sort of surprise finale, better look elsewhere. But if the ever-amazing and endlessly engaging ideas of family as both salvation and hell, justice as an elusive goal worth pursuing, and character as something that evolves rather than springs fully formed from DNA, then The Third Murder might just be your cup of chrysanthemum tea.

From Film Movement and running 124 minutes, the movie opens in New York City this Friday, July 20, at the Quad Cinema and on August 3 in Los Angeles at Laemmle's Royal, with other cities to follow in the weeks and months to come.

Raymond Depardon's quiet, riveting 12 DAYS gets U.S. theatrical premiere in NYC at AFA

Watching 12 DAYS -- a new documentary from France about people confined to a psychiatric hospital without their consent who, by French law, must be seen by a judge before a period of 12 days has ended -- your heart goes out to literally every person on view. These would be the patients themselves (we meet maybe a dozen of these in the course of the film) but also the judges, whose responsibility it is to treat these people fairly while protecting society from the possible danger they represent, and the attorneys or representatives of the incarcerated patients, who must keep the best interests of their clients in mind, even as it is often pretty clear that these clients have a somewhat tenuous grasp on reality (as most of us understand the term, at least).

While viewing this film, TrustMovies kept flashing back to an another documentary he had seen maybe a decade or more ago, taking place in a French courtroom. The two had so much in common that I felt certain they had been made by the same filmmaker. Sure enough: When I looked up the work of 12 Days' director, Raymond Depardon (shown at right), there on his IMDB resume was The 10th Judicial Court: Judicial Hearings, made in 2004, which I had seen via the late and greatly lamented DVD rental/movie information service Greencine (to which I had subscribed and for which, eventually, I began to write).

In his latest film, Depardon again (even more so this time) offers an almost shockingly humane look at French justice -- a simple, direct and yet hugely encompassing view of how certain important institutions and their attitudes influence our social, cultural, and private lives. This time the subject is mental health and the rights of the individual vs those of society.

Depardon's camera and viewpoint allows us to see and hear the institutionalized from their perspective, as well as from that of the judges (one of whom is shown above) and the lawyers who are present to assure the rights of those who are held against their will. In addition to the "interviews" that take place between judge, defendant and lawyer, we occasionally spend time viewing (from a discreet distance) certain inmates as they simply sit or pace.

One of these, if I am not mistaken, we see returning from buying (or maybe cadging) a cup of coffee then going on to her interview. In all cases, the POV and attitude we perceive via the filmmaker is one of non-judgmental viewing and, yes, caring. And yet Depardon allows us to experience and empathize with the viewpoints of literally everyone we meet. His stationary camera, along with his ability to know how much to give us and when to end a scene, ensures that we understand with surprising complexity what is going on and why the final judgment is decided as it is.

The cinematography (by Depardon and Simon Roche) editing (by Simon Jacquet) and really lovely musical score (from recent Oscar winner Alexandre Desplat) all contribute mightily to the overall effect of this film, which ends with a quiet and beautiful early morning look (above) at the hospital in a kind of blue-toned fog.

More than anything else, I suspect that thoughtful, concerned Americans will see this film as a knock in the head so far as how our own system of justice cares for the mentally disturbed and for society in general.  Every time I view a French film or television series -- either narrative (from Serial Killer 1 to Spiral) or documentary Depardon's work to that of Nicolas Philibert -- I am impressed anew with how much more genuinely caring and concerned with the public and private good is France, even with all its current problems, than is America. An attempt at democracy came to both countries around the same time over 200 years ago. What each has done with this idea seems shockingly (in the case of the USA, increasingly and appallingly) different.

From Distrib Films US and running a lean 87 minutes, 12 Days opens this Friday, March 16, in New York City at Anthology Film Archives for a week-long run. AFA is simultaneously hosting a retrospective of some of Depardon's work, which should be a must for documentary fans. The Depardon screenings run from Thursday, March 15 through Sunday, March 25. Click here (then scroll up and down) and here to see the complete schedule.  Note: Raymond Depardon and his longtime partner, collaborator, and producer Claudine Nougaret will be at AFA in person for opening night for a Q&A after the 7pm and then will introduce the 9pm screening!

Watch Jeff Feuerzeig's AUTHOR: THE JT LEROY STORY -- and you may feel the need to bathe

Boy, that "truth" thing! Ain't it a bitch? Here comes yet another new documentary in which, for all I know, literally everything we're dished out here is the "truth." However, since everything about the original situation is also a lie, which, as lies are wont to do, begins spinning off more and more lies in order to keep the original in place, what we're soon engaging with is something so grandly nefarious that one might call it "the whopper of 'em all." Still, what the hell: If Jayson Blair can get his very own movie, why not JT Leroy?

Jeff Feuerzeig, who wrote and directed AUTHOR: THE JT LEROY STORY, begins his film with a quote from Federico Fellini about creativity and truth -- A created thing is never invented and it is never true: It is always and ever itself -- that is clearly designed (by Feuerzeig, not by the late Signore Fellini) as an excuse for all that follows. Though it does not in the least manage the necessary excusing, it does prove but the first of many things about this fascinating-but-sleazy documentary that waves a red flag.

In truth, I would not know how to go about making an honest documentary about a situation like this, and perhaps Mr. Feuerzeig, realizing that he faced the same dilemma, chose what looks, more and more as the movie unfolds, like the easiest route. He simply hands the documentary over to its "protagonist," a woman named Laura Albert (above) who devised the whole JT Leroy scam and then brought it to pulsating, media-savvy life -- in the process, turning it into one of the most infamous, crazy, we've-conned-you-good! literary hoaxes in the history of, well, literature.

The above description sounds tasty enough to suck you in, no? Then why does this documentary begin to reek so foully, so quickly? TrustMovies thinks it's because Ms Albert never once in the entire proceedings shoulders any real responsibility for wrong-doing. She tells her tale as though it were just the most enjoyable, amusing and necessary thing to do. Now, if you feel, as Albert clearly does, that making up a story but labeling it as a true memoir, then creating the character who supposedly wrote the thing -- different age and different sex from the actual author -- in order to gain some of that wonderful stuff called fame is simply A-OK, then you'll probably embrace the documentary as all-fun-and-games.

Along the way, Albert, together with her Leroy creation (a gay, abused, teenage, would-be transgendered street urchin/hustler just longing for a world into which s/he can fit) cons everyone from supposed literature connoisseurs to celebrities in just about every field from music to movies to books to you-name-it. And, of course, the media just goes wild over a story (drugs. sex, prostitution, abuse) and a storyteller (under-age sex, queer and tearful) like this. In terms of lies and pretense, only the Donald could Trump it -- and, as we know, the media sure has given him plenty of undue attention.

What Albert really craved was success and celebrity above all, and from what we see here, she still does. And so the doc certainly shows us clearly and precisely how our culture of celebrity spawns more of the same, while feeding off itself in the process.

From filmmaker Gus van Sant -- who would of course gravitate toward someone of Leroy's ilk and is conned to a fare-thee-well (that's he above, right, with Albert and actor Michael Pitt) -- to television writer David Milch to actress turned director Asia Argento (below, right), the gullible just keep falling fast and hard. Ms Argento evens stars in and directs a so-so movie based on the LeRoy's "masterwork," The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things.

No one involved with Albert is safe, with doctors and analysts coming off as especially easy marks. Now, evidently, most of these folk are angry at Albert for putting them through the wringer once again via the new documentary. Well, honeys: You deserve each other. Whether or not the audience deserves to sit through this film is another question. Several times during and again at the end, I found myself muttering, Who gives a shit? I sure didn't, but then I also didn't follow Leroy's career during its ascendancy nor much during the scandal that followed.

If you followed that trajectory, the movie might just be your cup of whatever. Certainly it is full of details as to how the big lie was foisted upon us, and those details are often pretty amazing. And amusing. Overall though, it would seem as if Ms Albert is simply praying for this doc to hit pay dirt and provide her with a second round of celebrity and fame.
Good luck, dear.

From Magnolia Pictures and running a rather lengthy, considering its "true" content, one hour and fifty minutes, the movie -- after hitting the bigger cities and more noted cultural centers over the past couple of weeks -- opens here in South Florida tomorrow in Miami area at the O Cinema, Wynwood. You can click here to see all currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters.