Nanouk Leopold's IT'S ALL SO QUIET: small, truthful Dutch "family film" opens at AFA

What a tiny treasure is this film about father and son farmers in an isolated area of The Netherlands. The father, very old and very infirm, is cared for -- grudgingly but decently -- by his middle-aged son. The son, however, is cared for by no one and apparently never has been. (The little we learn of his growing up indicates that his father was unduly harsh with him.) This is the heart of the sad, engrossing movie, IT'S ALL SO QUIET (Boven is het stil) that is full of small details -- of caring for the elderly as well as for farm animals -- that builds into a quietly moving study of loneliness and the inability of some of us to ever be able to reach out to anyone else.

As adapted (from the novel by Gerbrand Bakker) and directed by Nanouk Leopold (shown at left), the movie may be slow-moving but it is never uninteresting due to its expert detailing and how simple and subtle it consistently is. Ms Leopold keeps her camera ever watchful regarding the connection between father and son and between son and farm and the few other people who attempt to bridge what seems an incredible distance between them and this sad and unresponsive farmer.

As played by the late Jeroen Willems (above, left), whose untimely death occurred soon after the film was completed, the son, Helmer, is a figure of enormous empathy by us viewers, even though the character himself barely seems able to empathize with others or understand himself and his own needs.

The scenes of Helmer caring for his father (played by Henri Garcin, above, left) offers a look at the day-to-day drudgery -- cleaning up the shit, showering the old man, and the increasingly difficult chore of simply carrying him up the stairs -- that goes into the care of the very elderly.

We also slowly get a sense of the kind of upbringing Helmer must have had, in which showing affection of any kind was frowned upon. Now, this man is so socially insecure and untutored in anything approaching the social graces that he simply cannot respond in any normal way to other people's overtures. (The milk delivery man, above, clearly would like to pursue a relationship with Helmer, but can draw no response except embarrassment from our man.)

When more help is finally needed -- with the farming and the caregiving -- a young hired hand named Henk is brought aboard (Martijn Lakemeier, above, right), and it seems that a kind of break-through may come for Helmer. Things do happen and change does occur, but in the barest of increments. Possibilities lie unseen and unused, and the movie remains sad but ever-so-slightly hopeful.

The film begins and ends with some lovely shots of nature, and the natural world breaks into the narrative now and then. But what you'll remember most, I think, are the shots of the faces here, especially that of Willems, who gives a remarkable performance, all the deeper and more resonant due to his character's inability to connect.

Its All So Quiet -- from Jonathan Howell's Big World Pictures and running 91 minutes, in Dutch with English subtitles) -- begins a one-week run this Friday, January 9, at Anthology Film Archives in New York City. Click here for tickets and here for directions. Elsewhere? I'm not certain. But, being from Big World, there will most likely be a DVD on offer eventually and/or some digital streaming.

Dominik Graf's BELOVED SISTERS: Germany's submission for Best Foreign Language Film

For whatever reason (advance praise, most likely), I fully expected that Dominik Graf's bio-pic about Friederich Schiller and the von Lengefeld sisters would be one of the nine movies listed for possible Best Foreign Language Film honors. When it was not, I wondered why. Now that I have seen the movie, I think I can figure it out. BELOVED SISTERS (Die geliebten Schwestern) is a good film: smart and fast-moving, with wonderful period detail that looks about as genuine as movies these days can manage. The performances are fine, too, as is the writing and direction. But the film lasts ten minutes short of three hours, and this is finally too long for what eventually begins to seem like something a little too close to soap opera. We and the movie spend more time with this threesome than their story -- as seen here and which is, overall, a little on the slight and repetitive side -- will bear.

The Academy is not overly fond of very lengthy movies. For my money, one of the best films of the year --- Winter Sleep -- was also passed over for the BFLF short list, and it lasts a half hour longer than this one. Winter Sleep however, is deeper and more profound than Beloved Sisters, which stays pretty close to the surface, albeit a very alluring and interesting surface, throughout. Filmmaker Graf, pictured at right, a veteran of television, goes for the fast-moving pace, and fills his film with immense detail -- of place, person, plot, the works. His movie is never uninteresting, and considering that it's all about the personal, professional and sexual lives of some famous people, it proves much less leering than you might expect. It is absolutely worth seeing, if not, perhaps, worth awarding.

We've had Young Goethe in Love, so why not Young Schiller, as well. Graf's movie is twice the one that Philipp Stölzl's was. Schiller, as portrayed by Florian Stetter (above), is shown to excellent advantage as a philosopher, writer and lover, while the two sisters -- Caroline (Hannah Herzsprung, below, right) and Charlotte (Henriette Confurius, below, left) are very well paired. The scene (above) in which Schiller first addresses the university at which he has come to teach is genuinely vibrant and moving.

Along the route we get some fascinating facts about the German view of the French Revolution, printing presses of this particular era, current living standards, the importance of money in keeping even the supposed wealthy in appropriate shape, and the behavior required of proper young ladies and gentlemen of the day. (Claudia Messner does a particularly fine turn as the sister's smart, concerned and appealing mother.)

If I appear to damning Beloved Sisters with faint praise, I'll be clear. The praise is not faint, it's simply not immense. The movie is beautiful, consistently interesting and tackles a real story and unusual situation with not mere "taste" but with discipline and style. It has terrific energy and excellent pacing, too.

From Music Box Films and running 170 minutes, Beloved Sisters begins its theatrical run this Friday, January 9, in New York City (at the Lincoln Plaza Cinema and Landmark Sunshine), in the Los Angeles area (at Laemmle's Royal, Playhouse 7 and Town Center 5) and five other cities -- before spreading out across the country in the weeks and months to come. You can view all currently scheduled playdates by clicking here and then clicking on the word THEATERS about halfway down the screen.

Yael Reuveny's FAREWELL, HERR SCHWARZ: another strange and fascinating Holocaust tale

TrustMovies is beginning to think it's inevitable: the more Holocaust documentaries that appear, the better and more interesting they seem to become. This subject -- of the Nazi intent to destroy the world's Jewish population and its aftermath (it's that aftermath that has produced some of the finest of these docs) -- appears to be inexhaustible. Just when you think you've encountered the strangest of these true tales (take The Flat, for instance: see it, if you haven't yet; it's available to stream via the usual suspects), along comes another that surprises and seduces. Such a film is this week's opener, FAREWELL, HERR SCHWARZ.

As written, directed and narrated by Yael Reuveny (shown at left, who also appears throughout the documentary), the film tells of her family's experience during and after the Holocaust (mostly after) and spans three generations, beginning with her grandmother, Michla (shown below, pre-Holocaust, in the front row, second from left), who survived it, along with the grandmother's brother, Feiv'ke shown below, front row, at left), who did, too. In fact, early on the movie explains how Feiv'ke was a man who "died twice." If only it were that easy. Feiv'ke's story, which includes a kind of "identity" change that involves both name and history becomes one of those mysteries about us humans' ability to do some very odd things, while leaving all trace of reason or motive buried. And so Ms Reuveny's documentary becomes a search for answers, some of which are forthcoming while others remain shrouded.

Part of a good mystery lies in its unfolding, and so I must say little about what occurs here -- except to note that we meet quite a few members of the filmmaker's family, some of whom she knows quite well, others who prove a surprise.

What distinguishes Farewell, Herr Schwarz, besides its unfurling story, is the role Ms Reuveny plays in it all and how learning what she learns affects her. More than in most documentaries I can recall, we seem to be able to see here how the actual processing of information works: How the characters take in what they are learning and how they try to deal with it.

There are times here in which the camera simply watches and waits, as Reuveny struggles to understand events, motives and meaning. As we watch, we find ourselves trying to deal with all this, too.

This kind of processing is extremely important, I think, to families rocked by the Holocaust, the effects of which just keep unravelling from generation to generation. How each generation deals with that event -- whether by repression, shame, therapy, or even the embrace of Germany (one of Ms Reuveny's ways of dealing) -- proves something fraught and fascinating in itself.

We meet friends and relatives that take in the three generations, and they are all lively and interesting (one of the most enjoyable is the old woman friend of grandmother Michla (above) who has a number of thoughtful and sad things to tell us. Another new relative is a tall young German man (below) who proves as interested in Israel and Ms Reuveny is in Germany.

Another nice sidelight here is how certain folk discovered their Jewish roots and how they responded to this (Madeleine Albright could learn something). All in all, this small movie about one family and its continuing experience with the Holocaust is a quietly provocative experience.

The film -- from Kino Lorber and running 96 minutes -- opens this Friday, January 9, for a one-week run at New York City's Quad Cinema and on Saturday, January 10, for a two-day run at Manhattan's JCC on Manhattan's upper west side.

DVDebut: In PLAYING DEAD, Jean-Paul Salomé offers up an enchanting, low-key who-done-it

Who'd have thought that Jean-Paul Salomé, the fellow who earlier gave us Belphégor - Le fantôme du Louvre and The Adventures of Arsène Lupin would come up with such a low-key charmer like the new PLAYING DEAD (Je fais le mort). As we've been told, many times, you never know. The U.S. distributor of this new French comedy/ mystery, First Run Features, distributes many more docu-mentaries than it does narrative movies. When it offers one of the latter, however -- from Nobody Else But You to Secret Things, What if...? to Special Treatment -- the film is worth seeing. As is FRF's newest arrival.

It stars the very popular Belgian comedian/actor François Damiens (above) in the kind of role at which he excels: the very annoying, full-of-himself, and can't-seem-to-help-it provocateur. We've loved the surprisingly versatile M. Damiens in everything from The Wolberg Family to Heartbreaker and Delicacy, and here he comes through again as an out-of-work actor (he can't get jobs due to his abrasive personality) who proves smarter than he looks (or acts) while playing the corpse in a law enforcement murder reconstruction in which all is definitely not as it first appears.

M. Salomé, shown at right, both directed and co-wrote this amusing little trifle, so major credit for its charm and success must go to him, along with his well-chosen, classy cast. This would include Géraldine Nakache (below) as the judicial person in charge of the reconstruction, Lucien Jean-Baptiste (at left, two photos below) as the local police inspector, Anne Le Ny as the very interesting lady who owns the hotel where the reconstruction team is staying, Jean-Marie Winling as the only surviving member of the murder massacre, and Corentin Lobet (especially provocative and funny) as the tiny little fellow who is the supposed murderer.

There's very little pushing here; the plot unfolds gracefully, with humor and a bit of surprise now and then. And the French Alps scenery, of course, should please anyone with a taste for snowy vistas and charming little resort hotels.

There's nothing great here, however. Real mystery fans may well expect more, but for comedy/mystery aficionados, we don't get movies like this often enough to look that gift horse in the mouth.

In French with English subtitles and running just a tad too long at 104 minutes, Playing Dead will appear on DVD and via VOD streaming.

DVD, Blu-ray & VODebut: From Canada, April Mullen and Tim Doiron's fast-moving, bloody 88

Perhaps we should think of April Mullen, the director of this new movie, as a kind of Quentina Tarantina -- so insistent is she on giving us fast-moving, comedic and bloody mayhem with a definite ironic twist. If, by now, we've seen a bit too much of aped Tarantino (if not way too much of the real thing, as well), this should not necessarily put you off viewing Ms Mullen's latest offering, 88. It's rather fun, in its over-the-top manner. Much of that fun is provided by a fellow named Tim Doiron, who wrote the screenplay and co-stars as the unlucky young man who finds himself smitten with the film's leading lady, Gwen, payed by Katharine Isabelle, whom some of us fondly remember from Ginger Snaps.

Ms Mullen (shown at left, and something of a looker herself), is an actress, as well as director, and she certainly gives her leading lady enough rope to either hang herself or lasso a nifty performance. Ms Isabelle manages to do both. She's deadly serious throughout, which results in the movie around her often seeming skewed, as the rest of the cast have caught onto the irony and laughs, while she is dead set on nothing but revenge. Sort of. The plot here, you see, deals with a young woman in a "Fugue state," which the movie goes out of its way to explain in some detail, none of which makes the goings-on any more believable, though it does help explain some of the bizarre behavior on display.

88 -- the title refers to just about every street address and motel room number throughout the movie -- begins with our heroine (above) sitting in a diner where, suddenly, all hell breaks loose. This ploy happens often throughout the film, and while it eventually drags things down, initially (and for quite awhile) it proves a lot of fun. This girl is clearly muddled, and when the movie begins flipping back and forth in time, so are we.

For much of its running time, 88 is one of those movies that asks: "Who is this character, what the fuck is happening, and why?" Slowly the pieces come together, but I'm afraid that fugue state doesn't really explain it all to our satisfaction. Yet the action rarely ceases, and much of it is randy, nasty fun, as Gwen looks to find and kill the person responsible for her lover's untimely demise. (He is played by Kyle Schmid, above, right, used here mostly for his drowsy sex appeal.)

Instead it is Mr. Doiron, above, as a new character in Gwen's life named Ty, who provides most of the movie's energy and spirit. The actor is marvelous as this screwball, comical-but-sexy wonder who hopes against hope that he can make Gwen his own. As well as a terrific performance, Doiron also gives us a few surprises via his screenplay.

Canada's old-time favorite Michael Ironside (above) plays the lead cop investigating the many deaths that Gwen oversees, while Christopher Lloyd (below) handles the villain role with his usual bizarre aplomb. Eventually, there are so many killings and maimings going on that you fear there will be nary a cast member remaining by movie's end.

The violence soon become comical -- it's meant to be -- and when you get to the point where one character (the lead cop, as I recall) says, "She's armed, she's dangerous, and she must be stopped!" you know you're in comic book territory.

88 -- from Millennium Entertainment and running, yes, 88 minutes -- makes its DVD, Blu-ray and VOD debut this coming Tuesday, January 6. Consider yourself informed (or maybe warned).

Streaming oddity: Zach Bernbaum's surprisingly adept AND NOW A WORD FROM OUR SPONSOR

It may be a one-note wonder, but what a note it delivers! AND NOW A WORD FROM OUR SPONSOR tells the tale of a famous ad agency head who goes a little nuts and begins spouting only slogans from television commercials and print advertising in place of the usual dialog needed to get around in our world. The weird thing is: It mostly works -- as both a route to being understood and as an often delectably entertaining movie. Of course it helps immensely that the fellow in question is played by top-notch Canadian actor Bruce Greenwood, who is surrounded by some first-rate talent in the supporting roles. The movie's biggest asset, however is its screenplay credited to Michael Hamilton-Wright, which makes rather amazing use of those commercial tag lines.

Director Zach Bernbaum, whose first full-length film this is, does a commendable job of stringing the story together, with pleasant pacing and a professional look, but it is Mr. Hamilton-Wright's terrific dialog between Greenwood's character, Adan Kundle, and the rest of the cast, that makes the movie such delicious fun. Literally everything out of Adan's mouth is from some advertisement or other, and yet Greenwood (shown below) makes these run the gamut from funny to moving, sad to sweet -- even sometimes nicely furthering the odd plot along. That plot would have to do with two things, one business-related, the other personal.

The first of these has Adan, above, trying to hold onto his position as head of a hugely successful ad agency, at which one of his underlings, a slick sleaze played appropriately by Callum Blue, below, is trying to have Adan declared unfit for command.

The second plot strand has our very odd "hero," while his health plan moves slowly forward to get him into a rehab facility, moving in with the helpful Karen Hillridge (Parker Posey, below, right), and her estranged daughter Meghan (Allie MacDonald, below, left), and slowly commandeering a kind of truce between the two.

Most of the fun (and even, sometimes, the emotion) is supplied by those terrific slogans, which keep falling from Greenwood's lips like honey and vinegar. (The best of these, coming toward the finale, involves a certain famous credit card commercial.) Greenwood is such a fine actor that he can take a concept like this, that could run its course all too quickly, and turn it into something that grows more magical and riveting as it proceeds.

Where the film is going is a kind of mystery, right up until the end. When that arrives, however, you'll realize that we've been being prepared for this, almost from the beginning. This finale takes And Now a Word from Our Sponsor into entirely new realms -- fantasy, philosophy, maybe even religion -- and it seems somehow entirely appropriate and maybe just a little bit creepy.

The movie, available on DVD, can also be streamed via Netflix or Amazon Instant Video. Give it a whirl, as there's little remotely like it out there in entertainment-land.

Hell on earth for folk without a country--Charles Shaw's dark EXILE NATION: The Plastic People

The filmmaker's name is Charles Shaw (don't mix him up with that "famous" brand of wine sold by Trader Joe's). His film -- his first full-length documentary -- is an unsettling one about those men and women without a country, mostly Mexican illegals, many of whom have been in the USA for decades, who, after 9/11 and with Obama's disgusting "take" on our immigration policy, were suddenly deported to Mexico.  Mexico, unfortunately, does not want them, either. So they are dropped off in Tijuana with no money or any source of income, only to learn that local authorities and the police will harass them day and night, steal the clothes off their back and shoes off their feet, destroy their makeshift homes time and again, beat them and sometimes ever murder them (is there anything quite so wonderfully reliable as a Mexican cop?).

The documentary, titled EXILE NATION: THE PLASTIC PEOPLE, is homemade in the extreme. From its too-long and too-confusing title to its poorly designed poster (above, in which the sub-title seems to be replacing the title), to its intentional and necessary use of cell phones as video cameras (the police crack down on anyone seen filming) -- Mr. Shaw (shown at left) tracks a perilous creative course but still manages to end up with a relatively brief film worth seeing and thinking about. As the movie's narrator, Edward James Olmos (below), explains early on, because these sudden "immigrants," though born in Mexico, are now American by culture and nurture (sometimes they don't even speak Spanish well enough to get by), they do not at all fit into their new environment and thus are referred to by the locals as a term that translates to "plastic people."

We get to know briefly and anything-but-completely several of these newly deported people, especially one fellow, Javier Godinez Mondragon, who goes by the nickname of Dragon (below) and acts as our tour guide to this new environment -- a kind of hell on earth into which you would want to see no one you care about have to enter. Little wonder, given what they must endure, that so many of these immigrants end up on drugs (the cartels are an ever-present fact of life here) -- or dead.

We also meet and see the work of Chris Bava (below), who photographs many of these people and offers them help when he can, and Jonathan Espinoza, a newly married young deportee who has spent his life since five years old in America and is suddenly deported. According to the film, the 9/11 attacks began a long period of anti-immigration policy, most of which (97 per cent) has been taken out, as it ever has been historically, on Latinos, most of which have been Mexican-Americans.

These new displaced persons (we don't need another Nazi Holocaust to produce a mini-nation of DPs) are fighting for their very lives in front of us, and although the film often looks and sounds as if the filmmaker simply tossed aloft all his materials and let them fall where they may (we sometimes aren't sure who is speaking at a certain moment), the result remains unsettling and disturbing. At times the film may remind you of John Carpenter's They Live, in which the police have become "legal terrorists."

We learn of the Tijuana prison (from a fellow who was incarcerated for awhile), and discover how Mr. Bava helped Jonathan and his extended family (and also what happened to Bava himself). There is a little joy amidst all the horror, but mostly this hell-on-earth tale points up the staggering cost to illegals caught in this vise. Perhaps Obama's most recent moves on immigration will relieve the situation for those still here in America. But for those already condemned, there seems little hope.

Exile Nation: The Plastic People was released to Digital VOD this past December 16 and is now available via iTunes, Amazon Instant Video, PlayStation, Xbox, Vimeo on Demand, VHX, Gumroad, Google Play and elsewhere. That pretty much covers it -- except for Netflix, on which it might eventually appear.