SCN: My coverage closes with Pedro Pérez Rosado's Western Sahara-themed WILAYA

Putting the lie (at least partially) to the documentary, Sons of the Clouds -- the movie that recently closed this year's Spanish Cinema Now -- the new narrative film from Pedro Pérez Rosado titled WILAYA takes place in either the Algerian or the Western Saharan desert (I am not sure which) and is the name of, not one of the movie's characters, as I had imagined, but of the type of long-term detention camp in which thousands of the Western Sahara people now reside. This is due to the take-over by Morocco of their land that was earlier colonized by Spain -- which eventually pulled out and left this little country, sparsely populated by nomadic people, to the devices of nearby and more powerful nations.

While Sons of the Clouds gives us a good historical perspective on what happened to the Western Sahara and why, Wilaya shows us an example of one group of these refugees in the center of which is a young woman adopted and raised by a Spanish family in Spain from age ten, who comes back to her distressed "roots" (these detention camps have existed for over a quarter century now) and tries to "fit in" again with an extended family to whose culture she feels almost no connection.

This is a terrible situation to be in, and the filmmaker (picture above, at right, with two of his cast members) reveals it to us slowly and carefully. We don't know that much about (I believe her name is) Fatimetu, but the lovely neophyte actress, Nadhira Mohamed (shown below), who plays her is certainly beautiful to observe. The way in which this movie seems to contradict its documentary "sister" is in how we see life lived in this camp. Sons of the Clouds tells us that the Western Saharan people (the Sahrawis) are remarkably Democratic in their life style and culture. Now, while I realize that everything is indeed relative, the culture shown here still seems oppressively male-dominated -- though, at least, females can drive and speak their mind without ending up dead. Religion is still strong here, however, but it does not seem to have the ability to regulate life and death. (This is probably one of the unintentional gifts to the Sahrawis from their Spanish colonizers; another is their ability to speak Spanish.)

With fine cinematography by the talented Óscar Durán (whom Jaime Rosales uses consistently), the movie offers the desert as a breathtaking backdrop for some interesting actors and actresses who breathe life into characters that, though we don't learn all that much about them, still manage to resonate and make us care. The kind and caring crippled young woman who is Fatimetu's sister (or maybe cousin) is also brought to fine life, as is another cousin, a younger man (well, really an older boy) named Said, who quickly falls in love with the new arrival and tries his best to woo her.

Said is played with low-key but smoldering sexuality that is something to behold, and we learn about his story, too. Missing his father who, years before left for Spain, Said's task in life -- in addition to winning his girl -- is to find the man again. There are also present Said's mother, an uncle and several other characters we meet and learn about, but the lion's share of the plot is given over to Fatimetu, Said and the crippled girl (shown above, left, and who can, it turns out, drive a car quite well).

The cultural differences between a character raised in Spain and another raised in these camps is handled with humor and some subtlety, and the performances of the entire cast are believable and specific. Our "Spanish" girl in particular, next to her Sahrawi counterparts, seems both selfish and far too entitled, but as the movie progresses, she begins to adapt. As do the other characters to her and her unusual abilities.

By the end of this quietly touching little film, a small but wonderful and moving rapprochement has been reached, and you leave the film noticeably more joyful than you entered it. The movie makes a fine double feature with Sons of the Clouds, and the pair should provide a real education about the Western Sahara for many of us.

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Wilaya is yet another of the SCN movies that one wishes might have a chance to be seen again here in the U.S. This is probably unlikely, however. Which is the reason, for some of you who may wonder why I spend so much time on these Spanish films, that TrustMovies devotes a large chunk of his output to covering this annual series. Not only are the films shown eminently worthwhile (for the most part: Each series may contain a clinker or two, but the great majority are absolutely worth one's time), most of them will not be seen again on these shores. Therefore -- and since television critics ignore the series completely, and the print critics are lately doing the same -- that leaves us web bloggers with the job of making certain interested readers know what was seen here and why it was worthwhile.

Another good reason: These 20 films are among the best that Spain had to offer over the past year, so of course they are likely to make for worthwhile viewing. As to most -- well, many -- of the filmmakers, these Spaniards have poured their heart and soul into their films; at the very least, they should be able to know what someone over here in the U.S.A. felt about their creations. They deserve this, and we -- though most of us don't even realize it -- deserve to see their films. So thank you, Film Society of Lincoln Center and the about-to-retire Richard Peña, for gifting us with this series for the past 21 years. I dearly hope that the new Director of Programming, Year-Round, Robert Koehler, will continue the tradition.

And now, a final apology: I missed four of this year's programs (I usually see them all) -- due to the inability to make the film's public screenings, and/or to the fact that DVD screeners of these film were unavailable to critics. So, please accept my apology, Marçal Forés director and co-writer of Animals; Gabriel Velázquez, director and co-writer of Iceberg; Eduard Cortés, director and co-writer of Winning Streak; and all the many filmmakers involved in this year's assemblage of new Spanish shorts, Shortmetraje. I will hope to see all of these someday, but, as noted above, due to the lack of distribution available, my chances are probably slim.

DVDebut: Kenneth Cran's MILLENNIUM BUG proves a fun throwback to an older decade and some ancient special effects

Wow. Old-time models (that look exactly like old-time models: see the photo below), a man in a monster suit playing the title character (damn well, too!), and a time frame set some thirteen years back, just as we entered the present century with the threat of that weird "YK2 bug" hanging over us and our poor computers. Remember?  It should all come back to you in spades -- silly, gross, gory and enjoyable spades -- as you watch this new straight-to-video hoot (after quite a successful genre festival run), written and directed by Kenneth Cran and entitled THE MILLENNIUM BUG.

This is Mr. Cran's first full-length feature (he earlier made one short), and it's a lot of fun -- particularly for those of us who grew up watching those silly but somehow endearing man-in-a monster-suit movies from the 1950s (It Conquered the World, anyone?). If you remember those, I think you'll be hooked on this one from the start. The difference however, and it's a big one, is that Cran, shown at left, has made a movie for the new century in terms of violence, bloodshed, gore and special effects. And the folk you'll be rooting for, just because you like them and they're the heroes, don't all come through unscathed. You wouldn't take Granny -- unless she's a real genre nut -- to see this film. (That's Adam Brooks, below, emoting, and rather well, too.)

Another important difference will probably be apparent as you view: When I mention special effects, and when Cran gives them to us, they are not the kind of CGI stuff we've all gotten used to and unfortunately usually demand. Nope, these are old-fashioned, handmade effects that still manage to pack quite a punch when they're delivered as well as this filmmaker and his crew do it.

The editing (by Cran) is fast and smart; the excellent cinematography is from Oktay Ortabasi; and the effective -- yuuuch! -- special make-up effects (see above, by Robert Lindsay) and creature and special visual effects (like those giant teeth, see below, by Dustin Yoder) all help seal the deal.

The plot, usually the least of things in this genre, proves so once again. A father, daughter and new wife take a New Year's camping trip/vacation somewhere in the Pacific Northwest (I think that's the location) just as the century turns. Dad (a nice, action-ful job by Jon Briddell, below) grew up near this isolated spot, so he sort of knows the area.

What Dad does not know is that a very strange family of inbred hillbillies (refugees from the Dust Bowl, perhaps? Ask Ken Burns) has taken up residence nearby and enjoys using any isolated tourists as feed for its special pet/family member, Orpheus.

That's Granny, above (Sandi Steinberg), and poor misbegotten Rip, below (Ben Seton). I'd show you them all, and they're quite the catalog of horrors -- behavior and appearance -- but time and space do not permit and, anyway, you should savor these and other surprises in store via this little fright delight.

Also on hand is the requisite loony, would-be scientist who is tracking the title character, a huge being/bug that hatches only once a millennium -- and lives... ah, but that's another of the surprises. As usual in these sci-fi-horror outings, there must be plenty of events, with those events moving fast enough to mow down our disbelief. Fortunately there are and they do.

Childbirth (awwwww......!), possible cannibalism (ewwww....!), and the poor, trapped daughter (Christine Haeberman, above, in bridal attire) getting hitched to the hunkiest of the hillbillies (played by a nasty, sexy John Charles Meyer, below) who probably doesn't bathe. It's all here and it's all silly, if ugly, fun.

Best of all, for me, was "filming of" special feature on the DVD, in which Cran and his brother James talk about why they wanted to do this movie the old-fashioned way, and why the guy in the monster suit (the very physical Benjamin Watts) was so important, among other very interesting topics. (That's leading lady, Jessica Simons, a little bit bloodstained, below)

All told, The Millennium Bug is a definite "watch" for genre aficionados, particularly those who appreciate seeing some of those eternal verities of the horror/monster genre brought back to funny, charming, creepy, bloody life. (That's the head hillbilly, played by Trek Loneman, below, in his film debut.)

The movie, from Green Apple Entertainment and running 88 minutes, is available now on DVD (no Blu-ray) for sale or rental. You can buy it from Amazon, of course, or you can "Save" it on Netflix (but why hasn't this company bothered to actually order the film?). Blockbuster claims to have it available, too. I suspect that it will go to VOD or maybe streaming eventually, so watch for that via your favorite sources.

Miguel Gomes' stodgy, homage-y TABU opens at Film Forum: Of croc and schlock

I am guessing that the work of Portuguese filmmaker Miguel Gomes (previous output: four shorts, the widely heralded Our Beloved Month of August and his earlier The Face You Deserve) is an acquired taste. On the basis of his latest film, TABU, TrustMovies feels that he has not quite yet made that acquisition. Evidently a kind of homage to the work of early movie-maker F. W. Murnau -- even the poster images (the current film's is shown above, the older one's below) have a certain similarity -- Gomes' newest creation provides a not uninteresting combination of colonial critique (Portugal in Africa), forbidden love, the past and the present, and both old-fashioned and somewhat newfangled black-and-white cinematography.

But it all seems finally rather precious and not, I am afraid, that entertaining. At just under two hours, the film does go on. And as it does, the little life, mostly derived from the first half, set in modern day, drains out. The second half tells what ought to be a more interesting story of the love affair between the younger versions of the old woman and man we meet in part one.

But the filmmaker, shown at right, loves to dawdle and diddle, and so getting there, as they say, takes some time. Along the way, we're given story upon story that connect via countries and landscape (the jungle, the African plains and especially crocodiles, see below) that figure into just about every-thing concerning the past and in the dreams our char-acters have in the present.

We also get an early rock band from the period and some accompanying songs that are fun to hear again. While there is a certain "beauty" in much of the goings-on and in the often lovely black-and-white cinematography, the connections that would make for drama are so tenuous that little feeling for anyone or anything is generated. Some critics have called this "brilliantly nuanced," "mind-bending and utterly mysterious," but for me the result produced more than a whiff of... call it kitsch, schlock or camp, that made it impossible to take anything here all that seriously.

I wasn't bored by Tabu (I nodded off for a few seconds only once!) and I found myself taken with some of the characters: the cranky old woman (Laura Soveral, in photo at bottom) whom we see as a younger semi-femme fatale in Part Two; her kindly, ineffective neighbor Pilar (Teresa Madruga), shown below, at the cinema on a semi-date with a fellow who looks a bit like a sleeping Sondheim. If you were so inclined, you could call this one a semi-movie.

Also worth a look is the male lead in Part Two, Carloto Cotta (shown below and on poster, top, with Ana Moreira), as the youn-ger version of the old man we meet at the end of Part One. He is a stunner whose great beauty of face, body and hands ensures that the second section moves, if not quickly, more enjoyably.

So, yes, there are a number of things that make Tabu a forbidden pleasure. If only Mr. Gomes had been able to see that they coalesce more effectively. To my great surprise, the film has popped up on a 10-best list or two, which should at least ensure some kind of audience here in New York City.

To that end, the movie, an Adopt Films release, opens tomorrow, Wednesday, December 26, at New York's Film Forum for a two-week run. So see what you think, New Yorkers. To view all upcoming playdates around the country, click Adopt's web site here, then click on FILMS and then on TABU.

SCN: In his powerful THE SLEEPING VOICE, Benito Zambrano probes the post-Civil War

When Americans hear about movies set in women's prisons, we tend to imagine campy exploitation films. Spaniards, I suspect, have a bit of a different reaction -- at least those who still remember the Spanish Civil War and the years immediately afterward, which unfortunately stretched into decades. THE SLEEPING VOICE (La voz dormida), a new film from the talented writer/director Benito Zambrano (Habana Blues and Solas), co-adapted by Ignacio del Moral from the novel by the late Dulce Chacón, begins with an alarming scene set in a women's prison in 1940, in which one large group of women are taken out to the courtyard to be executed by firing squad. One of them has difficulty finding the strength to stand and walk, and what she says about leaving her family will tear you apart. What's left of you after this scene, the remainder of the movie will make mincemeat.

Not that The Sleeping Voz is especially violent or bloody. Señor Zambrano, shown at right, does what he must to make the necessary points, but because so much of his film takes place inside this prison, in which he situates not only his women but us viewers, the movie forces us to experience what it is like to suffer without -- or at least with very little-- hope and to be nearly powerless. As we soon see, one's only power here is to refuse: to say "no" to the Eucharist in church -- seeing as how the Catholic Church in Spain at this time capitulated almost entirely to the Franco/fascist side -- or to scream aloud your most precious belief in that moment before you are shot.

TrustMovies has seen many, many histories of Spain during this period -- several are usually part of each year's Spanish Cinema Now series, with this year no exception -- but few have affected him as deeply as this new film. The reason, he believes, has to do with the fact that all we see here is from a woman's point of view, showing us how everything -- every single thing from life and limb to one's own offspring -- is no longer your own. As one person tells another, "In the new Spain, even your dead don't belong to you."

The story concerns two sisters, Tensi and Pepita (played by Inma Cuesta and María León, shown at far and near left, respectively). Pepita has come to Madrid from Cordoba to find work  so that she can visit and help Tensi, who is pregnant and in prison. Think of Franco's Spain as something with a level of evil somewhere between our McCarthy-era blacklisting witch hunts and what Hitler's Germany did to Europe's Jews. In post-Civil War Spain, the cruelty, torture and death meted out to Communists and supposed Commie sympathizers affected husbands, wives and entire families.

When the movie focuses on the imprisoned Tensi (above), it is at its darkest, and Ms Cuesta is truly riveting. This actress possesses such a grand combination of ferocity and deep feeling that she simply commands the screen at all times.

When its gaze comes to rest on Pepita, at right, who has taken employment in the home of a wealthy bourgeois family, the film opens up to embrace something other than prison life and thus frees us, at least momentarily, from our cell. Zambrano treads a wise path between the two women and their locations, which keeps us from giving in to total despair. Ms León proves a smart and feisty performer, lending her character strength that, early on, she had no idea she possessed. (This actress -- as versatile as she is good -- is just about unrecognizable from the role of the daughter she played in SCN's Carmina or Blow Up.)

The men on hand, including the very attractive TV actor Marc Clotet, above, are either those working for the return of the Republic or Franco's minions. Yet even here, and regarding both men and women, the filmmakers allow for human frailty. While some of the people we meet, including the military brass, prison guards, priests and nuns, are black indeed, others fall somewhere along the usual bell curve of mankind's character.

This film is a perfect memorial to the horrors and the institutionalized barbarity of the Franco era, the likes of which we've rarely seen in this particular manner until now. It played twice at Spanish Cinema Now, but I hope that there will be some further distribution here in the U.S. This is a slice of foreign history of which American audiences should find more than a little frightening, interesting and worthwhile.

Amy Berg's WEST OF MEMPHIS gives us the still-unfolding story of the West Memphis 3

Though I can find no mention of Joe Berlinger and his Paradise Lost trilogy in the press materials for the new and latest film about the now-famous West Memphis Three and one of the most shocking, despicable and deliberate miscarriages of justice this fairly-wallowing-in-them country has seen -- and this takes place in the American South, where that wallowing takes on near-mythical proportions -- I must begin my review of Amy Berg's brilliant new documentary, WEST OF MEMPHIS, by simply acknowledging the debt that I believe she owes -- whether she has seen his films or not -- to Mr. Berlinger's trilogy: the award-winning Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills (1996); Paradise Lost 2: Revelations (2000); and Paradise Lost: Purgatory (2011).

It was, after all, these three documentaries that helped get national -- hell, worldwide -- attention focused on this case and thus turned the West Memphis Three into a genuine and necessary cause celebre. However, Berlinger's threesome runs a total of 401 minutes -- nearly seven hours -- and also runs, it must be said, a bit downhill overall. Ms Berg's contribution (the filmmaker is shown at right) totals but 146 minutes (or around two and one-half hours) yet packs in just about everything we need to know and is suspenseful, shocking, exciting, frustrating and a whole lot more. That she is the better filmmaker, I have no doubt (see her earlier doc, Deliver Us From Evil, should verification be needed), though Berlinger (who has also made Crude and Metallica: Some Kind of Monster) is certainly no piker in the documentary game.

Even though I knew most of the WM3's story from those earlier films, because of Ms Berg's choice of what to show and how to put it together, along with some new evidence gathered, thanks to her producers (see below), I found myself fascinated all over again.

Briefly, the story goes like this: The bodies of three murdered, elementary school-age boys were found in a creek in West Memphis, Arkansas, in 1993. Almost immediately the local police arrested three teenagers (shown below) and started the prosecution of them -- based on "evidence," it turns out, that is not even up to the level of the word "flimsy." Yet the following year the three are convicted of murder, with one boy sentenced to death, another to life imprisonment and a third to a long prison term.

The co-producers (with Ms Berg) of this film may come as a surprise to some viewers: Fran Walsh and Peter Jackson of the Tolkien Ring cycle and the current Hobbit movie, along with many others. Their involvement and participation here is much more than mere movie celebrity stuff. The pair actually funded the WM3's defense investigation anonymously, which led to new evidence being uncovered, and were responsible for bringing Ms Berg aboard to make her movie, once that important evidence was found "not compelling" by the no-account judge who had presided over the original -- and laughable, were not so many innocent lives involved -- WM3 trial.

All this and so much more is laid out and laid bare in this model documentary: the marriage of the former high-schooler who is now a man, Damien Echols (below), who is to be executed for the murders; new suspects cropping us, one of which would appear to be the real murderer and yet is walking around a free man; the involvement of the Arkansas Supreme Court; and a final -- one hopes it is not the final -- twist that should set your teeth on permanent edge.

Nearly 50 real-life characters appear during the course of this docu-mentary, and damned if nearly all of them don't register strongly enough to be memorable in ways either noble or nasty (sometimes both). How you'll feel at the end of it all may produce a heady effect: angry, elated, spent. Ms Berg puts you through some heavy-duty paces that demand your consistent attention. The result is more than worth the effort. How this film was left off the "Oscar" shortlist (along with The Central Park Five -- another excellent film about a grievous injustice here in New York City) is one of those mysteries only the Academy could understand or countenance.

For myself, the gut feeling is dual: one one hand, to appreciate and mimic the motto that sits on the desk of Damien Echols' defense attorney: "Never, never, never give up"; on the other to avoid Arkansas at all costs -- at least until its citizens can do something about the uber-sleazy police, politicians and judges involved here. Work on that project may be underway as I write this - which is one reason, I suspect, that the filmmaker herself calls the film and its shocking tale "unfinished."

According to the press notes, Berg and her crew will continue to work with the defense and will update the film, pending the results of on-going investigative work. (Perhaps this alone makes the movie ineligible for "Oscar" consideration. Well then, fine: Awards are puny compared to the work and the results shown here.) So stay tuned, I guess, but first see this genuinely staggering movie by a very able, activist documentarian.

West of Memphis, from Sony Pictures Classics, opens Christmas Day 2012 in New York (Angelika Film Center and the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center) and the Los Angeles area (Sundance Sunset Cinemas, and Laemmle's Playhouse 7 and Monica Four-plex). Starting in 2013, the film will make its way around the country. Click here and scroll down to see all currently scheduled theaters, cities and dates. If even 1/100th of the audience that made Walsh and Jackson's Tolkein movies such hits turn out for this one, it will have the boffo success it so deserves.

SCN closes as Álvaro Longoria's SONS OF THE CLOUDS unveils Moroccan human rights' abuse against the Western Sahara

The original Spanish-language title of the new documentary, SONS OF THE CLOUDS, carries a subtitle: Hijos de las nubes, la última colonia, which translates as The Ultimate Colony. Once again, Colonialism, which many of us we tend to think of as dead, would be better remembered as "the gift that keeps on giving." If you know as little as did TrustMovies about the history of this small, not-quite-country bordered by Morocco, Algeria, Maruitania and the Atlantic Ocean, the movie will be an eye-opener.

As explained by the film's writer/director Álvaro Longoria (below) and narrator/co-producer Javier Bardem, the history of the place and people is pretty fascinating, involving as it does colonization by Spain, which eventually let the country go, after which incursions were made into it by Morocco, which were promptly rebuffed by the Sahrawi people (and their rag-tag army, the Polisario), but to little avail. Morocco, more powerful, continues to control the area.

One of the most interesting points the movie makes involves which countries support independence for Western Sahara -- which is, according to the movie-makers, a surprisingly Democratic society in which women's rights, among other important things, are fully recognized -- and which countries come down on the side of the oppressor, Morocco. Most of the Arab states, of course, favor Moroccan control (due as much as anything, to their Islamic faith, I believe; none of them want to see real democracy in the area). To their ever-lasting shame (as though they could ever feel anything like shame) so do France and the United States of America. Even though most of the United Nations favors the Sahrawis, these two countries, permanent members of the UN Security Council, have veto power, which they are more than willing to use.

Morocco appears to be taking its cues from the behavior of Israel, moving thousands of "settlers" into lands which originally belonged to the Sahrawi's. Unfortunately, because the Sahrawis were originally a nomadic people, big cities and permanent abodes were not something that developed in the Western Sahara. (The life-style of Nomads and Gypsies would seem to be something that the modern world will not or cannot countenance.)

Add to this the many human rights abuses -- rape, torture, imprisonment -- that run rampant but are not much heard about outside northwestern Africa, and it is these things, along with the thousands of displaced Sahrawis who lives in camps in terrible conditions, that apparently grabbed Señor Bardem with such force when he first encountered them and learned of their plight while he was making a PR appearance at a film festival there.

Perhaps because the movie-makers did not get particularly up-close and personal with the Sahrawis themselves, much of the film is spent tagging along with Bardem and crew as they try to reach the Moroccans and question them about all this (as you might expect, this does not happen); going to the UN and making a short, impassioned speech; and speaking at length with France via one old fellow who makes pretty shameful, non-seeing excuses.

Longoria, Bardem (above) and their crew have done a fine job of bringing all this to our attention, and while the film is relatively one-sided, as many of these documentaries about injustice against particular persons and/or entire peoples often are -- especially in situations in which most of the power lies in the hands of the abusers -- the information marshaled here is worth hearing and seeing and will introduce you to yet another terrible situation in our world that needs addressing. (My own estimation of Morocco just took a huge dive, and any interest I might have had in visiting that country is gone.) The Sahrawis, at this point, have put up with 27 years of this injustice; it's time for change.

In addition to its showing as part of Spanish Cinema Now, Sons of the Clouds -- the title comes from the fact that, for centuries, this nomadic people followed the clouds that held the desert's most precious possession: water -- is available now on DVD and from all major Digital Outlets via GoDigital -- including iTunes and Vimeo -- for download sale and/or rental.

All photos are from the film itself, 

except that of Señor Longoria, 

which is by Mark Renders, courtesy of Getty Images Europe.