The Five Days of Claire Denis' White Material

WHITE
MATERIAL
(Claire Denis,
France, 2010,
unrated, 108 minutes)

Coffee's
coffee.
Not worth
dying for.
-- A work-
er to Maria

Since the 1980s, French filmmaker Claire Denis has alternated between big movies, like 1999's Beau Travail, and smaller ones, like 2002's Friday Night (Vendredi Soir). Regardless as to their breadth and scope, there's an intimacy to all of her films as she observes her characters closely, allows each scene to breathe, and keeps dialogue to a bare minimum.

From the start, White Material registers as one of her more ambitious
productions. Clad in a light cotton dress, a foundation-free Isabelle Huppert wanders alone through a devastated landscape before Denis reveals her character's identity and the (general) location of the story.

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Maria Vial (Huppert) turns out to be someone who believes she's special--and maybe she is. A coffee plantation owner, she lives in an unnamed African nation filled with, in her words, "dirty whites." As the French army leaves, they recommend she do the same. Her neighbors also hasten her departure, but Maria needs five days to put her crops in order. While the soldiers fly away in a helicopter, she whispers under her breath, "Pretentious, arrogant, ignorant." Good riddance to bad rubbish.

Meanwhile, an injured boxer (Chocolat's Isaach De Bankolé) heads
towards her remote property. Along the way, he passes rows of dead
bodies that recall the genocide in Rwanda. Then, he spots a band of
child soldiers, one of whom cradles a gold lighter bearing the initials
A.V. (he took it from Maria's property). "White material," he calls it.

When they meet, the Boxer asks Maria if she's seen his
uncle. She says she hasn't,
but she allows him to stay.

After her workers split the
scene, she leaves him be-
hind to look for replacements, while her father-in-law (The Intruder's
Michel Subor) calmly takes a bath and her son, Manuel (Nicolas Du-
vauchelle), tries to sleep away the day. All the while, a pirate radio
DJ encourages the rebels to hunt the Boxer down and kill him.

Maria runs into her husband, André (a nicely subdued Christophe
Lambert), while rounding up workers. He neglects to tell her that he's
been trying to sell the plantation. Along with her young stepson, they
head back to the ranch. Though she's extended their stay for econom-
ic reasons, she endangers her family by doing so. A good provider can
still be a bad parent. Similarly: bravery can register as recklessness.

***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** *****

Nothing's mine, but I'm in charge.
-- Maria to a worker

***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** *****

While she goes about her business, the child soldiers sneak into her house. They rifle through the Vial belongings and humiliate a family member, who takes the abuse particularly poorly. I was hoping Denis wouldn't go to ex-
tremes to make her point, but the film takes a proto-punk page from Mar-
tin Scorsese's Taxi Driver playbook, and I found that development deep-
ly disappointing. What was subtle becomes, for a time, overstated.

The situation worsens from there, but at least Denis moves away from the
vigilante subplot. Suffice to say, the person who goes crazy was probably
disturbed in the first place. Though I can understand why Denis is critical
of Maria, and people like her, she takes it too far. Granted, movies about white privilege are rarely fun, and there's no reason they should be, but Denis is rarely so cynical. That doesn't make White Material a bad mo-
vie--and Huppert offers great value--but it certainly makes it a bummer.



White Material continues at the Harvard Exit through 12/24.
The theater is located at 4500 9th Avenue NE on Capitol Hill.
For more information, please click here. Images from IFC.

Cretin Hop, Part Two: Rock 'n' Roll High School

ROCK 'N' ROLL HIGH SCHOOL: Special Edition
(Allan Arkush, US, 1979, 84 mins.)
"When we found out Roger Corman was behind the picture, we said, sure, we'll doit because we knew he had a reputation and we knew he made good movies."
-- Johnny Ramone (1948-2004)

As with Hair and The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Rock 'n' Roll High School pivots around the idea that the freaks have something to teach the squares, namely: how to live.

Unlike its predecessors, Allan Arkush's first feature crosses the line separating the transgressive from the anarchic. Rocky Horror also builds to a big finish, but it's a tragedy (the failure of an impossible dream), not a triumph (fantasy made flesh).
Vince Van Patten plays the designated Brad: football captain Tom Roberts. Kate (Dey Young) is the cute nerd who'd give anything to be his girl; a future Janet, you might say. Principal Togar (Mary Woronov, doing her best Eve Arden impression) wishes more students would follow his lead. Death Race 2000 director Paul Bartel (Woronov's husband) plays Mr. McGree, a music teacher who longs to let his freak flag fly. By introducing these four dweebs in a row, Arkush sets the scene: before the film comes to an end, rock 'n' roll will set them free or eat them alive.



Instead of a male rebel rocker, Arkush and co-writers Richard Whitley and Russ Dvonch, who plays the Harold Lloyd-inspired "Freshman," offer a female: Riff Randell (P.J. Soles). Sure, she's a Ramones fan, but she's also a go-getter, a DJ who wants to write songs for the band.
More popular than cool, Tom could get any girl at Vince Lombardi High School, but he covets Riff, who lusts after leggy lead singer Joey Ramone, so he seeks advice from school fixer Eaglebauer (Clint Howard), a sort of freaky square.

In the first of four commentary tracks, Whitley explains that he originally envisioned the scenario with the Yardbirds, while Roger Corman encouraged the team to call the film Disco High in an attempt to ride Saturday Night Fever's box office-busting coattails.
Other artists under consideration included Todd Rundgren, Cheap Trick, Van Halen, and Devo, while Richard Meltzer, Darby Crash, and Pat Smear all show up as extras.

Meanwhile, the NYC-based Ramones enter the L.A. scene by performing in a moving convertible--like something out of Grease, but hipper (Joey's even chomping on chicken vindaloo). Riff buys everyone tickets to the concert, and the anarchy begins.
Though Arkush and Co. fail to explain where she got $1000 (100 X $10), this is the kind of film where it doesn't really matter. She has her own bathroom, so her unseen family must have money, and for once, that's okay.

Then Togar relieves Randell of her tickets until she wins them back through a radio contest. Instead of Tom, she takes Kate. Naturally, everyone ends up at the show, except for the principal (even McGree can be seen bopping about in his beret).
Unlike Suburbia, which features a few different bands at one gig, the Ramones receive a generous amount of time, and they deliver a great set--the way "Teenage Lobotomy" comes complete with subtitles that grow as the song goes along adds to the fun.

After Togar banishes rock from the school, the students take their revenge with support from Da Bruddas and, by extension, the MC5 (the riot occurs while Riff's copy of Back in the USA plays on the public address system). The famously fiery ending builds on previous teen-revenge touchstones like Jean Vigo's Zero for Conduct and Lindsay Anderson's If..., influences the filmmaker readily acknowledges in his commentary.

Part of the reason Rock 'n' Roll High School works so well is that it offers the kind of throwaway gags that filled the pages of Mad magazine. Brownsville Station's "Smokin' in the Boy's Room" doesn't just set the scene for a cloud of cigarette smoke, but for drug deals and hookah parties--all taking place within the same restroom.
See also: the paper airplane, the pinhead, the scalper, the nuns, and the giant mouse (truly a masterstroke). Says Arkush, "A lot of this stuff was just sort of made up on the spot." For my money, the only gag that doesn't work concerns the cafeteria-worker food-pelting. Compared to the rest of this good-natured film, it's unnecessarily cruel.

Additional extras on this special edition Shout Factory disc include the press book, photo galleries, radio spots, script pages from deleted scenes, and three more commentary tracks: Corman and Young; Arkush, Howard, and Soles (she admits it took some time to get into the Ramones); and Whitley and Dvonch (second unit director Joe Dante receives a story credit). In the first track, producer Michael Finnell joins Arkush and Whitley.

In his introduction, Arkush, who went on to create Crossing Jordan and Heroes, says that Rock 'n' Roll High School "has a very, very special place in my heart." According to Corman, it was shot in 15 days for around $200,000 (Arkush remembers a 20-day shoot).
Against all odds, the film made its way to Anchorage, AK where I caught a screening at the Fireweed Theater. Though they had just released their fourth LP, Road to Ruin, I had no idea who the Ramones were, but I loved the film. I still do.

Previous: Suburbia. Next: Ladies and Gentleman, the Fabulous Stains.



Roger Corman wanted the poster look exactly like the one for National Lampoon's Animal House. He got his wish. Image from TampaBay.com.

Putting Out Fire with Gasoline in Carlos

CARLOS 

(Olivier Assayas, France/Germany, 2010, 333 minutes)

Fighting capitalism with guerilla means is romantic, but doomed to failure.

Olivier Assayas expanded his status as a French director, starting in the 1990s, with international productions, like Irma Vep (with Hong Kong's Maggie Cheung, his ex-wife), demonlover (Denmark's Connie Nielsen), and Boarding Gate (Italy's Asia Argento). 

That female-fronted trilogy combines disparate languages and locations, but remain French simply because a Frenchman made them--France also plays a role in this particular protagonist's fate. 

With his three-part take on the life of Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, AKA Carlos (Édgar Ramírez, The Bourne Supremacy, Ché), Assayas cast a Venezuelan actor to play a Russian-educated Venezuelan terrorist (who prefers to describe himself in militaristic terms like "soldier" and "commando").

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Throughout the film, Carlos shuttles between Paris, London, Beirut, The Hague, Vienna, Damascus, Budapest, Tripoli, and other cities in service of the FPLP (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine), East Germany's Stasi, the Syrian Air Force, and the Libyan government. In the process, he collaborates with the Japanese Red Army and German Revolutionary Cells, eliciting praise from Iraqi General--and future President--Saddam Hussein. 

In his line of work, it pays to be multilingual, but it also suggests that Carlos has no real home (Assayas leaves his background a blur). As Ramírez plays him, he's passionate, narcissistic, and sexually attracted to ammunition, telling a girlfriend, "Weapons are an extension of my body." (In Vogue, John Powers described Ramírez's performance as "carnal.") 

Carlos bombs and shoots up banks, airplanes, drugstores, oil conferences--whatever it takes to halt the Mideast Peace process. During the raid on 1975's OPEC Conference, which takes up the bulk of part two, Assayas has his antihero snort cocaine in the midst of a hijacking. It's a throwaway moment, but it's also a telling move for an avowed anti-imperialist.

Granted, it was probably easy for Carlos to access, and provided a boost of energy for a tired terrorist, but it's the drug of choice for rock stars and stock traders, marking the point at which Carlos loses the plot as the dedicated Marxist embraces the cash-stuffed briefcases his efforts generate. 

An opening credit makes it clear that Assayas wasn't aiming for documentary realism, i.e., "The film must be viewed as fiction," but the moments where people sit in rooms, talking and smoking, combined with an absence of CGI keeps a Hollywood feel at bay, even as Carlos becomes an international celebrity. There's action, but it isn't an action movie or a thriller, even though I never knew where things were going, other than that Carlos wouldn't meet his maker (he remains incarcerated in France).

 

If it lacks the pop-cult buzz of Mesrine or The Baader Meinhof Complex, Carlos doesn't lose itself in strategy like Steven Soderbergh's Ché. 

Furthermore, Assayas eschews a traditional score, but keeps the energy up with a selection of post-punk tracks that set the mood rather than reflect the era. It's anachronistic, for instance, that "Dreams Never End" represents Carlos in the first part...though his dreams do eventually end.

If Brian Eno in the 1970s sets the tone for Assayas's Clean, Wire in the 1970s and 1980s ("Dot Dash," "Drill," etc.) serves as the de facto pulse for the subsequent sections, along with songs from the Feelies, A Certain Ratio, Material, Robert Fripp and Eno, and the Dead Boys. 

In the end, Carlos gives Ramírez the role of a lifetime (I've admired his work since Tony Scott's underappreciated Domino). It's hard to imagine anyone more perfect, and the actor doesn't put one foot wrong, though his co-stars, who are mostly very good, overact at times. More importantly, though, it's the apotheosis of Assayas's globalization project, a theme running through his work at least since Irma Vep (a similar facility with languages in Clean brought Cheung a best actress award at Cannes).

While demonlover and Boarding Gate were fairly chilly propositions, Carlos, like Cold Water and Summer Hours--otherwise very different films--gets the balance right. You may not like this whoring, girlfriend-stealing, cop-killing autodidact, but he's far too relatably, recognizably human to hate.

Ultimately I realized that the disconnected images I had of Carlos had an interesting, even fascinating connection that somehow paralleled the evolution of Western leftism in those years. So I felt it was the fate of one man and, in a certain way, the story of one generation, plus a meditation on time, history, fate and issues more universal than the specific history of Carlos. -- Olivier Assays to The New York Times 

Carlos continues at the Northwest Film Forum through 11/7 in three parts, beginning at 5:30pm. The NWFF is located at 1515 12th Ave. For more information, please click here or call 206-829-7863. Images from OutNow!

In a Lonely Place: Steven Jesse Bernstein Documentary I Am Secretly an Important Man

I AM SECRETLY AN IMPORTANT MAN 

(Peter Sillen, US, 2010, 87 mins.)

I don't know if any place is a good place for poets.-- Steven Jesse Bernstein (1950-1991) 

In the opening credits to his film about Steven Jesse Bernstein, Peter Sillen paints the darkest portrait of Seattle since Trouble in Mind. While you could make a similar case for Police Beat, Sillen films the Jet City like an Edward Hopper painting. The guy sitting at the counter, nursing a cup of black coffee: Bernstein. 

The rest of it doesn't feel as noirish, though artist Susy Schneider recalls how she and Jesse used to shoot guns. Unlike Kurt Cobain, however, he wouldn't turn one against himself (or anyone else). Talking about his work to network anchor--and one-time King County executive candidate--Susan Hutchinson in 1989, however, Bernstein does use the word "dark."

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Sillen uses home movie footage to show Jesse typing, reading, and smoking cigarettes. (Towards the end of his life, Bernstein called to ask me to bring a pack to the hospital. I declined, and he let forth a stream of blood-curdling invective. To this day, I don't know how he got my number at KCMU. I later found out he called several colleagues until he found one, Scott, willing to yield to his illicit request.)

Other speakers testify to Bernstein's loyalty, compassion, and unbridled rage, of which I got a small taste. Amongst the interviews, Sillen works in poems via text, readings, and recordings alongside shots of Bernstein's Seattle: neon-lit bars, noisy factories, and brick storefronts. 

Visually, the film recalls A.J. Schnack's Cobain documentary, About a Son, except his subject's image is largely absent from that film; here, it's everywhere. Fantagraphics curator Larry Reid notes that the press dubbed Bernstein the godfather of grunge, but Reid more accurately describes him as an orator.

Jesse opened for Big Black and Nirvana, but he was more of a beat poet who played in jazz bands and performed with a stand-up bass player. I met his stepson, Julian, when I was working at Cellophane Square. One day, he told me Bernstein was teaching him to play blues guitar.

  Sillen also interviews relatives, like his brother, Jeff, who looks almost nothing like him, and Northwest notables, like photographer Charles Peterson, Slim Moon (Kill Rock Stars), Bruce Pavitt (Sub Pop), Dave Reisch (Holy Modal Rounders), and Steve Fisk, who produced Prison. They talk about his need to create, his time in mental facilities, his problems with drugs and alcohol, and his move from LA.

In the annals of local cinema, I Am Secretly an Important Man doesn't just document a fascinating figure, but gives pride of place to Old Seattle, aligning it closer to Martin Bell's Streetwise than to the work of Alan Rudolph or Robinson Devor. 

What comes through most clearly is that no one looked, talked, or wrote quite like Bernstein. If you've heard of him, then you already know how he died, and there's no need to rehash the details (he took his own life). Suffice to say that, as in many of the better profiles, Sillen prioritizes the man's life and work over his demise. 

Unfortunately, too many filmmakers, operating under the best of intentions, begin with the untimely death of their subject before working their way backwards (John Walter's How to Draw a Bunny, a portrait of artist Ray Johnson, is one of the few to make a virtue out of this tired trope). The impression is that their film wouldn't exist otherwise. That's morbid.

Despite the darkness inherent in Bernstein's poetry, it was also funny, and he knew how to have a good time--until he didn't. Of everyone, Jeff sums him up best, "In some ways, he was like the guy who goes in and turns up the contrast on everything." This is a short film, and it can't address every issue, but Peter Sillen does something similar: he turns the contrast up on a person worth remembering. 

I Am Secretly an Important Man plays the Northwest Film Forum 10/22-28. The NWFF is located at 1515 12th Ave. be- tween Pike and Pine on Capitol Hill. For more information, please click here or call 206-829-7863. Images from Anna Jennings and Arthur S. Aubry (another KCMU alumnus).

Modern Gladiators: Sweethearts of the Prison Rodeo

SWEETHEARTS OF THE PRISON RODEO
(Bradley Beesley, 2010, US, HD, 90 mins)

Oklahoma filmmaker Bradley Beesley has profiled the Flaming Lips and Okie noodlers (bare-handed fishermen). With Sweethearts of the Prison Rodeo, he turns to incarcerated bronc riders and steer ropers, men and women who risk serious injury for a few seconds of glory. He begins six weeks before 2007's event, working in the impressions of convicts and correctional officers, and captures the contestants as they try out for teams, practice, attend parole hearings, and go about their daily routine.

His subjects include 14-year veteran Danny Liles, a 47-year-old convicted murderer, and Brandy "Foxie" Witte, a 23-year-old convicted felon, who searches for her birth family during the course of the documentary. To Liles, who's served 25 years, incarceration represents "years and years of boredom with moments of adrenalin."

Vintage film clips bring 70 years of prison rodeo history to life, while an inter-title notes that Oklahoma offers one of only two left in the world. Until 2006, the event was an all-male affair, but now welcomes women from Eddie Warrior Correctional Center in addition to men from the Oklahoma State Penitentiary and 10 other facilities.

According to Attorney Irven Box, more women do time in Oklahoma than any other state--which already suffers from an alarming rate of drug abuse and domestic violence. No one can predict what will happen to any of these prisoners when they get out, but it's heartening to see them work hard and to support their teammates, skills that will prove beneficial to those with a release date in their future. Beesley chose his subjects well, and it's hard not to root for their success in the ring--and beyond.



Sweethearts of the Prison Rodeo plays the Northwest Film Forum 10/8-10 at 7 and 9pm. Beesley won't be present to introduce his film, but he will be in town from 10/4-8 to serve as a juror for the NWFF's Local Sightings Festival. The NWFF is located at 1515 12th Ave between Pike and Pine. For more information, please click here or call 206-829-7863. Images from Mubi.com.

The Deadly Charm of the Bourgeoisie: Le Amiche

LE AMICHE / The Girlfriends (Michelangelo Antonioni, Italy, 1955, 35mm, 104 mins.) "Fashion designers usually dress like tramps." -- Momina (right) to Clelia

Much as I love Michelangelo Antonioni, I like the way Le Amiche begins more like an Henri-Georges Clouzot thriller (his classic Diabolique appeared the same year). First, he introduces Clelia (Eleonora Rossi Drago), one of the film's fashionable women. Then, he introduces Rosetta Savone (Madeleine Fischer), who is staying in the hotel room next to the salon manager--after the maid discovers her close to death, lying on the bed in an evening gown. (The detective even recalls Paul Meurisse.) So, Antonioni sets a mystery in motion before he's even revealed the rest of the cast.

I was expecting an Italian version of George Cukor's The Women, but the director is going for something darker--though these ladies are just as fond of mink coats and funny hats. As J. Hoberman noted in The Village Voice, Jonas Mekas and Andrew Sarris, among Le Amiche's few original American adherents (it didn't make its way to the US until 1963), felt "that this detached look at life among the rich and vapid anticipated Antonioni's 1960 breakthrough L'Avventura."

Momina de Stefani (Yvonne Furneaux) then enters the scene when she comes to call on Rosetta, who is recovering in a Turin hospital. So, while Clelia goes about her rounds, Momina speaks with Rosetta's associates to determine why she overdosed the night before. In the process, she ropes Clelia into her unofficial investigation. The cast grows larger with each scene. Momina believes Rosetta tried to take her life out of love for Lorenzo (Gabriele Ferzetti, L'Avventura), who painted her portrait, though he's married to fellow artist Nene (Valentina Cortese). Some reviewers de- scribe Rosetta's intentions as ambiguous, but she confirms Momina's suspicions. If Le Amiche has become known for bitchiness, the way Momina befriends Clelia is actually quite sweet, especially since the latter came from blue-collar Turin before making it in Rome, stating, "I've always worked, and I've never had time for friend- ships." She also finds a friend in Carlo (Ettore Manni), the store foreman. While Ro- setta's friend, Mariella (Anna Maria Pancani), finds him a "hunk," Momina's lover, ar- chitect Cesare (Franco Fabrizi), dismisses him as "a common laborer." After Roset- ta recovers, everyone--except Carlo--becomes part of the same social set. Unfortun- ately, Rosetta isn't really better, and picks up right where she left off with Lorenzo.

Clelia thinks it's a bad idea, but Momina encourages the younger woman. Separated from her wealthy spouse, she thinks nothing of sleeping around, which doesn't offer much to brag about, but certainly sets Le Amiche apart from the hundreds of Italian movies where husbands cheat on their wives, and no one gives it a second thought.

Aside from Momina, the other ladies aren't as catty as their reputation suggests. When Nene, who knows about the relationship, confronts Rosetta, she's more than a little decent about it, but that isn't what leads the part-time model to contemplate suicide again; it's that Lorenzo cares more about his lackluster career. He can't be with his successful wife, he can't be with his lover, and he doesn't seem to enjoy his own company much either. Worse yet, Rosetta's lack of identity makes her a drag. In the end, Clelia throws away her hard-won social status to express what she thinks about Turin high society. Significantly, it's her choice, and not a fate she must undergo to prove a point about the impermeability of class and gender in 1950s Italy. Whether you agree with her actions or not, she exits with her dignity intact.

Le Amiche, in a new 35mm print, continues at the Northwest Film Forum through 9/15 at 7 and 9pm (plus Sat. and Sun. at 5pm; no 7pm screening on Sat.). The NWFF is located at 1515 12th Ave. between Pike and Pine on Capitol Hill. For more information, please click here or call 206-829-7863.

Mother and Child Reunion: Mamma Roma

MAMMA ROMA (Pier Paolo Pasolini, Italy, 1962, 35mm, 105 mins.) "At your age, the only woman you need is a mother." Despite modest exposure and mixed reviews, Pier Paolo Pasolini's second feature, Mamma Roma, has only grown in stature over the years, not least because Anna Magnani gives a larger-than-life performance as the retired prostitute of the title. (In Italy, the film is so iconic that Dolce and Gabbana based their latest ad campaign around it, casting Madonna as Mamma.) In the words of Edward Guthmann (The San Francisco Chronicle), Magnani "erupts" with "lust, laughter and carnivorous pleasure." The description is ironic, though not far off the mark, since Pasolini depicts the relationship between a mother and a son rather than a carnal union. And if you can find a review that doesn't use any of the following words to describe Magnani, good luck: earthy, bawdy, lusty, and brassy. That said, Mamma Roma doesn't entertain a single suitor during the course of the movie. But while the openly gay filmmaker (Teorema) and his Oscar-winning lead (The Rose Tattoo) have secured their place in cinematic history, what gets lost is that Magnani shares the screen with Ettore Garofolo, who plays her 16-year-old son, also named Ettore (Garofolo, a non-pro, was waiting tables when Pasolini found him). If anything, Garofolo, who gives a more passive but no less effective performance, gets more screen time than Magnani, even if Pasolini begins the story from her point of view. As Mamma Roma watches her former pimp, Carmine (Franco Citti), marry a villager in a tableaux that recalls The Last Supper, she raises a good-natured ruckus, singing and slinging jokes in the direction of the irritable groom. What does she care? She's finally earned enough bread to leave the countryside, collect her boy, and go legit. To her, the town, located somewhere on the outskirts of the Eternal City, is filled with "hicks," and she can't wait to make her escape. Upon their reunion, Ettore, a gawky lad in a bulky suit, looks at his mother as if she's just arrived from outer space. It isn't that she scares him, but that he doesn't get her. Eager to make up for lost time, Mamma Roma flutters about him like a hyperactive butterfly. Just as they're getting ready to split the scene, Carmine darkens her doorstep, threatening to tell Ettore about his mother's former profession if she doesn't give him a bundle of money. Mamma Roma leaves anyway, knowing full well that Carmine will track her down. In Rome, she takes a job as a produce vendor. Life should be perfect, except the city starts to pull Ettore away from her. First there are the hoodlums who persuade him to join them in a life of crime, and then there's Bruna (Silvana Corsini), the pretty 23-year-old who catches his eye. In this Oedipal tale, it can't be completely coinci- dental that the brunette could pass for a younger copy of his 43-year-old mother. All the boys in the neighborhood have had a roll in the hay with Bruna, but that doesn't matter to Ettore. Nor does he mind when he finds out she has an infant son (fathers hold no interest for Pasolini). He wants to buy her gifts, but has no income, so he sells a few of Mamma Roma's tango records to purchase a gold necklace. Out of desperation, Mamma Roma pulls strings to find him work (like Carmine, she opts for blackmail). She also encourages Ettore to stop seeing Bruna, but he finds it as hard to let go of the girl as to hang on to the job--waiter in a respectable res- taurant--at which he turns out to be surprisingly good. The situation regresses from there, and Pasolini systematically eliminates all comedy and romance until only har- rowing drama remains. If things don't end well, there's the sense that Mamma Ro- ma, like Pasolini's picture, will keep on pushing, no matter what comes her way. Whether she'll thrive or not is another matter. While she shares the same indomit- able spirit that fuels Giulietta Masina's streetwalker in Federico Fellini's Nights of Ca- biria, she's a different woman and this is a different story. Cabiria risks everything for a greedy lover; Mamma Roma for a shiftless son. If the final sequence trades Christian allegory for a literal interpretation, I'd be lying if I say I wasn't moved. Mamma Roma continues at the Northwest Film Forum through Thurs., 9/9, at 7 and 9pm (plus weekends at 5pm). The NWFF is located at 1515 12th Ave. be- tween Pike and Pine on Capitol Hill. For more information, please click here or call 206-829-7863. Images from The New York Times (Fondazione Aida).

C'mon a Nobuhiko Obayashi's House

HOUSE / Hausu (Nobuhiko Obayashi, Japan, 1977, 35mm, 87 mins.) Chocolate, candy, bread, love, and dreams! Infamous Japanese whatsit House is the quintessential 1970s artifact. The animated opening recalls The Rocky Horror Picture Show before introducing fresh-faced schoolgirls Fantasy (Kumiko Ohba) and Gorgeous (Kimiko Ikegami), who take pictures of each other while planning for summer vacation as H.R. Pufnstuf-style music plays in the background (in some translations, Gorgeous becomes Angel). It's all so...innocent. Think high-school horror classics like Carrie. Sada director Nobuhiko Obayashi even shoots in soft focus, just like Brian De Palma before him. But you can tell you're in fantasyland when Gorgeous's widowed father (Saho Sasazawa), a film composer just returned from Italy, tells her, "Leone said my music was better than Morricone's." (Yeah, right.) Then she meets his new bride, Ryôko (Haruko Wanibuchi), who enters the scene like Joan Crawford--or the Bride of Frankenstein--in high dudgeon: eerily erect posture, flowing white gown. Used to being Daddy's favorite, Gorgeous doesn't take the news well. Obayashi extends the bizarro-world impression through freeze frames, colored gels, fake exteriors, sepia-toned flashbacks, silent-movie title cards, and additional animations. Gorgeous decides she'd rather spend the summer with her friends, so she invites Fantasy, Melody (Eriko Tanaka), Kung Fu (Miki Jinbo), Prof (Ai Matsubara), Sweet (Masayo Miyako), and Mac (Mieko Satoh) to her aunt's house in the country. (Each name describes the girl in question.) Unbeknownst to Gorgeous, Ryôko plans to crash the party, ostensibly to win her over. By this point, the score has morphed from acid bubblegum to electronic hum, suggesting the calm before the storm. While the girls gather at the train station, the film slips into slapstick Monkees ter- ritory: a shoemaker sings a song in English as Fantasy's crush object, Mr. Tôgô (Ki- yohiko Ozaki), trips over Gorgeous's green-eyed cat, Blanche, and ends up with a bucket stuck to his butt, but the girls make it to the manse without incident, not counting an exchange with a wacked-out watermelon seller (Vendor: "Do you like watermelons?" Mac: "No! I like bananas!"). Tôgô plans to join them later. The minute they enter the cobweb-covered estate, freaky things start to happen. Blanche, for instance, greets Auntie (Yôko Minamida) like an old friend. Rather than fear, the weirdness fills the ladies with delight. They marvel at the rats, fix dinner, and enjoy a leisurely meal, but then Mac disappears. Fantasy figures out what hap- pened, but there's no proof, so no one believes her--her name is Fantasy after all. As the vacation continues, the girls clean house and explore the grounds to tinkly piano music that gives way to funky jazz. Auntie and Blanche, meanwhile, find some rather novel ways to entertain themselves. Soon, mirrors are cracking, mattresses are flying, blood is flowing, a possession takes place, and a musical instrument goes berserk. Plucky as they are, the girls are still girls, and there's only so much they can do, so they pin their hopes on Tôgô--and his sideburns--to set things right. And then, just when things couldn't possibly get any weirder, my screener freaked out, and refused to play until the end. (I blame it on Blanche.) Granted, I wasn't about to spoil the conclusion, but I'm gonna have to wait until I can secure anoth- er copy to see it for myself. Fans of Head, Suspiria, The Evil Dead, Pee-Wee's Play- house, and The Happiness of the Katakuris: meet your new cinematic obsession. House continues at the Northwest Film Forum through Sun., 8/8, at 7 and 9pm. The NWFF is located at 1515 12th Ave. between Pike and Pine on Capitol Hill. For more information, please click here or call 206-829-7863. Though the Criterion Collection plans to release the DVD on 10/26--extra features include an experimental short by Obayashi and a video appreciation by House of the Devil director Ti West--you real- ly should see Obayashi's brainchild on the big screen. Images from Janus Films.

I'm a Believer: Leon Morin, Priest

LEON MORIN, PRIEST / Lèon Morin, Prêtre 

(Jean-Pierre Melville, France, 1961, 35mm, 117 mins) 

There's not a trace of doubt in my mind.

--Neil Diamond, 

"I'm a Believer" 

Lèon Morin, Priest provides persuasive evidence that French filmmaker Jean-Pierre Melville didn't just make movies about men, like Bob le Flambeur and Le Samouraï, but about women, too. And from a female perspective. For a director responsible for some of the best tough-guy films ever made, he had a sensitive--but not sentimental--side for which he still doesn't receive due credit, as exemplified by La Silence de la Mer, which also takes place during wartime. 

Arriving in American theaters 49 years after its debut, his adaptation of Béatrix Beck's semi-autobiographical novel centers on Mrs. Barny (Hiroshima, Mon Amour's soulful Emmanuelle Riva), instructor at a correspondence school. In her opening narration, the widow describes the Italian soldiers descending on Saint-Bernard during the Occupation, noting how silly they look in their feathered caps.

Formerly known as The Forbidden Sinner 

In an era in which same-sex attraction wasn't exactly encouraged, Barny acknowledges a crush on Sabine (Nicole Mirel), the school's voluptuous personal assistant, who boasts a silhouette similar to that of Mad Men's Joan (Christina Hendricks). "The sight of her," Barny exults, "sent me flying through time and space," adding that she "felt an intense pleasure when my gaze sparred with hers." To Barny, Sabine is more like a figure from Greek literature than an object of desire. Quips her roommate, "In short, you want to sleep with her." Barny denies any such intention. 

Nonetheless, few men populate the village, since many have left to join the Resistance. That leaves priests, like Lèon (Jean-Paul Belmondo, between Breathless and Melville's Le Doulos). Barny, a confirmed communist, meets him in the confession booth, where she aims to shock, but the open-minded Morin has a clever rejoinder for everything she says. (Despite her antipathy for Catholics, Barny's half-Jewish daughter, France, undergoes a baptism to protect her from the incoming Nazis.)

Lèon encourages her to take advantage of the parish library, which she does, reading several books on faith. He wants to teach, she wants to learn. There is no impropriety. Each time, she notices the minor repairs to his cassock (the camera always see him through her eyes, which is to say: Melville's equally besotted gaze). 

When the Nazis start to round up Jews, the school director doesn't say a word, just looks profoundly uncomfortable. The implication is clear: like Melville (née Jean-Pierre Grumbach), he's Jewish. No one, except Barny, seems to notice, such that the occasional anti-Semitic remark ensues. "Jews aren't part of the French race," states a colleague. Counters another, "There is no French race."

  Melville and furry friend 

Barny soon learns that other women seek out the priest for spiritual guidance. One even attempts to seduce him. As the world around them changes, Barny and Lèon change, as well, but not in the ways one might expect.

The description of the film as a love story implies a forbidden affair like the one in The Thorn Birds, except Lèon Morin isn't a soap opera, despite Melville's flirtation with Sirkian melodrama. It is, instead, a film about faith and about life during wartime, but it's also about a chaste (if sexually charged) male-female friendship. Whether or not the priest and the widow are attracted to each other, they certainly find each other of interest. As such, it's more talkative than Melville's other movies combined--or at least it seems that way--but the dialogue always engages. As do Riva and Belmondo. The lack of action may frustrate some, but it's his most heartfelt effort after Army of Shadows (a veteran of the Resistance, he felt a connection to both source novels). 

In the end, Barny is one of Melville's strong females, like Army's Mathilde (Simone Signoret). She isn't a man in drag, though she does possess androgynous qualities. His insistence that women don't have to be overtly feminine (though some do conform to that image), that they can be brave (Mathilde gives her life for the cause), and that they can be the intellectual equal of any man, doesn't make him a feminist filmmaker in the conventional sense, but it does make him progressive, and helps to explain his enduring appeal. This is a beautiful, heartbreaking film.

   

Lèon Morin, Priest plays the Northwest Film Forum from 7/23-29. The NWFF is located at 1515 12th Ave. For more information, please click here or call 206-829-7863. Images from Rialto Pictures and Shooting Down Pictures.

Papa Was a Rollin' Stone in Daddy Longlegs

DADDY LONGLEGS / Go Get Some Rosemary
(Benny and Josh Safdie, USA, 2010, 35mm, 

98 mins)



Wherever he laid his hat was his home.
--Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong (1972)

Some people grow up with dads who are, well, dads. It isn't that their fathers don't have other interests or play other roles--husband, son, employee, etc.--it's that "dad" always comes first (at least in the minds of their children). Other people grow up with dads who are characters, with personalities so strong they subsume every other role they play, which doesn't mean they don't try to be good fathers. Just that it's a lot harder.

The character at the center of Daddy Longlegs, the first feature from Benny and Josh Safdie, is that kind of guy (on his own, Josh directed 2008's kleptomaniac adventure The Pleasure of Being Robbed.) In fact, that's what bystanders probably say when they see him coming, "Hey! It's that guy." Meet him once, and you'll never forget him. The thing is, you might not want to meet him again. He's like Vincent Gallo's whiny ex-con in 1998's Buffalo 66: funny from a distance, but far less so within close proximity.

Played by Frownland director Ronald Bronstein, he's a jittery, loud-mouthed perpetual motion-machine, filled with a combination of crippling insecurity and unbridled bravado. In other words: a New Yorker. A projectionist by trade, comic collector by proclivity, he's also a divorced dad with two rambunctious boys, nine-year-old Sage and seven-year-old Frey (played by Sonic Youth guitarist Lee Ranaldo's sons...Sage and Frey).

The film covers two weeks during which his ex-wife (Ranaldo's wife Leah Singer) grudgingly hands them over to him. Lenny loves his sons, his sons love him. What could go wrong? As it turns out: everything. But Daddy Longlegs isn't a Judd Apatow comedy where viewers are expected to laugh at his desperate attempts to feed his kids and hang on to his job.

Which isn't to suggest that the film lacks humor--hence the comparison to Buffalo 66, which otherwise follows a very different path--but that sense of unease permeates the entire proceedings, building to a feeling of intense dread before ending in a bizarre flourish of surrealism.

He may sound like a loner, but Lenny has a girlfriend, Leni (Eleonore Hendricks) which isn't such a bad thing (his ex is also remarried to a man played by Ranaldo). She even likes his kids, but that doesn't mean she's ready to settle down. Nor is Lenny. The minute he gets a break from her and them, he picks up a woman and spends the night with her.

Instead of taking off the next day, he invites himself to join Roberta (Dakota Goldhur) on a trip to Upstate New York. Just as he neglects to explain his domestic situation, she's equally neglectful, resulting in a funny, surprising, and rather lovely adventure. But as in all sequences: disaster lurks around every corner (keep an eye out for filmmaker Abel Ferrara as "Robber").

And so it goes until the situation becomes almost unbearable. This is the point at which the tone shifts from the anxious arena of Cassavetes' Husbands to the nightmarish environs of Lynch's Eraserhead, to the extent that I had a dream days later in which the Lynch and Safdie films bled into one and came to life--and I was the freaked-out parental figure (though I should mention that it wasn't my first Eraserhead-inspired dream).

At the press screening, a local critic--who has two kids--arrived late and left early. He didn't miss much more than the credits, but the film clearly rubbed him the wrong way (and he might not have wanted to be there in the first place). He's just one example, but I can imagine other viewers who won't want to spend 98 minutes with a self-defeating character who never stops talking, never stops moving, and trails disaster in his wake like Pigpen trailing clouds of dust (the Safdies say they looked to their own father for inspiration). And yet, the more I think about it, the more I like it.

That Lenny's dilemma invaded my dreams, even though I don't have any kids, indicates the extent to which it got under my skin, making Daddy Longlegs the opposite of escapist entertainment. But if your father, like mine, was a character first and a dad second, you'll probably relate. And maybe you'll even feel a little less alone.

Daddy Longlegs plays the Northwest Film Forum 6/25-7/1. Directors in attendance Fri.-Sun. The NWFF is located at 1515 12th Ave. between Pike and Pine. For more information, please call 206-829-7863 or click here. Images from OutNow!, A Good Movie to Watch, MUBI, and FilmLeaf.

Death Takes a Holiday in Get Low

GET LOW ***1/2
(Aaron Schneider, US, 2010, 100 mins.)

One thing about Chicago, people know how to die. People are dying in bunches, but not around here.--Frank Quinn (Bill Murray) 

Comedies about death aren't exactly a novel proposition, but Get Low, which draws from a real incident, leaves the gallows humor behind for a lighter touch. 

After losing his sweetheart 40 years before, Felix (Robert Duvall) has lived like a hermit ever since. With guilt weighing him down, the "crazy ol' nutter" decides to throw a party. As he tells funeral director Frank (Bill Murray in top form), "Time for me to get low." 

Frank and his assistant, Buddy (Duvall's Sling Blade co-star Lucas Black), find the request bizarre--since Felix plans to attend--but they can't afford to turn him down, so they fix him for a suit and post invitations up around Caleb County. Before he leaves this mortal coil, Felix longs to hear the tall tales the town folk have been spreading about him. 

While preparing for the big day, he reconnects with Mattie (Sissy Spacek), an old flame recently returned to Tennessee. Their encounters, which have a gentle sweetness, encourage him to share the truth he's kept bottled up inside for decades. After that big build-up, his confession feels anti-climactic, but cinematographer-turned-director Schneider's affection for his characters always shines through.  

Show time: 6/13, 6:30pm, Cinerema (opens on 7/30). 

 

For more information, please see the official website. Image from the The New York Times (Robert Duvall / Credit: Sam Emerson/Sony Picture Classics).

SIFF 2010: The Soviet Swing Kids of Hipsters

HIPSTERS / Stilyagi ***1/2
(Valery Todorovsky, Russia, 2008, 125 minutes)  

 

Everyone has seen a hipster, but no one is one.-- Douglas Wolk, 2010 EMP Pop Conference

 

 

Don't let the title scare you away. Hipsters has nothing to do with the black-clad indie-rockers who roam around the clubs and bars of Capitol Hill and Williamsburg, but a group of colorfully-dressed kids giving the finger to the aesthetic dogma of 1950s-era USSR. 

***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** *****  

New dates and times: Hipsters is now playing at the Egyptian Theater (801 E Pine St.) at 4:05, 7, and 9:45pm through 12/8 (and 1pm on 12/4).  

***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** *****  

Our guide into this eye-popping world--think plaid and floral prints in chartreuse and fuschia--is Mels (Anton Shagin), a Moscow lad who lives like a good little communist until he meets pretty Polly (Lilya 4-Ever's Oksana Akinshina), after which he poufs his hair into a sky-scraping pompadour, secures a garish suit, and turns into Mel. 

Soon, he's hitting the town with Polly and her pals, like Fred (standout Maksim Matveev), who thrill to the illicit sounds of Duke Ellington and Charlie Parker. 

Since this is a musical comedy, not a docudrama, Mel learns to play the saxophone in a matter of minutes, thus securing his position as a part of this Russian rat pack. As the elusive Polly starts to yield to his overtures, Mel's old comrades plot to destroy the hipster community once and for all, but bigger forces are at play. 

If the scenario sounds political, director Valery Todorovsky (The Land of the Deaf) elevates fashion, dance moves, and romantic entanglements over any larger statements about the Soviet regime. Sure, it was repressive, but so were the hypocritical worlds depicted in Rebel Without a Cause and Grease, the sort of touchstones his us-against-them story suggests, along with Hairspray, Swingers, and Leningrad Cowboys Go America.  

Hipsters doesn't dig as deep as it could--and probably should--but it's frequently quite spectacular. Definitely recommended.  

***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** *****  

Original SIFF 2010 show times: June 10, 6:30pm, Egyptian Theater, and June 12, 2:30pm, Pacific Place. Director in attendance.   

Endnote: Todorovsky will also be at the June 12 screening of The Land of the Deaf at 12pm at Pacific Place. As always, dates and times are subject to change. Please visit the official website for more information. Images from Stockholm International Film Festival.

Fog of War: Countdown to Zero and The Tillman Story

COUNTDOWN TO ZERO [***]  
(Lucy Walker, USA, 2010, 92 minutes) 

"How I Learned to Start Worrying and Fear the Bomb."-- Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian 

 ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** 

With a rigorous eye, Blindsight's Lucy Walker examines the arms race from the inception of the atomic bomb to the present, building her three-part structure around a speech from President Kennedy, in which he warned of "accident, miscalculation, and madness." If Kennedy serves as the film's conscience, physicist Robert Oppenheimer, who over- saw the Manhattan Project--only to regret the death and destruction it would engen- der--serves as its heart (ghostly images of the pale-eyed scientist are almost as eer- ie as his prophetic words). Even Oppenheimer, though, couldn't have predicted the ready availability of highly enriched uranium in the years after the Cold War, one of Walker's more chilling revelations. Aside from the deadly explosions in Oklahoma City, Madrid, and other urban centers, she looks at several near misses. As Kennedy concluded, "The weapons of war must be abolished before they abolish us," and she ends on a note of guarded optimism by speaking with F.W. de Klerk, who dismantl- ed South Africa's nuclear infrastructure during his administration. Most of her oth- er speakers agree: it's the right thing to do. Like Dr. Strangelove and Fog of War, Countdown to Zero marks an essential addition to the ranks of atomic cinema. Click here for full-length review.  

Show times: 6/2, 7pm, at Pacific Place; and 6/3, 9:15pm, at SIFF Cinema. Director in attendance. ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** THE TILLMAN STORY [****] (Amir Bar-Lev, US, 2010, 94 mins.) "A lot of politics is theatrical wrestling." -- Stan Goff, retired special-ops expert In My Kid Could Paint That, director Amir Bar-Lev took on an art world mystery. With The Tillman Story, one of the year's best documentaries, he takes on a military mystery. When NFL player Pat Tillman and his brother, Kevin, signed up to serve in Afghanistan, no one knew exactly why, but the move made national headlines and, against the deeply private young man's wishes, he became a symbol of pa- triotism in action. Then, on his second tour of duty, a bullet took Tillman's life. President Bush stated that 9/11 had galvanized the 27-year-old, though Tillman never said any such thing, while the Army claimed he died defending his fellow Rangers (they also acted against his wishes by staging a military funeral). Devas- tated, his parents knew the story didn't add up, so they pushed for the truth, despite massive resistance, and the Army finally admitted that their son had been the vic- tim of friendly fire or "fratricide," but resisted all attempts to find out exactly what happened. Consequently, it's a mystery that Bar-Lev, who edits his material togeth- er like a maestro, can't completely solve, but he sheds light on a shameful episode in American history while simultaneously paying tribute to a remarkable family.  

Show times: 6/4, 4pm, at SIFF Cinema; and 6/6, 7pm, at SIFF Cinema. Also recommended: Neil Jordan's flawed, but beautifully shot supernatural ro- mance Ondine (with a very good Colin Farrell): 6/4, 7pm, at the Kirkland Perfor- mance Center; 6/6, 9pm, at the Uptown; and 6/3, 11:30pm, at Pacific Place. Also, in case you missed the SIFF screenings, Seven Gables theaters will be showing the following well regarded films after the fest: Joan Rivers - A Piece of Work (6/18); Holy Rollers, I Am Love, and Winter's Bone (6/25); Cyrus (7/2); and Farewell (8/6). 

 

Endnote: As always, dates and times are subject to change. Please visit the official website for more information. Images from NPR and indieWIRE.