In MATT SHEPARD IS A FRIEND OF MINE Michele Josue reopens/helps heal an old wound

Can it really be more than 16 years since the murder in Wyoming of an elfin-like kid named Matthew Shepard became national and then worldwide news? More than any other victim of a gay hate crime that I can ever recall, young Shepard became the face, body, heart and soul of gay victim-hood. He stood for it all. "Matthew always wanted to be famous," notes the boy's guidance counselor (himself a gay man), with sadness and irony, during the course of this new documentary. One can't help but wonder, after seeing MATT SHEPARD IS A FRIEND OF MINE -- written and directed by Michele Josue, who was indeed a good friend of the murdered boy -- what Shepard himself would make of the kind of martyr he has now become.

One of the many strengths of the documentary is that Ms Josue, shown at right, sees to it that Shepard becomes much more than mere martyr by filling in many of the blanks a lot of us did not know, unless we followed the case in enormous detail -- and even then I believe that the filmmaker has brought new facts, speculations and ideas to the table.

Josue manages this by bringing to that table a landfall of interviews, mostly with Shepard's family, to whom he was extremely close, and with teachers, counselors and his many friends. Everybody liked this fellow, it seems. So, too, might have his murderers, had they only gotten to know him a little longer and a little better. When they were sober.

For the first half of this 89-minute movie, we hear all about the boy-growing-into-young-man with accompanying photographs, most of them stills. We learn how his family moved to Saudi Arabia due to dad's work and how, because of lack of schools for the English speaking, Matthew was placed in a boarding school in Switzerland. This is where he met many of the friends shown and interviewed in the movie.

These kids (that's Matthew, second from right) took trips around Europe as part of their education, and they persuaded the school's administration to allow their trip to Morocco -- a trip that changed Matthew's life in ways you'll learn when you see the film.

Around the halfway point, we get to the murder itself, bits of which are told and shown, and then the remainder of the film tries to come to terms with what happened and why and what might be done to prevent more of the same. We see those idiotic demonstrators waving their signs telling us that God Hates Fags, and Ms Josue interviews the priest who spoke at length to one of Shepard's murderers, pre-sentencing. That priest's advice to the filmmaker, who is having a very hard time coming to terms with all this, proves illuminating.

Shepard's parents and brother seem a particularly kind and likable family, and when, post-"event," they become involved in the Foundation that now bears their son's name, we realize that this is where the film has been heading: into the territory of redemption. Fortunately, Josue doesn't over-do this angle. She simply offers it up as one of the alternatives involved in moving on.

Matt Shepard Is a Friend of Mine is a very personal documentary that becomes, over its full length, much more than that. It gives a young man who was mostly seen as victim the chance to live as a more full-bodied character, someone with whom we all might easily have become friends. The movie, from Run Rabbit Run Media opens at New York's AMC Empire 25 on Friday, February 6, then expands to Los Angeles' Laemmle Noho 7 on the following Friday, February 13. 

Update: as of November 3, 2015, the film is available via DVD 

and digital from Education Pictures and Virgil Entertainment. 

There's no excuse to miss out: 

This documentary is worth seeing.

Apartheid's end as seen from the opposite side: Nicolas Rossier's doc, THE OTHER MAN, opens

If, after the death of this most important African leader, you as did I began to feel overcome with the growing amount of Mandel-iana -- movies, documentaries, magazine articles, television shows and what not -- I can recommend a new documentary that opens this week and covers a fellow whom many of us Americans probably saw as the adversary of Nelson Mandela: former South African President, F.W. de Klerk. Titled THE OTHER MAN : F.W. de Klerk and the End of Apartheid and directed by Nicolas Rossier (shown below, who gave us the excellent doc, American Radical: The Trials of Norman Finkelstein), this new film might have you initially thinking that it will be some kind of whitewash of de Klerk. Not on your life.

Neither is the documentary a condemnation. Rather, it's a very interesting look at a man who would dearly and clearly like to be remembered as some sort of savior of South Africa, but is more likely to be thought of as the white South African at the top of the power chain who at least had the sense to do what had to be done to avoid an oncoming bloodbath. Frederik Willem De Klerk's family history goes back to the British vs the Dutch South Africans, and as the former President, pictured below, tells it, the preferable phrase is not "apartheid" but "separate development" to describe the condition affecting South African blacks under white rule during that prolonged era. (Yes, the phrase does remind one somewhat of our own country southern style "separate but equal" nonsense.)

Under this "separate development," de Klerk likes to remind us, "there was a big improvement of the physical lot of black people in South Africa." Yes, and also torture, imprisonment, massacres and the like. He also says -- and often reminds us that he said it -- "I've come to the conclusion the apartheid was wrong." Hallelujah.

We learn of the man's history, and of the influence of his older and more liberal brother, as well as his much more conservative first wife. During the course of the film, we are also reminded of our own President Reagan's pro-apartheid stance, and the Republican-controlled congress that actually over-rode Reagan's veto on the matter because American public opinion back then was so strongly anti-apartheid. (Can you remotely imagine our Republican-controlled congress doing anything like this today?)

The man is given credit for doing the right thing, even in the face of the possibility of his own security agency and military joining with the far-right wing. At the end of the day, he did have the guts to call the kind of shots -- freeing purely political prisoners, member of the Communist Party and the ANC -- that many members of the white South African establishment could not abide. At the same time that all this was going on, the world was watching what was happening in Angola, as well as the fall of the Berlin Wall, and soon after, if piece-meal, the fall of the Communist block itself.

The documentary shows us much of the violence that occurred, post apartheid; as the film makes clear, some whites and some blacks preferred violence over change. During that change, de Klerk and Mandela became partners -- if uncomfortable partners. In 1993, the pair was jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize (below). Many of the us recall Mandela's receiving it, fewer remember de Klerk's award.

Once the movie gets into certain individual stories of the recipients of violence -- the mother of a particular black woman (below), the blinding and bombing of a priest -- it goes a bit off-target because these individu-als, despite their loss, simply are not to the point of this film in the way that its leaders were and are. Finally, the documentary comes down to a question (regarding de Klerk's knowledge of the many assassinations and massacres that took place) that many Americans will remember from our own Nixon/Watergate years: What did he know and when did he know it?

It seems safe to say that de Klerk simply did not want to know and so lets himself off the hook too easily. Finally a comparison is made between this South African leader and Russia's Mikhail Gorbachev. The comparison is in some ways pretty apt, but hearing de Klerk point out where it goes off course is both funny and ridiculous. Whatever else he might be, the fellow has a mile-wide streak of egotistical narcissism.

From First Run Features and lasting just 76 minutes, The Other Man, a South Africa/USA co-production, has its New York theatrical premiere this Friday, February 6, at the Quad Cinema. Other playdates? None are listed yet, but being from FRF, the film will surely have a DVD release at some future date.

Eric Schaeffer butts up against convention once again -- gloriously -- in BOY MEETS GIRL

A filmmaker who consistently goes his own way -- unconventionally, often where sexuality is concerned -- Eric Schaeffer is at it again in his newest movie, BOY MEETS GIRL. Mr. Schaeffer usually stars in his own films, and for some audiences I think this has proven a deal-breaker. TrustMovies happens to enjoy this actor/director's somewhat abrasive on-screen personality, and so his films have generally given me more pleasure than not. In this latest, which is also one of his best movies, the filmmaker plays but a tiny role, leaving the major acting to the chops of others. This may prove a smart move, garnering Schaeffer (shown below) a newer and wider audience.

Throughout his more than 25-year career as both writer and director, Schaeffer has been most interested in three topics: the independent movie business, love relationships and, of late, out-of-the-mainstream sexuality. After Fall, Winter dealt with (surprisingly well) the relationship between a blocked writer and a younger dominatrix, while Boy Meet Girl tackles the transgendered in a manner that provides the least judgmental, most all-embracing movie experience on this subject that I've yet seen. Not that other characters in the film are not judgmental and sometimes nasty, but the filmmaker/creator attempts to and mostly succeeds at showing us this experience from as many angles and viewpoints as possible, while focusing on his leading character, Ricky, a boy who has always longed to be a girl and has for some time been working to make this desire a reality.

As played by the very pretty and talented newcomer, Michelle Hendley (above and below), Ricky is alternately sweet, sassy and sad, as she/he negotiates her way through the various land mines of sexual freedom in today's Kentucky. TrustMovies is guessing that Ms Hendley is herself transgendered. Or maybe not. I don't think it really matters because the point of this unusually clever and affecting film is that all kinds of love and sex and genders are OK and to be encouraged.

Even the hugely overused title that Schaeffer has chosen turns out to be just about perfect, for Boy indeed Meets Girl in this film in all kinds of ways, real and ironic, most remarkably in the performance of Ms Hendley, which bring the two together in a manner we have not seen. In one of the final moments, a full-frontal knock-out (which may or may not have been CGI-enhanced), we see the sexes coming together unforgettably. (Note: I have just been informed by the film's publicist that Ms Hendley is indeed transgender, which is unusual since most transgender roles, notably Jared Leto’s character in Dallas Buyer’s Club, are played by non-trans actors. Also: there are no CGI effects in that nudity scene.)

This is part of what Schaeffer wants -- to force us to confront things we would prefer to leave in the dark. He has his characters do this, too, and his command of screenwriting and directing has grown stronger over the years until, in this film -- romantic comedy that it most assuredly is -- he brings it all home: the confrontation, the boundary-breaking, the shock and finally the acceptance.

The moviemaker and his casting director, Jenn Haltman, have come up with a terrifically good bunch of actors, each of whom manages to succeed and surprise us. The plum role of Ricky's new friend and maybe more, a local debutante named Francesca, is played by Alexandra Turshen (above), who brings immense beauty, charm and generosity to her glowing performance.

In the role of Ricky's long-term best pal, Robby, Michael Welch (three photos above) all but steals the movie with his rough/sweet portrayal of a guy who is faithful and trustworthy yet can't see or accept what he most wants and needs, while a dark hunk named Michael Galante (above) surprises with his initial homophobia that masks something more and yet offers a step beyond the usual cliché we're so used to seeing.

Even the parents here prove a little unusual. There's a scene at an engagement party in which one father, whom we'd expect to be a bigot, shows his sturdier side, while another -- Ricky's kindly dad, played very well by Randall Newsome (above) -- proves the sort of father we all wish we'd had. Schaeffer also manages a funny flashback (below) involving a "flasher" and the response he gets from our little "girl."

Boy Meets Girl is such a feel-good delight -- while tackling a subject that is usually anything but -- that it is tempting to over-praise it. So I'll stop right here. But it's a big step forward for Mr. Schaffer. I can't wait to see what this fellow gets up to next. The movie, from Wolfe Releasing, opens this Friday, February 6, in New York City at the Village East Cinema, and on February 27 at Laemmle's Noho 7 in the L.A. area. Midway between these dates on February 13 -- it will open in San Diego, Washington DC and Brattleboro, Vermont. Click here to see all dates and theaters.

On Video -- Ned Benson's THE DISAPPEARANCE OF ELEANOR RIGBY: HER, HIM & THEM

TrustMovies may be selling this unusual compilation short, since THE DISAPPEARANCE OF ELEANOR RIGBY arrives in a single and complete package that includes all three versions: Her, Him and the one titled Them, which, I imagine, includes at least some of both the "her" and "him" stories. Because time is fleeting and I seem to have less and less or it at my disposal, I decided to view the Them version first, and then, if I liked it well enough, to move on to the two individual accounts. Not to keep you in undue suspense, Them -- which runs just over two hours -- proved tiresome enough to keep me from further viewing.

Written and directed by Ned Benson, pictured at left, who moves up from making short films to making a much-more-than-full-length one, the movie contains the kind of dialog that, despite the best attempt of a crack cast, often rings false, alternating between cliché and pomposity. Early on we're told that "Tragedy is a foreign country." Well, it ain't. Japan and Afghanistan are foreign countries (unless you happen to have been born and raised there, of course). Even taken metaphorically, the sentence can only remind of you of a much better one, "The past is a foreign country," from L.P. Hartley's The Go-Between (book and movie), which actually resonates on various levels.

Later in the film, à propos the death a very young child, the hero is told, "A shooting star lasts only a second, but aren't you glad to have seen it?" This is "poetic," all right, but it pretty much misses the entire point of the wreckage that occurs because of that death. And then there's "family": Notes mother to daughter at one point along the way, "I don't want you to take our relationship too personally."

Mr. Benson's dialog is full of this sort of nonsense, and given the excellent work of a fine cast -- including Jessica Chastain (above), James McAvoy (below), Ciarán Hinds, William Hurt (at left, two photos below), Isabelle Huppert (center left, two photos below), Viola Davis, Jess Weixler (at right, two photos below), Bill Hader and Nina Arianda (at bottom, left) -- the performances raise our enjoyment level, while keeping our minds off some of the sillier give-and-take.

Even the use of the old Beatles' Eleanor Rigby song for the movie's title and the lead character's name is good for a so-what joke about character history and little more. It's simply misjudged, like much else in this movie.

But there's another big problem, too. Everything here is finally about the death of that child. Unfortunately this seems to rule out the film's being about much of anything else, including character, history and the marriage in question. We learn so little else about these people that they remain attractive ciphers mouthing pompous proclamations. Everything is surface: employment, desires, relationships. Yes, a child's death is indeed major, but the environment that surrounds it must be brought to deep and meaningful life if we are to be made to care.

Perhaps the Him and Her sections solve this problem. I'm afraid I don't have the time to invest to find out. If you do, please watch and then advise me. Meanwhile, The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby in all its incarnations -- from Anchor Bay Entertainment and The Weinstein Company -- hits DVD, Blu-ray and On-Demand today, February 3, after an early digital download window that opened up last month. With the Blu-ray and DVD, you can see all three versions for the price of one. 

Digital/streaming/DVDebut: Thomas Allen Harris' look at the history of black photographers and photography in THROUGH A LENS DARKLY

Based upon and inspired by histor-ian/photographer Deborah Willis' book, Reflections in Black, this new documentary by Thomas Allen Harris is a not-to-be-missed exploration of black photography and photographers, from as far back as the beginning of the medium up until pretty much our modern times. The trip unveils a wealth of photos, most of which I can near guarantee you won't have seen, as well as interviews with more than 50 African-American photog-raphers and/or historians whose ongoing narration is informative, often surprising and sometimes wonderfully poetic.

As Ms Willis informs us early on, "It's important for not only the African-American audience, but for the larger audience, to under-stand what it meant to have a political history, an artistic history, and a social history of photog-raphy."

Mr. Harris, shown above with one of those photographs, has compiled quite a rich lode of photography and then put it all together into a fascinating mix. There is not one uninteresting minute in all of the 93 on display -- including the "branded" Nike insignias that appear on the body of one black man and seem to hark back to the slave brandings on the body of another, maybe two hundred years previous.

There is little need for Harris or his movie to strike any heavy-duty political pose, for nearly everything in it -- as is nearly everything in the history of blacks in America -- is already plenty political. Instead Harris and his various interviewees and narrators simply show and tell and let the chips fall where they may. We see everything from early photos of a slave family, in which each member is nude and full frontal, to Sojourner Truth and her photos, from which she actually earned a living, to the more modern work of Renee Cox, shown on poster, top, and below.

We view photos of various lynchings, in which the white onlookers appear to be at some sort of celebration -- smiling and happy and having a wonderful time -- and see the black soldiers who fought for the U.S. from the Civil War through World War II. We also watch image after image of the ways in which the white world pictured blacks move before us. Oh-oh: Here come the black gays and lesbians, too, and finally even feminism via important black women photographers.

THROUGH A LENS DARKLY: BLACK PHOTOGRAPHERS AND THE EMERGENCE OF A PEOPLE is eye-opening is so many ways -- from its explanation of what passing-for-white meant to many blacks in earlier times (and what is a photo of J. Edgar Hoover doing here, I wonder? Was he perhaps a mixed-race cross-dresser?) to what the wonderful work of photographers like Gordon Parks and Roy De Carava meant to their contemporaries, as well as to us now.

Among the shockers are the photos of Emmett Till, alive and then dead, but there is plenty of beauty on display to compensate (but not erase) the horror of American racism. We even get a short look at some smart commercial photography along the way, and this charming thought from one of our more recent photographers, as his morning arrives, "If I just wake up fast enough, I can photograph my dream!"

See this wonderful documentary, a "must" for anyone interested in photography or back history. From First Run Features and totaling 93 minutes in length, after a nice theatrical run last year, it can now be seen, beginning yesterday, February 2, as an iTunes exclusive; then on DVD come February 10; premiering February 16 on PBS Independent Lens, and arriving via Netflix on February 17. 

Marjane Satrapi jumps genres, Ryan Reynolds grows ever more versatile with THE VOICES

"Have you been taking your medicine?" This question--asked of Jerry (Ryan Reynolds in yet another of his many excellent, versatile, and likely-to-be-overlooked performances) by his therapist (Jacki Weaver)--hangs over the new movie THE VOICES like a shroud. The answer is always no, and the result, while pretty awful, is also the reason the film exists. Jerry, you see, is one of those borderline personalities kept in check by medication but capable of who-knows-what when he goes off it. Who-knows-what is exactly what we get in this very funny, bizarre, surprising, alternately gory and subdued genre-jumper that looks at mental illness from a variety of angles -- most of them nothing quite like we've previously seen. Sure, we've had a number of comic killer/slasher/thriller movies, but this one's something else. It takes a look at insanity from a different perspective.

Director Marjane Satrapi (shown at left, who gave us the animated Persepolis and the even better Chicken With Plums) usually has a hand in the screen-writing. That she did not in this case may have something to do with the movie's jarring notes, and yet this jarring may be what enables the whole thing to work as well as it does. How the fantasy of insanity knocks up against reality is part of the movie's point, and Ms Satrapi shows it to us via some interesting visual and audial counterpointing. It isn't simply that Jerry converses with his pets -- a kindly dog and a nasty cat -- when he's off his meds; notice the look and the cleanliness of his home with and without those pills, particularly once the carnage begins. Satrapi doesn't push things, but she does enable them. And the screenplay, from Michael R. Perry, keeps the plot on point with decent dialog and an arc that goes where we dearly wish it wouldn't, though we know it must.

That the movie succeeds as well as it does rests on the broad-enough shoulders of Mr. Reynolds (above and below), who, with his cutie-pie face and great body, makes a very appealing hero who can then turn scary on a dime. Further, he does all the animal voices -- quite a range! -- and even sings and dances, too. Move over, Hugh Jackman.

In the supporting cast are a number of good actress, from Ms Weaver to Gemma Arterton (the head being fed, above, as the co-worker on whom Jerry has a crush) and Anna Kendrick (below, as another co-worker who has a crush on him).

Reynolds keeps us rooting for Jerry beyond all wisdom and hope, even as events turn darker and nastier. The filmmaker manages to hold things together, sometimes shakily, but that is also part of the bizarre fun. Perhaps it takes someone who grew up in Iran to show us America so bluntly -- in day-glo pastels for the way we imagine and/or want things to be, and then earth, blood and shit tones as reality sets in.

As I say, as many so-called comedy shockers as you may have already encountered, you'll probably not have seen something comparable to The Voices -- which seems to spin near-gold out of the very straw of its occasional missteps.

The movie, from Lionsgate and running 104 minutes, opens this Friday, February 6, at an AMC theater in ten cities: Atlanta, Chicago, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Miami, Philadelphia and Phoenix. Here in NYC, it will play the AMC Empire 25, and in the L.A. area, look for it at AMC's Citywalk Stadium 19. Simultaneously, it will be available via VOD, as well.

Video/streaming debut: Władysław Pasikowski's AFTERMATH ups the stakes in the "Europe's-most-anti-Semitic-country" competition

Just when you think you've seen the worst of it, along comes another entry in that ever-popular competition to determine which European country proved the most anti-Semitic during World War II. Of course it all began with Germany and Austria, so they're clearly never off the hook (with Italy not far behind). But, my, how Hungary managed to help the Nazis out, as well (see one of the finest Holocaust films, Fateless). France, too, has a lot to answer for (as the release of both Sarah's Key and La Rafle recently showed us). But, ah, Poland: There is nothing quite like that little country. I don't have time to list all the movies that implicate Poland. Even films like Agnieszka Holland's fine In Darkness -- which showed Polish Jews being rescued, albeit grudgingly, by a Christian Pole -- also allowed us to learn how his fellow Poles treated this guy, post-rescue. One wonders if Britain and/or the U.S. would have acted differently, had they, too, been conquered by the Nazis? Doubtful.

One of the latest in this ever-popular competition is AFTERMATH (Poklosie), a film written and directed by Władysław Pasikowski (shown at left) that, when it made its debut in its home country, had both adherents and naysayers aplenty. I missed it upon its theatrical release, but now its distributor Menemsha Films has made it available on DVD, Blu-ray and digital streaming, so there is little reason for you to miss it. Aftermath, said to be based on actual events, is among the most grueling and shocking of the post-Holocaust-guilt-and-shame movies that yours truly has yet encountered. In it, one brother, who left his native Poland for America years ago (Ireneusz Czop, below), suddenly returns there to find his younger brother up to his ears in odd behavior, with even worse stuff coming from his fellow townspeople, all devout, church-going Christians, doncha know!

What lies at the bottom of all this? It take the entire movie to find out, but as it moves along, Aftermath slowly divulges its information piecemeal, keeping us in the kind of suspense and on the sort of tenterhooks that a good thriller might provide. From the outset we notice the kind of anti-Semitism we're used to seeing and hearing in both narrative and documentary film from and about Poland, so we are more or less "prepped" for some of what is to come. But not nearly all.

Learning the entire story is something else again. While the older brother has his own anti-Jewish tales to tell about his America experience, we still learn things mostly through his eyes, though it becomes the younger brother (Maciej Stuhr, shown above and at bottom) with whom we most identify, particularly when we understand what he is trying to do and the odds against his achieving this.

The townspeople we meet range from marginally helpful to downright nasty, except for a pleasant young woman and a priest (below, left) whose parish is about to be taken over by younger, sleazier blood (above, center, right). What we and that older brother finally discover comes at us in bits and pieces, one more awful than the next. By the finale, this family, the town, and I'm afraid by extension the country itself are held up before us as a collective of ugly, bigoted horror.

Clearly, the filmmaker is after an indictment -- which he gets. But as good as his movie often is, I wish it had refrained from the occasional bit of melodrama that goes over the top. Though in all fairness, I must add that where this subject and the actions of certain so-called human beings are concerned, it is difficult to imagine what "over the top" might include.

Meanwhile, Aftermath, is available now on DVD and Blu-ray and via various digital streaming outlets such as Netflix. Tighten your seat belt and give it a whirl.