Oki's Movie
Ok-hui-ui yeonghwa

(South Korea)


Directed, written by Hong Sang-soo

 With: Lee Sun-kyun, Jung Yumi, and Moon Sung-keun


Self-reflexive helmer Hong Sang-soo's increasing experimentation with multi-strand narratives reaches a negligible apogee with "Oki's Movie."

Composed of four short films revolving around three characters who may be the same people throughout or variations of themselves, the pic revisits the director's booze-soaked world of film insiders, examining a love triangle from various p.o.v.'s without making any of them especially interesting.

One can only admire Hong's ability to find his own milieu endlessly fascinating, but apart from an ever-dwindling fest fan base, and despite a significantly shorter running time than recent works, few will share this view.

 The first short, "A Day for Incantation," sees filmmaker Jingu (Lee Sun-kyun) scolded by his wife for drinking and smoking; discussing the death of cinema with film professor Song (Moon Sung-keun); and being humiliated at a Q&A by an ex-flame's best friend.

Latter is the one genuine laugh-out-loud moment in a film that rarely manages to be either affectingly melancholic or wryly amusing.
 
Jingu is again the focus of "King of Kisses," here as a film student pining for the largely uninterested Oki (Jung Yumi) who may or may not be seeing prof Song.

Chapter three, "After the Snowstorm," is narrated by Song, a disillusioned filmmaker tired of teaching indifferent students. Only Oki and Jingu turn up for class following a blizzard, so the three engage in sophomoric discussions on the meaning of life.

 The final segment gives the pic its name: "Oki's Movie" is told from the female p.o.v. (unusual for Hong), and  structured like a student film in which Oki literally parallels her simultaneous love affairs with student Jingu and professor Song.

This and chapter one are the strongest of the four, though they all suffer from a slightness that rarely grabs hold of anyone's imagination apart from Hong's.

Instead, there's the usual disillusionment with life and the film world, compounded by unattainable or unfulfilling relationships and thwarted ambition. All worthy topics, but only the last chapter, which might work better as a stand-alone short, offers the sense of a complex person struggling to understand what she wants from love and life.
 
What should have been an intriguing structure, like a musical variation allowing for thought-provoking speculation on character continuity and the unpredictability of fate, simply feels limp.

Perfs are solid, but with such uncharismatic male roles, there's not much the thesps can do. Sound design is as basic as the stripped-down lensing, which Hong makes even more inelegant with his customary zooms.

Elgar's "Pomp and Circumstance, March No. 1" punctuates each section's credits, an oddly rich choice considering the pic's far more chamber-oriented sensibility.


Running time: 80 MIN.
 
Camera (color), Park Hong-yeol, Jee Yune-jeong; editor, Hahm Sung-won; music, We Zong-yun; sound (Dolby SRD), Kim Mir. A Jeonwonsa Film Co. production. (International sales: Finecut, Seoul.) Produced by Kim Kyoung-hee.

Reviewed By Jay Weissberg at Venice Film Festival, Sept. 10, 2010. (Also in Toronto Film Festival  --  Contemporary World Cinema.)


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Womb
(Germany-Hungary)


Directed, written by Benedek Fliegauf

With: Eva Green, Matt Smith, Hannah Murray, Tristan Christopher, Ruby O. Fee, and Peter Wight


A woman gives birth to a clone of her deceased lover in "Womb," a conversation-starter disguised as a contemplative piece of arthouse cinema. Though the pic reps a first foray into English-language filmmaking for Magyar enfant terrible Benedek Fliegauf ("Forest," "Dealer"), its quietly unsettling storytelling, precision visuals and almost mythical isolated setting all feel Hungarian to the core.

Controversial topic and presence of Eva Green and the current Dr. Who, Matt Smith, as the amoral hot mommy and the b.f. and carbon-copy son, respectively, should give this item some traction, though "Womb" is unlikely to become a breakout hit.

Despite its unusual subject, "Womb" is the most conventional of Fliegauf's films in terms of execution, if not narrative subtlety. The helmer here moves away from the more experimental vein of his earlier efforts and instead comes up with a minutely directed, well-tooled fable that remains impressively coherent until the disturbing closing scenes throw everything off balance.

"Womb's" key shot in the early going is a very short, still life-like image of a browning pear. Nine-year-old Rebecca (Ruby O. Fee) keeps the half-eaten piece of fruit as a keepsake from a meeting with the cute boy next door, Tommy (Tristan Christopher).

The corrosive nature of time, the inevitability of death and the desire to preserve something forever are some of the major ideas explored here, and they are all present in this one striking image. Almost offhandedly edited into the story's narrative, it shows a director at work who understands his material, trusts his audience and is able to express his core themes in an elegant visual shorthand that feels more poetic than coldly intellectual.

Soon after that fateful first meeting, Rebecca moves abroad with her family, but she comes back to the beachside village to look for her playmate some 12 years later. Now a full-grown woman (Green), she immediately hooks up with Thomas (Smith) again. Romance blooms, until the strapping young man is killed in a car accident.

Bulk of the pic is set over the 20 or so years that follow, after Rebecca decides to give birth to and raise a clone of her beloved, despite opposition from Thomas' grieving parents (Lesley Manville, Peter Wight). Though human cloning remains a sci-fi concept today, pic, which is set in an unspecified time and place, handles it as a simply available option for the protag.

But the choice is not one everyone might agree with, even in Rebecca's world, and to avoid prying eyes, the expectant mother relocates to an isolated house on the beach that moves the story from a concrete seaside village into the realm of myth. Isolation as a means of elevating a story to a more fantastical plane is a common narrative trick in Magyar cinema, employed by Bela Tarr and others, and the presence of the sea always adds to the fablelike quality for viewers from landlocked Hungary.

Fliegauf daringly chooses to suggest the intensity of the couple's romance before Thomas' death without any sex scenes, thus reinforcing the idea that the two share a strong emotional bond beyond any reductive physical compatibility. The conspicuous absence of sex also cleverly feeds into the creepy carnal tension that underlies all that follows, as Thomas' clone grows up from a tot (Jesse Hoffman) to a young adult (Smith again), and the film progresses to its only logical conclusion.

Though Green doesn't seem to age over the course of the film (lucky genes?), she does imbue Rebecca with the necessary gravitas; conflicted emotions always seem to flicker just beneath her (and the film's) almost unnaturally calm surface. Smith, in a far less complex role, makes for an affable presence. Others are mere bit players, though Manville, as Thomas's mother, shines in her two big scenes.

Like Roman Polanski's "The Ghost Writer," pic was filmed on the windswept north-German coast. Peter Szatmari's widescreen lensing and Erwin Prib's production design are both wonders of precision, while editor Xavier Box keeps the rhythm unhurried throughout.

Sound design and music, both co-composed by Fliegauf, are strong, with the score used at just a few intervals.


Running time: 111 MIN.  (English dialogue)

A Razor Film, Inforg Studio production, in association with ASAP Films, with the participation of Boje Buk Prod., Arte France Cinema, Arte, ZDF. (International sales: the Match Factory, Cologne, Germany.) Produced by Roman Paul, Gerhard Meixner, Andras Muhi. Co-producers, Cedomir Kolar, Marc Baschet.

MORE cast: Istvan Lenart, Natalia Tena, Ella Smith, Wunmi Mosaku, Lesley Manville, and Jesse Hoffman

Camera (color, widescreen), Peter Szatmari; editor, Xavier Box; music, Max Richter, Fliegauf, Tamas Beke; production designer, Erwin Prib; costume designer, Mariano Tufano; sound (Dolby Digital), Arno Wilms, Fliegauf, Beke; line producers, Peter Hermann, Istvan Major; casting, Shaheen Baig, Jacqueline Rietz.

Reviewed By Boyd van Hoeij at Locarno Film Festival, Aug. 6, 2010. (Also in Toronto Film Festival -- Contemporary World Cinema.)


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Attenberg
(Greece)

Directed, written by Athina Rachel Tsangari

With: Ariane Labed, Vangelis Mourikis, Evangelia Randou, and Yorgos Lanthimos


The opposing yet strongly connected forces of Freudian buddies Eros ("passionate love") and Thanatos ("death") are reluctantly explored by the femme protag of "Attenberg,"
the impressive sophomore feature of Greek scribe-helmer Athina Rachel Tsangari ("The Slow Business of Going").

This minimalistic, rigorously controlled study of the slow awakening of an emotionally stunted 23-year-old girl has much in common with the recent "Dogtooth," which Tsangari associate-produced (and whose helmer, Yorgos Lanthimos, has a small role here).

Like that pic, "Attenberg" remains a captivating and vaguely disturbing experience throughout, and a similar international rollout is likely.

The film provocatively opens with a juicy tongue-wrestling match between blonde protag Marina (Ariane Labed), and her best -- and only -- friend, brunette Bella (Evangelia Randou, from Lanthimos' "Kinetta").

Medium closeup shot, framed against a whitewashed wall, is held throughout the girls' makeout session and technical discussion, as Bella teaches Marina how to kiss (the
latter is disgusted, likening Bella's tongue to a slug).

A verbal fight turns into a spitting match before Tsangari cuts to a wide shot as the girls get down on all fours and start hissing at each other like animals.

 In this simple pre-title sequence, the Greece- and Texas-based filmmaker has already established the film's plain yet rigorous aesthetics and some of its major themes. As in "Dogtooth," questions of education and sex are explored and often disturbingly linked, while people intimidated by or frustrated with human social constructs revert to animalistic behavior.

Visuals are pared-down but precise, with medium closeups framing the protags in a human way, focusing on facial expressions, while wider shots take the body language of the entire human animal into consideration.

 Pic transpires in a stagnant industrial town on the seaside. Marina confesses to her weary father (Vangelis Mourikis) that she finds women more interesting than men, though not physically.

However, the girl loathes the idea of someone sticking something inside her and tells her dad she can't ever imagine him even having a penis.

 Marina always accompanies her terminally ill dad to the hospital for checkups, and otherwise spends much of her time hanging out with Bella, with whom she performs bizarre impromptu dances (these yield the pic's most Actors Studio-style moments, though they're well performed, as both actresses have a background in dance).
 
"Attenberg" certainly works as a wacky, decidedly arthouse coming-of-age narrative, but a more intellectual exploration of various Freudian concepts is also there for the taking.

Marina's not entirely happy discovery of kissing, sex and passionate love (all ultimately derived from an animalistic urge to procreate), are coupled here with its opposite: death (which, in biological terms, procreation is meant to overcome).

The first close experiences of both, Tsangari seems to suggest, are unpleasant but necessary rites of passage on the way to adulthood. And how humans deal with sex and death is what sets them apart from the other species that roam the planet.

 Again as in "Dogtooth," the thesping has a somewhat mechanical quality that is neither theatrical nor natural. Tsangari fully exploits the mesmerizing features of Labed (who won the Venice jury's actress prize).

Randou, who looks like a Greek cousin of Charlotte Gainsbourg, is also strong in a less developed role, while Mourikis is also impressive.

 Further craft contributions are all low-key but very precise. Title is a reference to Marina's mispronunciation of the surname of David Attenborough, whose nature docus she watches compulsively.


Running time: 96 MIN. (Greek, French dialogue)

Camera (color), Thimios Bakatatakis; editors, Sandrine Cheyrol, Matt Johnson; production designer, Dafni Kalogianni; costume designers, Thanos Papastergiou, Vassila Rozana; sound (Dolby Digital), Leandros Ntounis; associate producer,
Kostas Kefalas; assistant directors, Emmanuela Fragiadaki, Anna Nikolaou; casting, Alex Kelly, Christine Akzotis.

MORE cast: Kostas Berikopoulos and Michel Demopoulos

A Haos Film production, in association with Greek Film Center, Faliro House Prods., Boo Prods., Stefi Prods. (International sales: The Match Factory, Cologne.) Produced by Maria Hatzakou, Yorgos Lanthimos, Iraklis Mavroidis, Athina Rachel Tsingari, Angelos Venetis. Executive producer, Christos V. Konstantakopoulos.

Reviewed By Boyd van Hoeij at Venice Film Festival, Sept. 7, 2010. (Also in Toronto Film Festival -- Discovery.) 


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Beginners

Directed, written by Mike Mills

Oliver  -  Ewan McGregor
Hal -  Christopher Plummer
Anna  -  Melanie Laurent
Andy  -  Goran Visnjic
Georgia  -   Mary Page Keller 


Coming out means starting over, whenever that self-realization should happen to occur. Mike Mills knows this firsthand, having watched his father reinvent his sexual identity at an advanced age.

Such observations fuel his deeply poignant and disarmingly personal "Beginners," which blends autobiographical remembrances of that never-too-late transformation with a
fictionalized account of attempting to start a meaningful relationship of his own at 38.

A major leap forward from "Thumbsucker," the writer-director's assured second narrative feature realizes the potential suggested by Mills' musicvideo and conceptual art projects, sure to score with arthouse, hipster and fest auds (not just gay ones, either).

In a style that warrants comparisons to Charlie Kaufman, Michel Gondry and wife Miranda July (whose playful, intimacy-oriented sensibility can be detected throughout), Mills breaks from conventional story structure to present his father's startling decision, at age 75, to declare his homosexuality and make up for lost time. 

Through voiceover and contextualizing slideshows, Mills' alter ego, Oliver (Ewan McGregor) establishes the key dates in the story: the year his parents were born, married, died and, in his father's case, declared his true nature.

After years on the sidelines, the old man, played by Christopher Plummer with liberating relish, suddenly emerges as a character in Oliver's life, which had otherwise been
dominated by his affectionate but vaguely unstable mother (winningly played by Mary Page Keller).

Trying to catch up on lost time, Plummer's Hal begins to socialize with other gay men, flying the gay-pride colors, hosting parties and dating a guy roughly his son's age (Goran
Visnjic, in a completely unglamorous perf)  --  all of which confound Oliver, who's
progressive enough to accept homosexuality but bewildered to find it lying unexpressed, until now, in someone so close.

While the director's decision to cast McGregor as his onscreen surrogate might seem to
imply vanity on Mills' part, he encourages the actor to lay bare Mills' own character flaws, which include such 21st-century luxuries as idle melancholy and fear of commitment.

For Mills, his father's butterfly-life emergence is rendered painfully ironic by two things: First, Hal's bachelor son has never been able to sustain a relationship of his own. And
second, the old man has been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer, which gives him only five years to enjoy his newfound freedom. 

Mills divides the narrative along three parallel tracks, with Oliver dutifully caring for his strong-willed father in the most affecting of these threads.

Though his mother also suffered a slow decline into frailty, he omits that painful chapter in favor of childhood memories that formed his melancholy way of looking at the world
(reflected in a downer art project called "The History of Sadness," for which Oliver finds no takers).

But most of the film unfolds in the present, after Hal's death, as a chance encounter at
a Halloween party, where Oliver meets an alluring French actress ("Inglourious Basterds'" Melanie Laurent, effortlessly natural) rendered silent by laryngitis.

In another director's hands, this might have all come across as suffocatingly twee, from this semi-contrived meet-cute to the many self-conscious details presented throughout (including frequent glimpses of the director's own artwork and a Jack Russell terrier who communicates via subtitles).

But Mills isn't attempting to manipulate auds here; rather, he lays himself bare, offering
an open-book glimpse into the thorny nature of contemporary relationships, which enjoy a certain luxury of complexity unshared by earlier generations. 

"Our good fortune allowed us to feel a sadness our parents didn't have time for," Oliver notes in voiceover.

To whatever extent the film drags or doubles back on itself, "Beginners" merely feels stronger and more honest for it, like the cinematic equivalent of Dave Eggers' "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius."

Rarely do you find such self-plunging material beyond the realm of documentary or far-fringe museum fare, and despite his background in that arena, Mills sheds all preciosity in service of genuinely revealing introspection.

"Beginners" also differs from comparable LGBT stories, since it comes from the perspective of a son still wrestling with his father's enigmatic decisions, rather than the angle of a newly empowered filmmaker trying to validate his own life choices.


Running time: 105 MIN.

Camera (color), Kasper Tuxen; editor, Olivier Bugge Coutte; music, Roger Neill, David Palmer, Brian Reitzell; music supervisor, Robin Urdang; production designer, Shane Valentino; set decorator, Coryander Friend; costume designer, Jennifer Johnson; sound, Susumu Tokunow; sound designer/re-recording mixer, Leslie Shatz; stunt coordinator, Nash Edgerton; visual effects, Oddball Animation, Wes Ball, Justin Barber, Brad Hawkins, Ryland Jones; assistant director, Rod Smith; casting, Courtney Bright, Nicole Daniels.

MORE cast:
Elliot  -  Kai Lennox
Young Oliver  -  Keegan Boos

An Olympus Pictures presentation in association with Parts & Labor. (International sales: UTA, Los Angeles.) Produced by Leslie Urdang, Dean Vanech, Miranda De Pencier, Jay Van Hoy, Lars Knudsen. Executive producer, Joan Scheckel. Co-producers, Geoff Linville, Fran Giblin.

Reviewed By Peter Debruge at Toronto Film Festival (Special Presentations), Sept. 11, 2010.


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Chico and Rita
Chico y Rita

(Animated - Spain-U.K.)


Directed by Fernando Trueba, Javier Mariscal, Tono Errando
Screenplay, Trueba, Ignacio Martinez de Pison

Voice actors: Emar Xor Ona & Limara Meneses (Rita's songs performed by Idania Valdes)


Think of "Chico and Rita" as a test, one that gauges whether your love of Cuban jazz can exceed your threshold for lousy animation -- a real "good tunes/bad toons" quandary.

Working from a screenplay that would have made a perfectly charming live-action movie, Spanish co-directors Fernando Trueba, Javier Mariscal and Tono Errando interpret a wild, 60-year romance via an unflattering style, like a children's coloring book with its rudimentary line drawings and stiff, expressionless characters.

Still, the result is evocative enough of late-'40s Havana, and the sweaty, sensual music of the time, to find a modest, yet dedicated following.

Chico (voiced by Emar Xor Ona) and Rita (Limara Meneses, but sung by Idania Valdes) are musicians. He plays the piano, she sings. Together they make sweet music and spicy love.

However, being Cuban, Chico's life has a way of getting complicated in the romance department. He may be thunderstruck by his first sight of Rita (he sees her crooning at a small dance club, then manages to win her over by tickling the ivories at the Tropicana that same night), but he can't seem to keep his other mistresses from getting in the way, and so, despite pairing up just long enough to win a radio contest, the two never quite get the chance to be a couple.

Instead, the near-miss magnetism sustains their passion across six decades, taking the two musicians from pre-Castro Cuba to Gotham, Paris, Hollywood and Vegas, with both characters making impulsive, irrational decisions along the way.

What the pic needs, but lacks, is a glimpse of behavioral detail that would bring these characters to life (the way, in "Ponyo," Toshi's mother is surprised by a foaming beer) or suggest that the world continues on beyond the frame (as in "The Illusionist," when offscreen elements elbow their way into scene).

One could argue that denying auds such distractions puts the focus on the music, where it belongs, but then, so would simply releasing a CD, and Trueba has his Calle 54 Records label for that.

No, the characters do matter here, so it's a shame they feel so incomplete, upstaged by the cities and clubs that surround them -- despite the fact the helmers recorded live-action reference footage to inform the animation, which moves with a slow-motion listlessness, the way things did in Richard Linklater's "Waking Life."

As for the music, Trueba knows his stuff, blending old songs (Rita covers
Cole Porter's "Love for Sale") with new music conceived in the fashion of the
era. Cuban jazz legend Bebo Valdes plays Chico's part on piano, pairing up at
one point with Estrella Morente (as herself) for a special-treat duet.

True jazz buffs will pick up on inside nods, including cameos by an animated Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, as well as an entire subplot featuring the
inglorious demise of Latin jazz man Chano Pozo.

Soundtracks will almost certainly outsell the movie.


Running time: 93 MIN.  (Spanish, English dialogue) 

(Color); editor, Arnau Quiles; music, Bebo Valdes; art supervisor, Pedrin E. Mariscal; sound (Dolby Digital), Nacho Royo-Villanova; visual effects supervisor, Edu Puertas; animation, Accio, Animagic, Jet Media, Kecskeemt Film, HolyCow Animation, Magic Light Pictures, Lightstar Studios; associate producer, Antonio Resnines.

A Fernando Trueba Prods., Estudio Mariscal, Magic Light Pictures, CinemaNX, Isle of Man Film production, in association with Television Espanola, HanWay Films, Televisio de Catalunya, with the participation of MesFilms, Television de Catalunya, ICAA Ministerio de Cultura, ICIC, with the support of ICO, ICF. (International sales: HanWay Films, London.) Produced by Cristina Huete, Santi Errando, Martin Pope, Michael Rose. Executive producers, Steve Christian, Marc Samuelson. Co-producer, Andrew Fingret. 
Reviewed By Peter Debruge at Telluride Film Festival, Sept. 4, 2010. (Also in Toronto Film Festival -- Contemporary World Cinema.)



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Cirkus Columbia
(Bosnia-Herzegovina-France-U.K.-Slovenia-Germany-Belgium-Serbia)

Directed by Danis Tanovic
Screenplay, Tanovic, Ivica Dikic
Source: from the novella "Cirkus Columbia" by Dikic.

With: Miki Manojlovic, Mira Furlan, Jelena Stupljanin, Boris Ler, and Mario Knezovic


Danis Tanovic revisits the milieu of his first (and best) film, "No Man's Land," in "Cirkus Columbia," which uses the absurdist tale of a man returning to his native Herzegovinian village to illustrate the 1992 beginnings of the bloody internecine strife in Bosnia. 

Though burdened by major problems of tone, Tanovic's fourth feature succeeds in making clear the incredulity with which most people regarded the thought of war and dissolution of Yugoslavia, as well as the machinations of various opportunistic groups.

Commercial prospects seem slim outside the region, but fests are lining up.

Now that the communists are out of power in his backwater town and an Ustase-connected party is in, Divko (Miki Manojlovic, in a familiar blustering macho role he could play in his sleep) returns home with revenge on his mind. 

His primary target is wife Lucija (a drab-looking Mira Furlan, "Lost"), who failed to follow him to Germany when he was forced to flee some 20 years before.
 
Arriving in a ruby red Mercedes, accompanied by gorgeous girlfriend, Azra (Jelena Stupljanin), Divko evicts Lucija and their immature 20-year-old son, Martin (Boris Ler), from the family home.

After flaunting his wealth and generally behaving like a schmuck, Divko ultimately gets a chance to prove he's not such a bad guy after all; subplots include Martin's falling out with best friend Pivac (Mario Knezovic), who joins a pro-Croatian paramilitary group, and Martin's not very credible fling with Azra.

As the superficial characters fret over their petty concerns, the troubles of the rest of Yugoslavia seem far from their little village, although the script (penned by Tanovic and Ivica Dikic, based on Dikic's novella) carefully keeps them simmering in the background.

In one particularly ironic reminder of the era's lost innocence, TV news footage shows the Serbs shelling Dubrovnik, as a disbelieving Divko remarks, "What will they do next? Blow up the old bridge in Mostar?"

 Unfortunately, the narrative allows the old-fashioned and often silly story of Divko, Azra, Martin and Lucija to outweigh the deeper theme of the approaching war. When armed conflict finally arrives in the village, it lacks the dramatic impact it should have.
 
While much of the humor in "No Man's Land" derived from its use of stereotypes, this tactic doesn't serve "Cirkus Columbia" as well. There are a few laughs to be had from the hick-town jokes (it's a place where a vegetarian is offered chicken because poultry isn't considered meat), but the sexist archetypes of the female characters (the always cooking-and-cleaning mother vs. the seductive sexpot) get old fast.

With the distaff roles so limited, the men have more opportunities in the thesping department, although looker Stupljanin leaves a strong visual impression, mainly due to her skimpy wardrobe.

Shooting in a soft, color-faded palette in which Divko's car, girlfriend and black cat stand out brazenly, lenser Walther van de Ende creates a sense of nostalgia for a vanished world.

 Before showing the film to an international audience, the producers might want to add some pre-credits information explaining the setting and historical context.


(Serbo-Croatian dialogue)

Camera (color), Walther van de Ende; editor, Petar Markovic; production designer, Dusko Milavec; costume designer, Jasna Hadzimehmedovic-Bekric; sound (Dolby Digital), Samir Foco.

A 2006 Sarajevo/ASAP Films/Autonomous/Man's Films/Razor Film Prod./Studio Maj production, in collaboration with U.K. Film Council, Foundation for Cinematography Sarajevo, Filmski Sklad Republic of Slovenia, MBB, Art and Popcorn, Ministry of Culture Republic of Serbia, No Sugar Nor Milk, Center for Cinema and Audiovisual of the French Community of Belgium and Wallones Teledistributors, with the support of Canal Plus, RAI Cinema, BHRT, Eurimages. (International sales: the Match Factory, Cologne, Germany.) Produced by Cedomir Kolar, Amra Baksic-Camo, Marc Baschet, Mirsad Purivatra. Co-producers, Cat Villiers, Gerhard Meixner, Roman Paul, Dunja Klemenc, Marion Hansel.

Reviewed By Alissa Simon at Sarajevo Film Festival (opener), July 23, 2010. (Also in
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Windfall
(Documentary)


Directed by Laura Israel

With: Scott Alexander, Frank Bachler, Ron Bailey, Sue Bailey, Rick Beyer, and Tara Collins


Though vividly shot in HD, "Windfall" is a gassy documentary about the downside of wind power. When alternative energy in the form of gigantic wind turbines comes to the rural farm town of Meredith, N.Y., the populace is divided, though the docu comes down
strictly and gratingly on the side of those upset with the headache-inducing vibrations and shadows caused by these ostensibly earth-friendly tools.

Variably articulate subjects drone on and on in an 83-minute film that could easily make
its TV news-style point in a half-hour or less. Distribution of the pic at its current length seems inconceivable.

Monotony sets in early as director Laura Israel interviews Meredith residents who leased their property to wind-energy corporations with good intentions and suffered the consequences.

Lacking a narrative frame, belabored pic proceeds through a series of contentious meetings -- as town board members stand to benefit from pro-wind laws -- without including the slightest hint of dramatic progress, much less resolution.

By the time docu-director Israel gets around to acknowledging the threat of turbines to Meredith's bat population, the beleaguered viewer is ready for any sort of cool breeze.


Running time: 83 MIN.

Camera (color, HD), Brian Jackson; editors, Israel, Stacey Foster, Alex Bingham; music, Wade Schuman, Hazmat Modine; music supervisor, Olivier Conan; art director, Bingham.

Also featuring: Eve Kelley, Rosemary Nichols, T. Boone Pickens, Rachel Polens,
Marge Rockefeller, Bob Rosen, and Marc Schneider

A Cat Hollow Films production. Produced by Laura Israel, Autumn Tarleton. Executive producer, Don Faller. Co-producer, Stacey Foster.

Reviewed By Rob Nelson at Toronto Film Festival (Real to Reel), Sept. 15, 2010.



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Norwegian Wood
(Japan)

Directed, written by Tran Anh Hung
Source: based on the novel "Norwegian Wood" by Haruki Murakami

With: Kenichi Matsuyama, Rinko Kikuchi, Kiko Mizuhara, and Reika Kirishima


With his striking visual sense and gift for conjuring a mood of languid sensuality, Tran Anh Hung would seem the ideal filmmaker to tackle "Norwegian Wood," Haruki Murakami's beguiling novel of longing, loss and sexual curiosity in 1960s Japan.

But while this beautiful-looking film at times succeeds in capturing its source material's delicate emo spirit, it's far less attentive to the richness of Murakami's characters -- namely, a college student haunted by one woman and ardently pursued by another.

Lovely but listless picture is likely to test audience patience beyond Tran's arthouse admirers and the author's fans. Published in 1987, "Norwegian Wood" has become Murakami's most widely read novel and is generally regarded as his most autobiographical work, despite the author's protests to the contrary.

Though it unfolds against the turbulent backdrop of the student protests in Japan and elsewhere during the late '60s, the story sidelines these events to focus on a young man drifting along on a tide of emotional and erotic confusion; the character's general passivity and alienation effectively serve to critique what Murakami views as a hypocritical and jejune form of  political rebellion.

 One of only a handful of films based on Murakami's work (including 2004's pitch-perfect "Tony Takitani"), "Norwegian Wood" also happens to be Tran's first literary adaptation.

In look, texture and rhythm, the film most closely resembles the Vietnamese writer-director's "The Scent of Green Papaya" (1993) and "The Vertical Ray of the Sun" (2000), but its attempt to faithfully adhere to the source text makes for a more constrained, less intuitive piece of filmmaking.
 
As his peers march the streets and disrupt classes to hold debates, Tokyo university freshman Toru Watanabe (Kenichi Matsuyama) is gradually drawn into the orbit of the beautiful, damaged Naoko (Rinko Kikuchi), longtime g.f. of Watanabe's best friend, Kizuki (Kengo Kora), who recently killed himself. (The suicide is calmly recounted in the opening scenes, barely disrupting the film's exquisite languor.)

Emotionally fragile and deeply troubled, Naoko reaches out to Watanabe and initiates what turns out to be her first sexual experience. Shortly afterward, she drops out of school and retreats to an out-of-town healing center; Watanabe eventually comes to visit and promises to remain devoted to Naoko while she recovers.

Back in Tokyo, he develops a close friendship with the very different Midori (Kiko Mizuhara), who is as chatty and outgoing as Naoko is distant and introverted. It's here that the film makes its crucial misstep. In the book, Midori all but leaps off the page; prone to voicing the dirtiest thoughts in the cheeriest, most innocent tones, she's an irresistible hoot.

Onscreen, however, she seems to have been tamped down so as not to clash with the film's more rarefied air, and Mizuhara comes across as far too polite and restrained, as
though reading Midori's sexually candid musings from a script.
 
The tale never becomes a full-fledged romantic triangle, but it soon becomes clear Watanabe must choose between Naoko and Midori, or between past regret and future hope -- a difficult decision in a world where people are often emotionally or geographically unavailable and death is the only constant.
 
While "Norwegian Wood" suffers from familiar adaptation problems -- truncated
supporting roles, excessive voiceover -- Tran makes a strong, committed effort to turn prose into poetry, and to render the characters' emotional states, especially grief, as honestly as possible.

Dialogue scenes are boldly attenuated, generally delivered in whispered, hesitant exchanges, with moments of silence and stillness that are by turns eloquent and anemic.
There's something touching about the way the film elevates Watanabe and Naoko's moments together to Edenic heights, framing them against impossibly verdant woods or falling snow, and taking a palpable delight in their unspoiled beauty (and Yen Khe Luguern's stylish retro costumes).

Viewers coming to the material for the first time, however, may find these swooning tableaux too repetitive over the film's slow-paced 133 minutes, while Murakami readers may be disappointed that the sexual content is nowhere near as explicit as the book's.
 
Pale, handsome Matsuyama comes across as disaffected but sensitive, while Kikuchi is superbly pained in her many-sided depiction of emotional instability. Briefly appearing as the g.f. of Watanabe's friend Nagasaswa (Tetsuji Tamayama), Eriko Hatsune is outstanding in a gem of a scene in which she holds the screen almost singlehandedly.

 Shooting on pristine HD, top d.p. Mark Lee Ping-bing (who also lensed Tran's "Vertical Ray of the Sun") works wonders with such details as the play of candlelight on actors' faces and the arrangement of bodies in the widescreen frame.

While Jonny Greenwood's largely string-based score is not as boldly inventive as his compositions for "There Will Be Blood," it surges with operatic intensity at pivotal moments, signifying turning points in the characters' relationships. Music is sparingly used throughout, but in addition to the titular Beatles tune, the '60s playlist includes a wide selection of Can tunes.


Running time: 133 MIN.

Camera (color, widescreen, HD), Mark Lee Ping-bing; editor, Mario Battistel; music, Jonny Greenwood; production designers, Yen Khe Luguern, Fuminori Ataka; costume designer, Luguern; sound (Dolby Digital), Kazuharu Urata; associate producers, Kaoru Matsuzaki, Joe Ikeda.

MORE cast: Kengo Kora, Eriko Hatsune, and Tetsuji Tamayama

An Asmik Ace Entertainment, Fuji Television Network presentation. (International sales: Fortissimo Films, Amsterdam.) Produced by Shinji Ogawa. Executive producers, Masao Teshima, Chihiro Kameyama. Co-executive producers, Michael J.
Werner, Wouter Barendrecht.

Reviewed By Justin Chang at Venice Film Festival, Sept. 1, 2010. (Also in Toronto Film Festival -- Special Presentations.)


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The Way


Directed, written by Emilio Estevez

Source: selected stories from "Off the Road: A Modern-Day Walk Down the Pilgrim's Route in Spain" by Jack Hitt

Starring: Martin Sheen


Whereas Elizabeth Gilbert managed to eat-pray-love her way to enlightenment, Martin Sheen got there by walking. After Sheen lobbied son Emilio Estevez to make a film along Spain's Camino de Santiago, the "Bobby" director hatched "The Way," about a play-it-safe doctor who fulfills his world-traveling son's last wish by spreading his ashes along
the scenic 400-kilometer hike.

Although a documentary of the Estevez's father-son trek would have proven no less moving than this emotionally contrived dramatic alternative, spiritually minded auds will enthusiastically embrace the soul-cleansing experience, sparking talkshows, tourism and the sort of sleeper phenom Hollywood's always looking to bottle.

Judging by the standing ovation the film received at its 2010 Toronto fest premiere, "The Way" represents exactly the type of chicken-soup project that inspires once-a-year ticketbuyers to leave their homes and seek out a good movie -- the sort without sex, drugs or swearing. Bring an Oprah-like endorsement onboard, and they've got it made. 

The story opens in Ventura, Calif., where conservative optometrist Tom Avery (Sheen) comfortably enjoys the life he's chosen for himself. But as his son Daniel (Estevez) reminds him in flashback, "You don't choose a life, Dad. You live one."

In a series of memories spread across the first act of the film, Tom and his son clash gently as the youth (technically, in his 40s) decides to ditch grad school and see the world ("The eyes are the most important organ in the body," Tom would agree). 

Then tragedy strikes, quite literally interrupting Tom's country-club existence when the doctor receives a call from France explaining that his son was killed during a storm, just one stop into his pilgrimage along the historic path to the Cathedral de Santiago. Tom flies to France to identify the body and, in a rare display of spontaneity, decides to honor Daniel's memory by doing the walk himself. 

Sheen's role will seem familiar to those aware of the roster of distinguished older men he's played over the past decade, but is actually quite different from the actor's activism-oriented personality. The beauty of his performance comes in its subtlety -- the way the character appears to be constantly holding back his emotions (except for one drunken outburst in which all his prejudices pour out).

As he sets out on the Camino, Tom is surly toward his fellow travelers, nonplussed about the conditions and oblivious to the beauty around him, completely focused on reaching his destination. 

Estevez, by contrast, appreciates the journey (not only when in character, but also as the film's writer-director), savoring the sights and textures en route. Tom carries his son's cremated remains, and whenever the crew reaches a site worth lingering, Estevez has the character stop to spread a handful of ashes -- each time triggering another wave of emotional kinship with the audience.

To deliver still more poignancy to the grieving process, Tom repeatedly glimpses what looks like Daniel (must be the clouds in his eyes). A loner at heart -- and a widower to boot -- Tom can't help but share his journey with three other pilgrims: an affable Dutchman (Yorick van Wageningen) torn between trying to lose weight and sampling all the cuisine en route; an emotionally damaged Canadian woman (Deborah Karen Unger, whose weathered plastic surgery may or may not be part of her character); and a blocked Irish writer (James Nesbitt) who attempts to record Tom's touching story.

These troupers might have lent themselves nicely to a "Canterbury Tales"-style approach, allowing Estevez to delve into their various backstories, but the director prefers to accentuate mood over character, stacking montages two and three deep, to full-length songs from such adult contemporary icons as James Taylor, David Gray and Alanis Morissette, all connected by Tyler Bates' New Age-y score. 

He also keeps the relationship between Tom and Daniel relatively generic and polite for maximum relatability, even though things often must have gotten contentious between this inflexible old Republican and his liberal-minded son. 

As a result, the writing feels flat, though not without humor or moments of genuine, unexpected poignancy, as in a scene featuring a young thief (Omar Munoz) and his gypsy father (Antonio Gil). 

While the film itself isn't particularly introspective, it certainly encourages auds to dig deep into themselves -- precisely the quality (coupled with gorgeous images that could be improved only by widescreen lensing) that should make "The Way" so powerful for people looking to get from the movies what countless others have by walking the Camino.

Even more powerful is the story behind the story, which allowed the Estevez family to explore their cultural and religious heritage (Spain and Catholicism), with father and son accomplishing this mystic experience together. 


Running time: 128 MIN.  (English, French, Spanish dialogue)

Camera (color), Juan Miguel Azpiroz; editor, Raul Davalos; music, Tyler Bates; music supervisor, Dondi Bastone; production designer, Victor Molero; art directors, Tania Wahlbeck, Israel Perez; costume designer, Tatiana Hernandez; sound (Dolby Digital/DTS/SDDS), Aitor Berenguer; re-recording mixers, Chris Jenkins, Frank A. Montano; supervising sound designer, Glenn T. Morgan; special effects supervisor, Raul Romanillos; line producer, Toni Novella; associate producers, Johannes Brinkmann, Taylor Estevez; assistant director, Manu Calvo; casting, Mary Vernieu, J.C. Cantu.

MORE cast: Yorick van Wageningen, Deborah Karen Unger, James Nesbitt, and Emilio Estevez

An Icon Entertainment Intl., Filmax presentation of an Elixir Films production. (International sales: Icon Entertainment Intl., London.) Produced by David Alexanian, Emilio, Julio Fernandez. Executive producers, Ramon Gerard Estevez, Janet Templeton, Alberto Marini, Stewart Till. Co-producer, Lisa Niedenthal. 

Reviewed By Peter Debruge at Toronto Film Festival (Special Presentations), Sept. 10,
2010.
 


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Cave of Forgotten Dreams
(Documentary)

Narrator: Werner Herzog


Filtering the world's oldest paintings through the latest in cinematic technology, Werner Herzog delivers a one-of-a-kind art-history lesson in "Cave of Forgotten Dreams."

Granted rare access to the Chauvet Cave in southern France, captured via 3D footage that accords depth to every contour, the director uses these magnificent prehistoric canvases to reflect on the immensity and fragility of human enterprise, yielding an experience both meditative and amusingly digressive in the helmer's inimitable fashion.

Herzogians will need no convincing to join the expedition, and though B.O. penetration may depend on the availability of 3D-ready arthouses, auds will dig it in 2D, too.

Discovered in 1994 in the valley near France's Ardeche River, the Chauvet Cave contains the oldest such paintings on record (some of them 32,000 years old), almost perfectly preserved when collapsing rocks sealed off the entrance some 25,000 years ago.

Inspired by a New Yorker piece written by Judith Thurman (credited here as a co-producer), Herzog became the first filmmaker permitted by the French Ministry of Culture to shoot inside the cave, joining a small archaeological team for a few weeks in the spring of 2010.

The director has journeyed to the rainforests of Peru and the farthest reaches of Antarctica, but he's never filmed under such uniquely exacting conditions as those here.

Near-toxic levels of carbon dioxide and radon meant he and his camera crew (led by d.p. Peter Zeitlinger) could enter the cave for only a few hours each day; once inside, they were not allowed to deviate from a two-foot-wide walkway, along which they had to maneuver a small 3D-camera rig and three battery-powered light sources.

The necessity of such precautions becomes apparent, however, once the film offers its first glimpse inside the cave -- a dark wonderland of luminescent stalactites, the ground strewn with ancient pawprints and the skulls of long-extinct cave bears.

But what rivets the attention is the rock art, an astonishing treasure trove of Paleolithic
masterworks -- charcoal drawings of different animal species such as horses, lions, rhinos and bears, etched into the cave's walls.

The pictures are at once primitive and sophisticated; the curvature of the rocks (rendered in 3D with an acute sense of texture and depth) helps lend the drawings the illusion of movement, suggesting, as Herzog says in voiceover, "a form of proto-cinema."

And as with cinema, the very thing that enables human appreciation -- exposure to light and the elements -- is what will ultimately hasten its decay. Herzog seems visibly excited by what he's showing us, and his rhapsodic narration teems with ideas concerning not only the paintings' artistic significance, but also the nature of time -- the way it preserves yet dwarfs most human achievements, the tendency of creations to outlive their creators, and the impossibility of reconstructing the past from artifacts alone.

There are moments when the helmer's enthusiasm, though always welcome, seems at odds with the mood of transcendent wonder he's trying to conjure. Fortunately, he eventually quiets down long enough to let the viewer behold the paintings in something resembling silence, while Ernst Reijseger's music - a gorgeous meld of string-based orchestrations and choral harmonies -- strikes the appropriate mood of awe.

Pic is inevitably less compelling when it leaves the cave and takes on a more anthropological angle, as Herzog interviews archaeologists and professors in an effort to piece together information about the artists themselves (though little is known).

The 3D is ill judged in certain outdoor scenes, with headache-inducing image distortions and upside-down handheld footage; given Herzog's sense of mischief and often skeptical attitude toward Hollywood, this may not be entirely accidental.

While "Cave of Forgotten Dreams" has fewer eccentric detours and non sequiturs than much of the helmer's work, he does find time for a segment about the region's radioactive albino alligators (which have mutated as a result of the nearby nuclear power plant), and somehow manages to make them relevant to the subject at hand.


Running time: 89 MIN.  (English, French dialogue)

Camera (color, 3D), Peter Zeitlinger; editors, Joe Bini, Maya Hawke; music, Ernst Reijseger; sound, Eric Spitzer.

With: Dominique Baffier, Jean Clottes, Jean-Michel Geneste, Carole Fritz, Gilles
Tosello, Michel Philippe, Julien Monney, Nicholas Conard, Wulf Hein, Maria
Malina, and Maurice Maurin
 
Reviewed By Justin Chang at Toronto Film Festival (Real to Reel), Sept. 14, 2010.



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