MyFrenchFilmFestival.com--Frédéric Mermoud's COMPLICES is a keeper

Swiss filmmaker Frédéric Mermoud's second attempt at a full-length narrative (after a TV movie some years back) -- COMPLICES (aka Partners) begins with the shot of a corpse floating face-down in the water. When the police arrive -- including two of the four "partners" of the title -- and the body is made to lie face-up, we get our first real taste of Mermoud (shown below) as a filmmaker. We've seen plenty of corpses on film, most of them bloody, ugly, gory, horrific. This one is somehow different. Oh, it's awful, all right. But it -- he, for this is the body of a young man -- is most striking in the sadness the shot delivers. There is a strong sense of loss here, of waste, of a death that is more than untimely.

Little explanation is offered us verbally; it's all in the visuals. From the angle at which we're viewing the corpse to the well thought-out make-up that reveals something awful on the surface and yet something else underneath, and especially from the reactions to the young man's body from the characters surrounding it (see photo at bottom) -- this is not just another corpse. Mermoud's ability here is to make us look at death -- murder -- with something beyond mere voyeurism. He allows us to see it with a humanity that is rare in this particular genre.

Just as we, and the police, are taking it all in, the filmmaker suddenly cuts to the same young man, now alive: full of light and life, energy and charm. He's in an internet cafe where his gaze comes to rest upon a rather sweetly innocent-looking young girl, about the same time as her gaze finds him. They meet, and the movie is off and running with enormous zest. Yet it trails the sadness of what we have already seen.

We continue to bounce back and forth between past and present, between the older set of police partners and friends, beautifully played by those fine and oft-seen French actors Emmanuelle Devos (below, right) and Gilbert Melki (below, left) who are investigating the death, and our young lovers, played equally well by Cyril Descours (two photos above, from Paris je t'aime and the John Adams miniseries) and Nina Meurisse (shown just above).

Mermoud deals in opposites: before and after, past and present, life and death, parents and children, men and women, villains and heroes, gay and straight, sex as monetary transaction and sex as part of love. Instead of leaving these in opposition, he manages to quietly bring them together as much as possible. Again, a humane act -- because most of us live our lives in opposition and denial, trying to piece together so many parts that don't seem to fit. This is true of the murder itself, and while the unmasking of the perpetrator will not come as much of a surprise, this will not matter: The point is elsewhere. What will surprise you is how much empathy is evoked for all concerned, including the killer.

Complices is finally a beautiful film about things that are anything but. It seems a truthful one, too-- neither whitewashing nor making things harder than they would be. Yet its viewpoint is broad and deep enough to encompass a good-sized chunk of life. And death.

The film is available now through this Saturday, January 29 -- you can download it for only $2.63 --  via MyFrenchFilmFestival.com. Further good news: If you don't get the chance to watch Complices before its Saturday finale, IFC Films has picked it up, under the English title Accomplices,  for On-Demand release, beginning in April. You can find further information here.

Photos above are from the film itself, except that of M. Mermoud, 

taken by Magali Girardin, courtesy of Tribune de Genève.

Anime time: DURARARA! debuts -- the hit TV series gets a DVD release from Aniplex

I don't watch Japanese anime all that often (which is probably just as well). When I do, however, I am charmed all over again with its odd combination of relatively simple figures and faces -- looking much alike, with just a few facial strokes, together with hair color and costume, to differentiate the leading characters -- and stories that are rich in childlike fantasy but also replete with darker themes and concerns that you'd rarely find in a show kids were watching on this side of the Pacific. So it is with DURARARA! -- but don't ask me what that title means. The press was given only five episodes (on a single disc) of Part I of this series -- which has in total three parts, each containing 8 or 9 episodes (That's the box cover art and part of the sleeve, shown above.) Perhaps the meaning of the title will come into play later on in the series.

Those first five episode were enough to have me wanting more. Had I received the remaining ones, I certainly would have continued watching. The story -- which keeps expanding ever outward, as well as circling in on itself -- has to do with a group of high school kids in an area of Tokyo who becomes fast friends through a series of very odd encounters.

These include everything from a suicide attempt (in episode two, I believe, and shown above), which proves the strongest, deepest section and includes some worthwhile philosophy and ideas about personal responsibility toward ones self, as well as how to better understand and view one's parents. This section is one that I believe most teenagers might benefit from viewing.

There's a mysterious "headless" motorcyclist -- above, left -- whom we learn a lot more about in the course of the episodes, and who has a small satellite of subsidiary figures circling round (such as the blond, above, right).

There's a sympathetic doctor, carrying a torch for his "roommate," a very odd and alternately menacing/friendly Russian immigrant (above), hawking for a nearby Sushi restaurant, who can, when necessary, fight (below).

And so much more. The plot was still expanding outwards ( and maybe inwards) when I came to the end of episode five (each one is around 21-22 minutes long). Last Saturday morning, when I stuck the disc into my machine, I was going to watch only a single episode before getting back to work. As if.  Some hundred-odd minutes later, I got up from the sofa to finally pour my second cup of coffee.

 

One of the particularly weird things about anime (for us Americans, at least) is how it combines kid's cartoon fun with barely pubescent young ladies showing off very curvy boobs and lots of leg. (The girls' uniforms are uniformly small and tight.)  Myth and legend make their appearances, too, along with lots of action -- car chases, martial arts fighting -- and loads of love, loss and betrayal. There's literally something for everyone, but I admit that it will -- for newcomers to anime -- seem more than a bit unusual to have it packaged together in this manner. 

All this makes for quite the heady (some might call it loony) mix of themes both adult and childlike, serious and comedic, fantastical and all too real.  I wouldn't want to see this sort of thing that often, but every once in awhile, there's nothing like a good anime. And Durarara! -- episodes 1-5, at least -- is very good anime.

The three-part series comes to us via Aniplex of America. You can order all three parts of the series now from The Store or Right Stuf. Part One will ship this week, Part Two in March, and Part Three in May. I would hope Durarara! will be available for rental, too, but as of today, I could not find it listed with either Netflix or Blockbuster. 

At Sundance -- and on Sundance Selects -- the Tully/Tukel/Longstreet SEPTIEN

One whopping strange movie that you can't tear yourself away from because you will not have seen anything much like it, SEPTIEN should hold you in thrall for all of its bizarre 81 minutes. The work of writer/director/costar Michael Tully, costar Robert Longstreet (who is also given co-credit for the story and executive producing) and costar Onur Tukel (who also gets co-story credit), could hardly be simpler in terms of plot. An extremely hirsute fellow named Cornelius (Tully) appears one day at the old homestead after an absence of 15 to 20 years. Though his brothers Amos (Tukel) and Ezra (Longstreet) can't seem to agree on how long he's been gone (or on anything else, for that matter), they welcome this supremely silent sibling back into their (very strange) fold.

I'd say the movie is set somewhere in our south -- I can't be more specific --  yet there's a definite "southern" flair there. Wisk together a little Faulkner with Flannery O'Connor and Erskine Caldwell as a jumping-off point, blend some Tennessee Williams into the mix (for "gaiety" rather than purple prose or southern belles gone off the deep end) then pare it all down to low-budget/
near-mumblecore proportions -- and you might have some sense of the kind of left-over style (non-style?) on hand. Whatever: it works. Tully (that's he, taking a call, at right) and his faux bros (below: Tukel's at center with Longstreet on the right) are so completely believable in their roles that they easily pull us into their exotic little universe. (Only in the south, I think, could this particular family exist.)

Brother Amos is an artist, whose bizarre work provides the subject behind the opening credits: very penis-heavy portraits that also include some, um... cannibalism. Mr. Tukel is so specific and terrific in this role that he creates something quite memorable. When I said in the paragraph above that this was Williams minus-the-southern-belles, I stand corrected: Brother Ezra somewhere along the way has morphed into the boys' late mother. And if actor Longstreet has not already done it, he could easily play Amanda Wingfield. A big man and butch enough, his performance here, wearing some lovely "day" dresses, is amazing -- ranging from utterly real to comic to sadly touching.

As for Mr. Tully's Cornelius, he's generally silent, except when he's conning a bystander into a game of tennis, basketball (above), even soccer. His brother's portraits show him to have been a football star in high school; good at everything, he's clearly kept his hand into sports during the intervening years. The only other characters are a ex-football-coach (who's now a plumber), his rather sweet, quite nice-looking (and far-too-young-for-him) girlfriend, a local boy named Wilbur who might (or might not) be slow, and an angel/prophet whom we first see appearing from a porto-san and who might or might not be imaginary. What a mix. What a movie.  I am not at all sure that it means to be, but it is, finally, one hell of a lot of very weird fun.

Excrement is also a vital force in the film.  It appears in the paintings, overflows the plumbing and is perhaps responsible for the initial entrance of our "spiritual" icon. (Normally I would object to this kind of religious tomfoolery, but here, it's almost welcome.) Puzzles figure into things, too (and why not? The movie is one), and so does music. There's an odd little song, Smother the Demons, that becomes particularly memorable, sung as it is in weird harmony by the three brothers.  The cinematography is often washed-out, even drab -- intentionally, I would guess, or maybe for lack of a budget -- but so indelible are these characters and the world they inhabit, that I think this is one Sundance movie you're going to remember. What you'll make of it (I'm not sure that this even matters) is another question.

Septien has its world-premiere at Sundance today, Sunday, January 23, at 11:59pm and will screen three more times in Park City and once in Salt Lake City.  It simultaneously makes its Sundance Selects debut via VOD on Monday January 24. Click here to learn how to get it.

The photos above are from the film itself, with the exception 
of the one of Mr. Tully on phone, which comes 
courtesy of Sarasota Magazine.  And what about that 
terrific poster at top, based on the art created for the film? 
Its budget must have exceeded that of the entire movie...

MyFrenchFilmFest.com: teenagers! THE FRENCH KISSERS and ALL THAT GLITTERS

Films that concentrate on teens and their more obvious needs -- sex, drugs, rock-and-roll, to name a few -- tend to bore TrustMovies rather quickly. When these are shown as part of a larger canvas (as does another film in the fest, Complices, about which I'll have more to say soon), the situation can take on immense relevance and weight.  But when the focus is solely on their current lives, constricted by age plus lack of experience and/or opportunity, what can be gleaned from the film (or even enjoyed by a mature viewer) is often pretty minor. So it is with THE FRENCH KISSERS (Les Beaux gosses).

This nod to the mentality of American Pie (and its many spin-offs) has its moments, but they're too few and far between to keep us going. Despite the presence of stars like Emmanuelle Devos (shown above), Irène Jacob and Noméie Lvovsky (none of whom are seen to much advantage), the movie concentrates on youths who are just at that age at which they are least intelligent and most obnoxious. While I applaud the movie's sense of verité in capturing these qualities, I still have to wonder why first-time filmmaker Riad Sattouf bothered. Further, in sticking much closer to the needs of the boys involved, while leaving the girls in subsidiary roles (how American!), M. Sattouf effectively reduces his movie to the cheap and obvious -- which does tend to sell tickets, I admit. In any case, The French Kissers managed to put even last year's lesser Rendez-vous With French Cinema efforts (during which it made its U.S. debut) into more pleasing perspective. Now it is available (as the single out-of-competition film) at MyFrenchFilmFestival.com. Your move.

Although ALL THAT GLITTERS (Tout ce qui brille) also features teens as its main characters, because these are girls -- and girls intent on changing their "status" in life -- this film has a broader canvass, just as the characters have a (somewhat) wider range of interest. This is not to say that the film is all that great, but it holds attention far better than its male counterpart. Co-directed and -written (with Hervé Mimran) by Géraldine Nakache (who also co-stars, with Leïla Bekhti), the film is glossy and professional in every way. A little too much so, in fact; at times it makes one long for some of the scuzz of The French Kissers.

To its credit (I think), the movie shows its two teens as girls ready to take unfair advantage of cab drivers and anyone else who might get in their way, as they seek out some fun. They come from a banlieue -- but a very nice one, I would say: quite middle class! -- and while one (Bekhti) seeks to leave it via love, the other is content to do so using her own skills and intelligence. When they meet a pair of wealthy, haute-bourgeoisie lesbians (Virginie Ledoyen, above, and Linh Dan Pham) with a child in tow and and apartment that looks like quite the thing, our girls jump at the chance to be part of this. A sense of entitlement clings to a lot of the characters here, and "using" is standard practice. By the end, friendships are threatened and lessons learned but no harm has come to anyone. While we've seen all this many times before, the French-Algerian slant will perhaps be new to some American audiences. Ms Ledoyen (Shall We Kiss?, The Army of Crime) is always a pleasure to see, as is Ms Bekti (below, right, whom we know from Mesrine and A Prophet) and Ms Nakache (below, left). A hit in its native land, All That Glitters might just corral some younger viewers here in the USA, too.

MyFrenchFilmFestival.com can be downloaded  for just one more week. Click here to order either of the two movies above -- or the entire program, including full- length and short films.

Swanberg's return to m'core, UNCLE KENT, inaugurates this year's Sundance at home

They're back.  And if I am not mistaken, there are more of 'em this year than last. Yes, it's time once again for the Sundance Film Festival and--for those of us who can't get to Park City--Sundance Selects, the theatrical and on-demand film label that today begins it's second annual partnership with the not-for-profit Sundance Institute and the 2011 edition of the film festival. As part of the "Direct from the Sundance Film Festival" initiative, five films being screened at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival that will simultaneously be available nationwide, on-demand, through Sundance Selects. The films include four world premieres recently acquired by Sundance Selects -- Brendan Fletcher's MAD BASTARDS, Michael Tully's SEPTIEN, Paul Mariano and Kurt Norton's THESE AMAZING SHADOWS, and Joe Swanberg's UNCLE KENT -- and one U.S. premiere: Gregg Araki's KABOOM. (Last year, as I recall, Sundance Selects showed only three titles.) The films featured through the Sundance Institute and Sundance Selects partnership will begin screening on video-on-demand at the same time as their premieres at the Sundance Film Festival, and will be available to approximately 40 million homes on most major cable systems including Bright House, Comcast, Cablevision, Cox, and Time Warner Cable.

The first under consideration here is Swanberg's Uncle Kent, arriving On-Demand on Saturday, January 22, which pretty much coincides with its Sundance Fest debut. With last year's Alexander the Last, it seemed to TrustMovies that Mr. Swanberg (shown below) might finally be expanding beyond his mumblecore roots (along with Aaron Katz and Andrew Bujalski, he's considered one of the daddies of this mini-genre). In Alexander, he made good use of Jess Weixler, an actress whose energy and charisma can wipe the floor with most m'core leading ladies (Greta Gerwig may be an exception: time will tell), while the story he chose had more incident and variation than some of his earlier films.

With Uncle Kent, we're firmly back in the land of the mumble: wishy-washy characters who don't know what they want or need and in any case barely have the energy to go after it. This does not make them or their movie a failure exactly: Interest is maintained and decent performances given by the five main actors on view. But it is all so loose and unstructured and tentative and, well, mumblecore, that -- for every moment that perks there are another few that don't.

The situation here -- that of a firmly middle-aged guy (Kent Osborne, below) who's unattached and can't seem to change that status -- is probably not at all unusual in today's world.  That's he's a bit of doofus and somewhat socially inept doesn't help. (His best friend gets him to entertain party guests by doing "cock tricks": molding his scrotum and penis into various forms, only one of which -- a hamburger between two buns -- we get to see here.) When an online acquaintance (female) has business in the L.A. area and spends the weekend in his home, things might be looking up. If you buy that, you've seen far too few films of the m'core variety.

Characters shamble, physically and emotionally, until stasis is achieved. Along the way we get a few bits of what passes for wisdom dropped in our lap (women's biological clocks are ticking too hard and fast for Kent to handle: oooh, that's a new one!), along with a lot of explanation/exposition, mostly told but little seen or experienced. The characters here are not uninteresting. They could be explored for some depth and resonance, but Swanberg (shown below) seems content to just let them rub shoulders and words. Even the sex is piddling and unproductive. If the filmmaker's point is that modern life, relationships and sex found via the internet is unproductive, well, it would be, given characters like these. Yet characters like these seem to provide the raison d'être de mumble-core. You either love being with them. Or they put you to sleep.

Uncle Kent comes to VOD today. Check your local TV-reception provider or click here for further help.

I'll have a review of Septien up soon -- and one for Mr. Araki's delightfully loopy and invigorating Kaboom, when that film makes its theatrical debut on Friday, January 28.

Martin Zandvliet's APPLAUSE makes a tardy but welcome theatrical debut

Appearing at the Toronto fest debut back in 2009 and making its New York debut just about one year ago, during the Film Society of Lincoln Center's annual Film Comment Selects series, APPLAUSE, co-written (with Anders Frithiof August) and directed by Martin Zandvliet, is most important for bringing to better notice here in the states the work of a certain Danish actress of power-house talent and not inconsiderable beauty.

If you're familiar with the work of the versatile  Paprika Steen (Adam's Apples, Fear Me Not, Forty Shades of Blue) you'll probably want to see her in just about anything. With Applause Mr. Zandvliet, left, gives the lady (she's shown on the poster above and in photos below) one of her best roles -- as a famous actress, Thea Barfoed, at the pinnacle (maybe just past it) of her career who is, otherwise, falling apart. Divorced, drunk and seemingly an unfit mother, she happens to be currently playing the "Martha" role in Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf, and so life imitates art rather spectacularly here. Steen is blowsy, beautiful, angry, frightened, funny and fearsome -- and while, yes, this sounds clichéd (there's nothing here we've have not seen before), the actress never has a dishonest moment on screen.

Consequently she alternately beguiles and yanks us around with her, and we follow gladly. Venues includes everywhere from a visit with her ex and his current wife (the couple seem quite decent and undeserving of Thea's wrath), to therapy sessions, theater rehearsals/performances, and finally into a situation that, were Thea living here in the USA, might result in her complete undoing. Denmark is clearly a more forgiving nation.

Zandvliet make certain his movie is short, smart and -- considering the situation and Thea's state of mind -- surprisingly non-repetitive. Applause open today, Friday, January 21, in New York City at the Village East Cinema and in the Los Angeles area at both Laemmle and Edwards theaters.  Click the links for specific details.

JOHNNY MAD DOG, from Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire, opens at Anthology Film Archives

We've heard about the "child soldiers" of Africa, seen them in various documentaries, and most recently in Claire Denis' narrative White Material. Until you've viewed JOHNNY MAD DOG, however, they'll not have registered with the maximum force that Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire brings to this film, his first full-length narrative feature, which he directed and adapted from the novel by Emmanuel Dongala. M. Sauvaire, shown below, has made a few documentar-ies in his day, and he draws upon non-narrative techniques to bring his film to immediate, immense and frightening life.

We're thrust into things from the first frame and the pace seldom lets up for the full 98-minute running time. We see from the outset the ruthlessness of these child soldiers/killers/savages as they "take" an enclave of citizens and do with them what they will. From their midst, they recruit a young boy (in the pink shirt below), forcing him to do something that, whatever else may happen to him, will set his life askew forever.

Initially, it is difficult to sympa-thize with any of these walking horrors. You hate them; you want them dead. One of the surprises of Johnny Mad Dog, which doubles as the name of the leading character (on poster, top) is that as the film moves along, almost all the boys begin to humanize, even as their actions remain disgusting, abominable. This makes for an acute tension that, I think, renders the movie more difficult to fully embrace, even as you admire its skill and impact.

There is a doomed negativity to almost eveything in the film, star-ting with the names given to its killer children -- Johnny Mad Dog, of course, and No Good Advice, Small Devil, Nasty Plastic and Dust to Dust.  Probably the most positive of these would be Never Die -- except the single saying the boys most often chant is this: "Don't wanna die?  Never be born."  While that is utterly true, of course, it's not the kind of slogan you'd want your kid to grow up on.

There is no narration nor real exposition to this movie: You are thrown into the midst of it and must find your own footing. Two stories are present in the film -- that of Johnny and his crew, who are told by their leader to "take" a section of a town. We also meet the young girl Laokole (Daisy Victoria Vandy, above), trying to care for her amputee father and younger brother.  The two stories will come together briefly, part, and then join again at the conclusion -- which will not perhaps be the conclusion that you wanted.

Along the way, the film almost becomes a romance, as Johnny (a riveting performance by Christopher Minie. above center) puts his not-quite-mature "moves" on the only female member of his band, Lovelita (Careen Moore). There's a highly unusual scene here in which rape turn into to lovemaking on both parties' part.
 

Full of odd. specific details that almost defy description but not believability (the white wedding dress one young solider-- above, center -- discovers, dons and wears for the remainder of the movie) or the song that the youngest, most delicate soldier Butterfly (Mohammed Sesay, shown at left) sings to their newly dead "comrade" (a boy who never even got to hold a real weapon before meeting his death).

There are so many ironies present here that, were not the movie so consis-tently riveting, you might mistake it for some kind of overdone satire. No: This is a reality that you can only hope you and your loved one will never experience.

The cinematography (by Marc Koninckx), when you have time to stop and notice, is often extraordinary, with some of the citiscapes (above) as breathtaking as the verdant countryside. And this has got to be one of the most surprising uses, yet not out of line, of the song Strange Fruit, sung by Nina Simone, that you'll have heard.

Johnny Mad Dog, from IFC Films, opens today, Friday, January 21, at Anthology Film Archives for a one week run. Performances are at 7 and 9pm daily, with an extra 5pm screening Saturday & Sunday.