The Gay Outsider: films of William E. Jones screen at Anthology Film Archives

All gays are necessarily outsiders, but within this "outsider" status, the filmmaker under consideration here occupies a rather special place. What a strange -- at times bracing, at others boring -- experience it is to watch in relatively quick succession half a dozen works (roughly eight hours of viewing time spent) from gay experimental-though-never-inaccessible filmmaker William E. Jones, much (maybe all) of whose work is being given a week-long run at Anthology Film Archives in New York City.  The program is co-sponsored by MIX NYC (the folk who bring us the NY Queer Experimental Film Festival) and by the Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality at NYU.

From his first foray into more-of-less feature-length film, MASSILLON (70 minutes, 1991), the autobiographical account of growing up as a gay man in the mid-western U.S., Mr. Jones (shown at right) proves via both his narration and visuals a rather dry and stately guide to his own and to gay life in general.  His voice, flat and calm with a minimum of feeling expressed, is actually rather soothing to hear.  TrustMovies grew fond of it after awhile, and missed it in those documentaries in which it was not present. The filmmaker is highly selective about what he chooses to show and tell. From religious no-nos to the first stirring of rumors of the 'other' to wrestling, friends, and his "first time" (about as un-sexy as can be imagined), he leads us along a path both typical in its budding of homosexual urges and yet highly individualized.  Then suddenly Jones jolts us with a shift in tone and tenor to a radio rant from a fundamentalist religious speaker.

In Part 2, we get a tour of British and American law regarding sodomy, from centuries ago through the 1980s.  Part 3 sees our "hero" moving to California and into a sterile housing development accompanied by a too-lengthy run-down of the terms used for homosexual.  I found Jones less interesting when he gives us history -- perhaps because I already knew much of it, except for the story of the Catharis (Bulgarians in what is now Southern France), which I found fascinating.

All of Jones' visuals, by the way, use landscape, with, unless I missed something, no humans shown until nearly the very end of the film, and even then only at great distance.  When Jones mentions "hoping to return to the moment before I knew that desires had names," I think you'll understand how he feels. His narration is quite direct: the fellow uses no euphemisms, though his visuals are chaste.  Even when offering up men and skin, as in the photo, top, Jones stops well short of anything hard-core, or, for that matter, soft.) Filmed between 1987 and 1990, Massillon was remastered in 2007. It ends with a 1773 quote from Denis Diderot that remains as timely now as then.

In 1997, Jones made FINISHED, a very odd doc about Alan Lambert (above, whose real French-Canadian name was Alain Lebeau), a young man who made his fortune, such as it was, "acting" in gay porno films in Southern California and committed suicide at the young age of 25.  Jones gives us a quick take on So. Cal. gay porn, delves into the "philosophy" of Lambert (cult-like and very odd), speaks to a few of his friends, and ends up with little of note. He clearly had a crush on Lambert/Lebeau, but either due to the unwillingness of anyone close to the porn star to talk much, or to Jones' own penchant for reticence, not much manages to surface here.  Lambert appears to have been a self-deluded nut, and Jones' use of scenes/snippets from the classic film Meet Joe Doe does not really compute. Watch Adored: Diary of a Porn Star for more fun and even perhaps, in its campy way, more depth.

A Jones "shorts" program is also included in this retrospective: four films ranging from eight to 29 minutes and spanning 1986 through 2006.  The only one of the four that I was able to view was the very interesting, 19-minute THE FALL OF COMMUNISM AS SEEN IN GAY PORNOGRAPHY (Really: How can you resist that title?).  As usual, we have Jones' dulcet voice washing over us with comments about history, pornography, economics, Capitalism, Communism and more, while we watch probably the most beautiful group of young men seen in any of Jones' work.  Also as usual, even though this short deals with pornography, we get no full frontal, just a lot of nice skin and terrific faces.

The filmmaker notes that the porn actors of eastern Europe are paid 1/10th of what their counterparts elsewhere earn. And that they tend to stare at the camera with something approaching malice.  Indeed they do: the hostility of some of the faces is jarring.  We see a few of the boys auditioning for their new career, as an aging director interviews them about their preferences while feeling them up.  Interesting and full of pulchritude, as is the case with much of Jones' work, the film never goes anywhere and remains more of a tease and provocation than a fully thought-out work.

TEAROOM, on the other hand, delivers the goods -- even though these goods (above and below) come in quite ordinary wrapping.  Jones put together his creation in 2007, though it was actually filmed (by the Mansfield, Ohio, Police Department) in 1962. After installing a camera to shoot through a two-way mirror in a closet door, the police captured scene after scene of men of various classes and races engaging in sexual activity.  Though the film is grainy as hell, with a stationery camera that could not peek around corners, you can make out the occasional stiff member and see all sort of sexual positioning taking place.  The footage was later used by the Ohio courts as evidence, and all the men shown here were found guilty. At this time in Ohio, sodomy carried a mandatory sentence of at least one year in the state penitentiary, and so Jones' film, as is often the case with his work, becomes a kind of "found" object that offers up suppressed history, simultaneously making it into something new for our own time.  Sans narration, the only noticeable directorial touch here is a title card that reads 15 Steps -- the number that leads down into the men's room at hand.

For me, the biggest surprise in the lot -- as well as the most interesting and professionally handled -- is Jone's relatively standard, talking-heads documentary from 2004 entitled IS IT REALLY SO STRANGE?  If I have ever heard previously of the musician Morrissey, I evidently did not pay enough attention to know anything more about him than his name.  But Mr.Jones certainly did.  A kind of hero to the filmmaker and the subjects he interviews (due to lyrics that spoke directly to the needs and desires of, primarily it would seem, gays and Latinos), Morrissey never became mainstream, though he did achieve about as much fame as possible within the status of "cult."

 

With this documentary we're back to the witty, subdued Jones narration, as he interviews maybe six or eight subjects about their connection to Morrissey and his songs.  What distinguishes the work is its lovely combination of honesty and intelligent response from all the interviewees and the un-pushy but still probing questions and follow-through from Jones.  This is one of the best represetnations of Latinos in documentary film that I have ever seen.  At the same time it is one of the best fan movies of all time: genuine, sweet, sad, real, and neither judgmental nor fawning.  At one point Jones and his photographer take photos of the actual Morrissey and speak to him (and they interview others who have had their own "personal" experience with the musician).  What a treat -- and a change from the relatively empty Finished.

The work that perhaps most earns the name experimental, not to mention ambitious, might be v.o. from 2006, which, I am guessing, refers to "voice-over."  Here, the filmmaker combines occasional narrative with constant visuals of gay pornography (produced prior to 1985) then sets all this to music and soundtracks that have nothing to do with the original visuals that we are seeing. Instead, the sound often comes from famous foreign-language films (in Spanish, Portuguese, German and French). Film buff that I imagine myself to be, I still did not recognize a single sound track. (Let's hope this means I am simply more visually-oriented, rather than that I am losing my memory.)

In v.o. we see meetings, cruisings (one featuring the famous Peter Berlin), courtships, breakups, and the results of this visual/aural crush are sometimes amusing but more often work as a way to distance us from our usual reactions.  The lengthiest segment (below) is devoted to a film about sex in the New York subways (giving new meaning to TheTaking of Pelham 123), and one of the biggest surprises is the jolt these visuals offer as they bring back a subway system almost completely covered with graffiti.  Once again, this is porn-free porno, which may disappoint some but should give others entry into a distinctly different way to see,
hear and think about film.

The Films of William E. Jones series screens Friday, February 26, through Thursday, March 4, with the filmmaker appearing in person to introduce the first screening of each of his films.  You can find the complete AFA Jones' schedule here.

Emily Abt's TOE TO TOE opens; documentarian turns to narrative

Two teens -- one black the other white -- bond and rupture over Lacrosse, school, boys and self-image in documentary filmmaker Emily Abt's new narrative feature TOE TO TOE, with mixed results. Because the girls are played by a couple of vibrant actresses -- Sonequa Martin (shown right, two photos below, and at bottom) as Tasha, and Louisa Krause (three photos below and bottom, right) as Jesse -- the mix pans out a bit more positive than negative.

Ms Abt, shown at left, is dealing here with themes similar to those found in many documentaries -- the difficulties of holding families together in our current age; color, class and self-image; male and female roles in Black families -- and as her film moves along, it becomes clear that she has put into play many of these themes. Too many, as it turns out. One scene, featuring a number of the characters waiting on line to get into a rap concert, threatens to becomes a sociology lecture by the time the kids gain entry. Abt also relies on true-but-tired tropes like the absentee mother (gone missing to work) and the strong Black grandma, but here, at least, she has, as writer, given some depth and variation to the roles. Ally Walker plays the mom with an impatient conviction, while Leslie Uggams does a crackerjack job with Grandma, bringing a nasty edge, zero tolerance for religion and a slightly foul mouth that light up the proceedings noticeably.

What makes the film interesting (for awhile) is how both of our "heroines" are outsiders.  Jesse eats lunch alone, in the hallway, while Tasha seems not to fit in quite anywhere, even in her own home.  (This school does not smack of "Mean Girls.")  No surprise that it's a guy who puts the dent in the twosome's relationship.  Silvestre Rasuk (above, left:, who'll remind you of his brother, Victor) plays him with an interesting combination of charm and seeming sweetness that curdles midway along into one of the more unpleasant males to recently jar the screen.

Also on the positive side is each girl's home life, pictured in a more nuanced and complicated manner than you might expect.  This is offset by too many coincidences, that nagging sense of being lectured to -- plus a finale, the big surprise of which will probably not strike you as such.  While Ms Martin is properly alert, reticent and suspicious, it is Ms Krause (at right) who steals the film.  We've seen this character countless times already -- the lonely (and attractive) rebel without a cause -- but Krause imbues her with such fire and sadness that she wins us over even when she is at her most annoying.

Toe to Toe, distributed by Strand Releasing, opens Friday, February 26, at the Village East Cinema, and perhaps elsewhere in the weeks to come.  If not, look for it eventually on DVD.

DVDebut: Joe Berlinger's CRUDE tackles Ecuador's (via Chevron) oil pollution

A wide canvas filled with visual and verbal sound bites, CRUDE, the 2009 documen-
tary produced & directed by Joe Berlinger (shown below), brings us up close to the 15-year battle going on be-
tween a giant cor-
poration and some Ecuadorian peasants over the petroleum spillage and seepage that appears to be causing horrendous death -- short-term by poison, long-term via cancer. Because the corporation in question began with Texaco, then took a detour via an Ecuadorian consortium, and is now Chevron, portion-
ing responsibility (not to mention bringing about justice) grows ever more difficult and frustrating.

Most viewers, myself included, will be sickened by the havoc caused the villagers and their livestock/animals that live near any of the many polluting sites (the shot of a duck dying is particularly effective) and then made even angrier by the transparent refusal of the flacks and lackeys of the corporation to accept responsibility. The villagers themselves are represented by lawyers from the US and elsewhere who, it seems, do their best to bring the matter to a close. But the foot-
dragging of Chevron (time and its frustrations, as well as vast amounts of money, are on the corporation's side) means that the problem simply goes on and on.

Mr. Berlinger (Brother's Keeper, Paradise Lost, Metallica) bounces about from place to place, continent to continent, in trying to tell this story. He manages it, all right, though I would have appreciated less repetition and more information:  How did the chief US lawyer Steven Donziger get involved in all this? Just how much was Ecuador itself responsible for during the interim tenure of the "consortium"?  Activist Pablo Fajardo's murdered brother, whom we hear about briefly, deserves a bit more attention. If you're going to bring something like this to the scenario, fill us in, please.

With the election of left-wing President Rafael Correa, the tide appears to turn, but this tide moves slowly. Then Sting and his wife Trudie Styler (shown above with a village family) become involved. For all that can be said about the nonsense of celebrities and their "causes," the one hands-on, positive thing we see by film's end are huge tanks employed in some villages to collect rainwater that will be safe to drink.  These arrive via the Styler/Sting connection.

We also see some of the natural beauty of the Amazon region, which is easily offset by the sickness and death in the middle of it all.  Crude is an ironic title in several ways. While it obviously refers to the oil at the center of the situation, it also describes the conduct of the oil companies involved, as well as the style of the documentary itself.  If it is preaching to the converted, of which I am one (big surprise: The New York Times loved the film; The New York Post hated it), at least the information it presents is interesting enough to perhaps draw in some newcomers and/or fence-sitters. 

Throughout the documentary, we witness both sides playing their PR cards:  "Try to use the word 'Texaco' as often as possible," lawyer Donziger advises Ms Styler at one point.  There's an even-
handedness at work here, even if the hand directing the film is clearly on the side of the downtrodden. The end credits actually suggest going to the Chevron web site to learn even more about the com-
pany's viewpoint on all this. 

The DVD of Crude, via First Run Features, arrives for sale and rental on Tuesday, Febru-
ary 23, and is filled with extras -- one of the more interesting of which shows the film's pre-
mier in Ecuador, where it is greeted, not surprisingly, with full houses and activist audiences.

DVDebut: GOOD HAIR -- a smart doc from Chris Rock

Looking back at Black male comics, I'd say that there's never been anyone quite like Chris Rock. From Godfrey Cambridge through Richard Pryor, Flip Wilson, Redd Foxx and Bernie Mac there have been a lot of these talents over the years but no one quite compares to Rock. He's extremely youthful looking and acting (though he just turned 45 this month), generally adorable, witty, smart, often snarky -- and almost always funny.  And unendingly political, too, which often finds him at his best -- as here.

Although his directorial efforts have not yet hit pay dirt, his writing and performing generally do. GOOD HAIR is probably his most focused and funniest full-length film yet.  It is so good, in fact, that it suggests perhaps this fellow should concentrate on the documentary form rather than the narrative -- which has, given his three previous outings (Down to Earth, Head of State and I Think I love My Wife), seemed somewhat tired and second-hand, though with funny and/or moving moments scattered about.

Good Hair tackles the thorny (and curly, frizzy, nappy) question of Black hair and what to do with it.  This is -- especially among Blacks, as Mr. Rock makes clear -- an extremely troublesome subject.  Should the hair be straightened, added to with "weaves," or simply let go to its natural state?  In  addition to having aesthetic and/or cultural consequences, this has economic ones, as well. Black hair care is expensive!  So much so that, according to certain men interviewed here, one look at the black woman's hair and you'll know whether or not you can "afford" her.

We hear the pros and cons of straightening from some Hollywood actresses (Nia Long is for it; Tracie Thoms not) and other celebs (including writer Maya Angelou, the "Rev." Al Sharpton and rapper Ice-T, who closes the movie with one of its best lines). Mr. Rock takes us on a tour of the Black hair-care establishment, which, we eventually learn, is in most cases not controlled by Blacks.  We learn from some very funny, telling interviews how the "straightening" process can hurt and burn, and how it is given to children as young as three years of age.  A chemist, above, talks to Rock about the ingredients in hair straighteners -- which should be enough to scare the pants off most thinking parents. (My granddaughter, below, is half black with hair that's looks like a mixture of Latina and Black, so the movie certainly brought me up short.)

Because so much money is spent by black women on "weave" hair extensions, Rock wants to know where this additional hair comes from.  So off we go to India -- where we learn all sorts of interesting facts which add to the ironies on view -- and then back to the U.S., where Rock tries to sell "Black" hair but finds no buyers.  (They want Indian or Malaysian locks, thank you.)  We visit beauty salons and barber shops (see photos above) -- to get the real word from guys and gals, and these scenes provide the film with some of it funniest and most thought-provoking moments.

If I am making the movie sound like a total Chris Rock endeavor, that is not precisely true or fair, as it was co-written and directed -- quite well -- by Jeff Stilson (shown at left).  Additional co-writers include Lance Crouther, Paul Marchand and Chuck Sklar. On balance, Good Hair achieves what all the best documentaries manage: It educates, informs and entertains.  Plus, it makes you laugh. A lot.

The DVD is available now for sale or rental from your video source of choice.

DVDebut: WOMEN IN TROUBLE -- an encore recommendation

Having seen this movie twice now, loving it even more the second time around, I'm tub-
thumping for it once again. Forget The New York Times' review -- which may have predisposed you against WOMEN IN TROUBLE -- for it is one of the year's funniest and sweet-
est comedies (for nasty comedy, see The Hangover), so full of love for women of all kinds (though these are mostly of the non-standard-family variety) that it bubbles over with effervescent charm.

My original review appeared here last fall, so I'll try not to repeat myself. Watching the film again, made me even more appreciative of Josh Brolin's wonderful turn as a British rock star and Cameron Richardson's dear rendition of a Canadian masseuse, who is told by her patient (the great Adrianne Palicki, shown right at bottom, doing a modern-day Judy Holiday/Gracie Allen combo) that, although she's never been to Canada, she loves -- no: I cannot spoil this delightfully screwy line.

There is so very much to admire and laugh at/with in Sebastian Gutierrez's lovely film (the writer/director is shown at left) that you owe yourself the chance to see this one. I am wondering if it does not possess an especially gay sensibility -- the kind of cultural slant that sees women as objects of great beauty and charm, even when they are at their silliest or most vulnerable. I don't know how else to account for the unusual sweetness at the core of the movie. Even though it deals with porn stars, call girls, clueless therapists and control freaks -- and deals with them in a manner that is definitely not gritty/realistic -- you end up adoring all these women who exist in some alternate universe of sexual shenanigans and often same-sex love, even though the film provides almost nothing in the way of sexual excitement or stimulation. Instead, all of this is all used in the service of comedy. My companion notes that, while a sexual motor seems to be guiding everything, the result is charm and amusement rather than arousal.

Whatever: The movie works quite wonderfully for all of its 90-odd minutes. And don't miss the end of the end credits -- in which an "interview" takes place between two of the stars and what looks like a public-access station host (played by an well-known actor who get star credit but whose actual time in the film is but a five-minute interview). This is a final, delicious treat.

Women in Trouble debuts this week on DVD and is available from all the usual sources.

Photo of Mr. Gutierrez by Jeff Vespa, courtesy WireImage.com

Cindy Kleine's PHYLLIS AND HAROLD shocks, stuns, moves and amuses; filmmaker Q&A

Joining the ranks of top-notch docs about family -- Must Read After My Death, Life Support Music and Capturing the Friedmans -- is this week's opener PHYLLIS AND HAROLD, in which filmmaker Cindy Kleine tells the story of her family, especially that of the title characters -- her mom and dad. Neither as dark/
dysfunctional as "Must Read" nor as functional/
positive as Life Support Music, Phyllis and Harold nonetheless occupies a place all its own in the overcrowded documentary field. As it quietly unfolds, it shocks, moves, educates and entertains in about equal measure.

Beginning with some cute but appropriate stop-motion photography/animation, Ms Kleine (shown at left) sets us up for her role as our grown-up-child guide who's trying to figure out the relationship between her parents. Haven't we all done that at some point in our own lives -- though without, I suspect, either the interest, resources or the skill for unearthing and connecting that this woman possesses?

The less you know going in to this documentary, the more surprises will be in store.  No less a famed documentarian than Ken Burns is on record noting that, while he was viewing the film, various people who happened into the screening room were so caught up with this film that they simply stayed there and watched the entire thing. Yes, it's that addictive.  Part of its attraction stems from its very homemade quality. Not that it isn't professionally mounted in most ways, but it is also so "chatty," warm and real-seeming that, as you might do with a film a friend had made, you first watch out of ease or maybe duty.  Within a few minutes, you're hooked.

A combination of straightforward talking-head interviews, animation, old photos (what a treasure trove here!), home movies, and old songs, the movie's 84 minutes fly.  Seeing her parents both young (above) and old (below) is a revelation -- as much to them as much as to us: "This is like a stranger to me!" marvels her father upon reading one of his old love letters to this young wife.  Just when we're thinking how very salutary this is -- and would be for most oldsters -- Kleine drops the bomb.  From here on, surprise topples surprise, as we discover secrets, war, the family's black nanny and more.  My goodness: how complicated people are, and mysterious, problematic, impossible and sad.

If Phyllis and Harold has at least one ending too many, I think you'll easily forgive Kleine her need for "closure" and sentiment.  She and her family deserve it. And maybe we do, too.  The movie opens Friday, February 19, at NYC's Cinema Village.  For further screening dates, click here.

*******

Once you see the film, you'll have you own set of questions for Ms. Kleine.  Below are ours, with TrustMovies in boldface, Cindy in standard type.  There are spoilers ahead, so perhaps see the film first  and then come back to this.

When and why did you decide to tell your parents’ story?

In a specific way, I decided to tell their story about ten years before I shot the first interviews with them, and I spent years writing a script for what I thought would be a fiction film. In a more abstract way, though, even my earliest work was preparing me to tell their story. My earliest videos and films were all about love relationships, both familial and romantic (Dinosaur, 1979, Secrets of Cindy, 1983, Doug and Mike, Mike and Doug, 1984, Nana, 1987, Passage, 1991, etc...)

Did you always plan to hold it back until both of them were gone? (I would guess so.)


Once I decided the film would be a documentary, I knew I could not tell the whole story until my father was gone. (My mother, on the other hand, would have LOVED it, but that's another story!) So I conceived it as a film that would be made in sections, and got excited about the idea of making a feature length film of three or four sections that could also be shown as shorts, without the other parts. "Til Death Do Us Part" (1998, 20 minutes) was the first section. It premiered at the Telluride Film Festival, and showed in a handful of other choice festivals (Seattle, Vancouver, Rocky Mountain International Women's Film Festival, etc), though I had to hold it back from distribution because my father was alive at the time. The section of my parents reading their love letters was "Part 2", and "Part 3" was supposed to be my parents getting old together. But my father died suddenly while I was shooting that section, and then, inevitably, the direction of the film changed.

Did you and your mom ever talk about her “neglect” of you and your sister when you were kids? If so, how did she respond?

Late in her life, she admitted to some degree her emotional neglect of my sister with great shame and sadness. She couldn't really hear my own feelings, but then, she was a much better mother to me than she was to my sister, I would say.

Your use of old photos was sublime and fascinating. Did you always have access to these or did you spend months trying to find them? 

Thanks. I inherited the trove of 40,000 slides my Dad shot from 1939 until 1990 when he died. The home movies my grandfather shot were given to me in a box by my grandmother after he died.

What was the most difficult part of the filmmaking process for you?

Besides spending so much time with my parents? Well, the most difficult part was after my father died, trying to pick up the pieces of myself, my family, and my film; to find the energy again to resume shooting, and to shoot with my mother through those long months of her shock, her falls and illnesses and her mental decline. It was poignant and painful.

When did the idea to use animation hit you?  The animation, by the way, is delightful and very well thought-out and applied. 

 Thanks. I knew I wanted to use animation pretty early on in the editing process of the full length film, which began to approach it's final form sometime around 2005 or 2006. I asked Lisa Crafts to do an animation of the "Mom meeting the lover for the first time" story very early on, so that was in the cut from way back. The rest of the animation didn't find it's place until very late in the game, in the last nine months of editing with Jonathan Oppenheim.

Do you think your mom realized that you were finally going to make her “famous’? If so, how did she feel about this?

She could never have known or guessed that the film would be as widely seen as it has been and is about to be, but she LOVED being a movie star, and I hope is somewhere up there looking down on opening night at Cinema Village in her designer gown and borrowed Harry Winston jewels, with a gorgeous young man on her lap! It is truly heartbreaking to me that she did not live to see the film, and to be at that opening. My husband, Andre, says she deserves, and he hopes she will win the Posthumous Oscar for Best Performance in a Documentary.

Your dad reminded me of my dad (and myself -- and so many men who tend to hold back). Did it occur to you that he might have had affairs of his own? Did you ever question him about this? (Probably not, because he was not to know about your mom’s)

Sure I did!! Are you kidding? How could I have resisted? Though he never admitted to anything outright, I know he did have affairs, but I don't think he ever was in love with anyone else the way my Mom was. His were purely sexual flings, I'm sure. He was a hot guy, and he wasn't getting steak at home.

How did Andre Gregory come into the picture? 

Very short version: I was introduced to Andre* by an old friend who had been working with him. Four days later we kissed and the rest is history.

I realize that you did one shorter film earlier (Inside Out) that was about half the length of Phyllis and Harold. How was, other than dealing so closely with your own family, this film different for you as a filmmaker: twice the work because of its being twice the length? Or maybe ten times the work? (Is it like the difference, as I have been told, between having one child and two: not twice the work but four times the work.)

I did many short films earlier than P and H. (see my website).   Having two cats and no kids, I can't relate to the child analogy, but suffice to say, this film was 12 plus years in the making, all my others were 2 to 5 years in the making, approximately. I would guess it is like the difference between writing a short story and writng a novel.

Anything else you want to talk about that I did not cover?

No...thank you, but please encourage everyone to come out to see the film during its run at Cinema Village, beginning February 19th.

(All photos. courtesy of Ms Kleine)

* Cindy Kleine is married to playwright/producer/actor Andre Gregory (pictured above a couple of times).

FILM COMMENT SELECTS, from the FSLC, opens at the Walter Reade

Among the more popular series presented each year by the Film Society of Lincoln Center is Film Comment Selects (Film Comment being, for you newcomers, the society's film magazine). This year's series, the tenth annual, begins Friday, February 19, and continues for two weeks through Thursday, March 4, at the Walter Reade Theater.

The purpose of Film Comments Selects is to showcase "discoveries," re-discoveries (such as its opening night film, Jonathan Kaplan's Over the Edge from 1979, which struck me as over-rated in its day, but perhaps demands another viewing, per the FCS' instructions) and deserving movies that (so far) have no distribution. In all, there are 24 films to savor (or not), ten of which TrustMovies has seen and will now give you his short-form reviews, in alphabetical order, with the screening times listed at the end of each review.  You can find the entire program -- films, dates, times and ticket availability -- listed here. Don't wait too long to get those tickets, however, as the FCS series often sells quickly.

ACCIDENT directed by Soi Cheang
written by Kam-Yuen Szeto and Lik-Kei Tang

Hong Kong thrillers, if ACCIDENT is any example, may have crested for the time being.  In their quest to become darker, danker, with plots and situations ever more strange, movie-makers are now serving up silly in place of bizarre.  In this, one of the crazier of its kind, a group of assassins, led by  "Brain," makes its hits looks like accidents that are so minutely planned that can they not be traced and thus not investigated.  OK, sure.  We only see two of these "accidents" before things begin to unravel, and both of them are so far-fetched and rely on so much coincidence that you must not only suspend your disbelief but beat it to a brain-dead pulp. While the goings-on are sometimes visually effective, they're also dumb. The victims we see (a Triad boss and a paralyzed old man) are perhaps no great loss to anyone, so our sympathy is not wasted.  But as the paranoia builds and characters get crazier, we should feel we have something invested here.  We don't -- which is probably why more of us are turning to South Korean thrillers that, in addition to their thrills, chills and paranoia, come complete with content, style and heart (even if that heart is sometimes black).  Accident tries to amp up its "feelings" via the usual Hong Kong-style sentimental music coupled to a little visual panache, but I didn't buy it. The film screens at FCS on Fri, Feb 19 @ 6:00 and
Sat, Feb 20 @ 1:30pm.

AIR DOLL adaptation and direction by  
Hirokazu Kore-Eda

If AIR DOLL is not Hirokazu's masterpiece, it's near enough -- even if it is too long and sometimes a bit confusing.  More than any other movie, it reminded me of A.I. (a major compliment in my book) with an eastern slant.  The filmmaker's generosity toward and understanding of all his characters is a wonderufl thing to behold, as is the lead performance from Du-na Bae (from The Host, Linda Linda Linda, Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and Take Care of My Cat).  She makes one hell of a "living doll."  What it means to be human is up for discussion once again, and Hirokazu peppers his thesis/story with so many ideas and lovely touches that one viewing will not be enough (a second will surely clear up some of that confusion).  Among the director's accomplishments, even though our heroine begins as a sex toy, is to make sex so natural that it becomes, for a change, just one part of the whole shebang.
Air Doll  screens Tue, Feb 23 @ 6:15 and Sat, Feb 27 @ 1:30.

APPLAUSE co-written & directed by  
Martin Zandvliet

If you're familiar with the work of versatile Danish actress Paprika Steen (Adam's Apples, Fear Me Not, Forty Shades of Blue) you'll probably want to see her in just about anything.  APPLAUSE gives the lady (shown at right) one of her best roles -- as a famous actress at the pinnacle (or maybe just past it) of her career who, other-
wise, is falling apart. Divorced 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 cliched (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.  Zandvliet make sure his movie is short and smart -- which is a big help, too. Applause screens Sat, Feb 20 @ 7:30 and Sun, Feb 21 @ 1:00.

BE GOOD written and directed by Juliette Garcias

If you combined The Grocer's Son with The Page Turner and Fatal Attraction, adding one more  theme -- which I will not mention and hope to god no other critic does -- you might end up with some-
thing as bizarre as BE GOOD (Sois Sage), one of the definitive "finds" of the FCS series. In this, her first film, Ms Garcias demonstrates a surprisingly firm hand regarding story, sound, pacing, visuals, performance, the works. Beginning with a look at a strange but attractive young woman on her new job (delivering bread in the provinces), the movie appears to morph first into a cautionary tale of the unintended consequences of not keeping one's dick in his pants and then on to something quite other.  A visual feast first to last (you don't want to look away from the screen for one moment), it also gives its leading lady Anaïs Demoustier another opportunity to shine. Though I had only recently seen Ms Demoustier (in Give Me Your Hand and Grown-Ups), I did not begin to recognize her in this chilly and chilling performance. She's the real thing. I can't imagine that Be Good will not be picked up for US distribution -- fast! It plays FCS on Sun, Feb 21 @ 6:30; Tue, Feb 23 @ 4:15; Tue, Feb 23 @ 8:45 and Sun, Feb 28 @ 6:15.

A Lake written and directed by Philippe Grandrieux

And they said it couldn't be done! They were wrong, as usual, and indeed we now have a film that is even darker (as in: "WTF: I can't see what's going on!) than Alien vs. Predator: Requiem. M. Grandrieux's Un lac, however, is art, whereas A vs P: R was schlock.  Or so we are told.  I am of the mind that we're being sold a bill of Grandrieux goods.  This is not an uninteresting film, in fits and starts at least -- an occasional visual well worth watching (a mountain that looks like some rough beast), sound that alternately clobbers and grates (the beginning of the film is a ear-stunner), and a story that is simplicity itself -- if you're a fan of minimalism. The palette is practically drained of color (a red sweater is probably the film's highlight), the lighting is so dark as to render the film often un-seeable, dialog is less than spare, the soundtrack offers no music (there is some singing mid-film, but you may wish there weren't).  All this is toward that minimalist goal, and I would say that the filmmaker has succeeded.  But to what purpose?  The setting is the distant forest by a body of water where a lone family barely eeks out its existence.  When a stranger suddenly turns up, you might think that some extra dialog would occur.  Who is this guy?  Where does he come from?  What does he want? How long will he be staying?  But, no.  Let's not communicate.  Because we might lose some of our minimalism.  Too-pat coincidence, however, a staple of films mainstream and independent, manages to rear its head, even in this minimalist movie.  By film's end, we'd probably all agree that A Lake is utterly primal  -- and, I would add, pointless. It screens Wed., Feb 24, @ 9pm.


LIKE YOU KNOW IT ALL written and directed by Hong Sang-Soo

I'm not certain I'd ever describe a movie from South Korea as "frothy" (well, maybe My Sassy Girl and that ilk), but Mr. Hong's latest certainly comes closer to the word than anything else he's done.  Even its title -- Like You Know It All --possesses venacular charm.  As is often the case, Hong's back with what may be his favorite subject, movie people, as a no-longer-so-young director (a stand-in for Hong?) attends a film fest where he's on the jury.  He falls asleep during screenings, gets involved with one woman after another, sexually or not, and with men, but only as friends. As usual, too, our primary  male is terribly self-involved, but still manages to provide some foolish fun.  There's a dream sequence, a lot of drinking, and our hero occasionally tells us what's he's thinking.  At the finale, the camera turns away from humanity and onto something more timeless than these rash and careless people with whom we just spent two delightful hours.  More, please.  Like You Know It All screens Tue, Mar 2 @ 3:45 and 9:00pm and Wed Mar 3 @ 6:00.

MORPHIA directed by Alexei Balabanov, screenplay by Sergei Bodrov, Jr.

Adapted from the stories of Mikhail A. Bulgakov, this follow-up to Mister Balabanov's dark Cargo 200 is equally bleak, though its Russia-circa-1917 setting makes for some exotica.  A young doctor comes to practice in a backwards, backwoods village (where they place sugar in the vagina of about-to-give-birth women in order to entice the babies into the world).  If Preminger and Sinatra were still with us, they would no doubt appreciate this sort of The Doc With the Golden Arm (and tush) homage, as our "hero" (played well by Leonid Bichevin, left) is soon in thrall to morphine (he get his first shot to counteract an allergic reaction to a diphtheria vaccination).  Balabanow shows us life at the time, from the peasants to the gentry (one family scene brings Chekhov immediately to mind) in this snowy outpost, where we even experience a wolf attack. Along the way we get everything from an amputation (as gory as any horror movie) to a breached birth, tracheotomy and more, with another morphine shot and ever-heavier doseage as the consequence. And yet Morphia has a definite black comedy quality, what with art nouveau title cards and silent movie music accompanying the dark plot, theme and visuals. Political change is afoot, of course, and if the movie breaks no new ground regarding getting hooked (it's the same'ol' same ol': symptoms, excuses and lies), it does finally becomes an original metaphor for the Communist Revolution as drug-induced insanity.  The final image can be perceived as "the magic of movies" or -- more likely -- a bunch of nitwits in thrall to a mindless light show.  Morphia screens twice during FCS: Mon, Mar 1 @ 6:00pm and Wed, Mar 3 @ 3:45pm.

NUCINGEN HOUSE written and directed by  
Raúl Ruiz

While I am not a huge fan of Mr. Ruiz, I try to see whatever he does and sometime quite enjoy it (Time Regained), but this attempt to tell a ghost story falls flat -- to some extent due to the use of a video camera that goes oddly light and dark for no particular reason, often robbing the movie of exactly the kind of atmosphere it needs, and at the singular moment that it needs it.  NUCINGEN HOUSE mashes up ghosts with religion, philosophy and ravishing locales & costumes (the time is the 1920s), but the result resembles a home movie shot in a great location but without much sense of plot or pacing.  The cast, led by the sexy Jean-Marc Barr and ethereal Elsa Zylberstein look good and perform as well as possible under these typically odd, Ruiz-ish circumstances. Nucingen House plays Fri, Feb 19 @ 4:00 and Sun, Feb 21 @ 8:30.
   
PERSECUTION directed and co-written by     
Patrice Chéreau

This filmmaker's Those Who Love Me Can Take the Train remains of of my all-time favorites and I have loved a half dozen others in his oeuvre. Persecution? Not so much. Chéreau comes a cropper with this deadly "romance" in which fine actors like Romain Duris and Charlotte Gainsbrough flounder in what first appears to offer a bit of mystery but by the end is simple nonsense. Post-screening at an earlier showing during the current Gainsbourg retro/fest at FIAF, gentlemen were to be seen and heard wandering the men's room asking, What the fuck was that all about? I tried to explain, but really, what can you say except, When the French get pretentious, no one can top them. I suspect the filmmaker is trying to tell us about modern relationships and the struggle to "love," but before he began filming, he ought to have made at least one trip back to the drawing board so that we might have some minor clue to just who these people are. Persecution plays Fri, Feb 26 @ 4:30 and again @ 8:40 and
Sat Feb 27 @ 6:00.


TALES FROM THE GOLDEN AGE written by Cristian Mungiu and directed by Mungiu, Hanno Höfer, Razvan Marculescu, Constantin Popescu and Ioana Uricaru.

Another winner in the FCS batch, TALES FROM THE GOLDEN AGE also wins the Ironic Title competition hands-down. Set in Romania during the halcyon days of President Nicolae Ceauşescu and his wife Elena, the film takes the form of five short tales or "legends," all written by Mr. Mungiu and each directed by one of the above five.  I am sorry to say I don't who directed which, but since Mr. Mungiu wrote all of them and was in change of one segment, I'll credit him first and just say that every single "tale" here is terrific. (According to Variety, the producers wanted to keep the identities of who-directed-what a secret. Well, OK.) Each segment offers a typical situation from the good old Commie days when you could count on things not working, each in its own special way.  The tales involve The Official Visit of top party brass to a little town that tries so hard to be prepared, with the expected results that literally fly off in their own merry manner. The Party Photographer is a deadpan hilarious spoof of retouched photography and a visit to the Romanian Prez  from France's Valéry Giscard d'Estaing. The Chicken Driver (he's not a coward; he's driving poultry cross country) is a sweet, sad tale of a decent guy trapped by circumstance. The Greedy Policeman -- the funniest of the bunch, in which we watch everyone from kids to grown-ups use each other badly -- takes place at Christmas, as Uncle Fane has promised to bring some pork for the holiday meal. The final episode is titled The Air Sellers, though The Empty Bottle Sellers would have been closer to the point. All about making money in Romania, this one's romantic, funny and dark -- and stars a young actress we're certain to be seeing again soon. Tales from the Golden Age, which has been picked up for US distribution by IFC, screens once only: Sat., Feb 27 @ 8pm.

The above constitutes less than half the films on view, so consult the full schedule and make plans accordingly.