VENICE FILM REVIEW: Shinya Tsukamoto ‘s ‘Tetsuo’

Posted on September 8, 2009 by admin

tetsuo x325By Ray Bennett

VENICE – Japanese filmmaker Shinya Tsukamoto shows what a “Transformers” movie would be like on a shoestring budget with “Tetsuo the Bullet Man”, which features a man whose mother was an android and whose half-human half-machine body comes to sprout an arsenal of fearsome weapons.

Box office is likely to be restricted to fans that were taken with Tsukamoto’s original “Tetsuo”, which came out 20 years ago with a sequel three years later.

Screened in competition at the Venice International Film Festival, it does boast some impressive editing to obscure the cheesy effects and masks, and it has an ear-splitting sound design of howling industrial noise.

Erik Bossick plays the unfortunate individual whose scientist father (Stephen Sarrazin) not only turns him into a piece of frightening hardware with a head like a giant oyster shell but also arranges to have his son murdered and threatens to do the same to him and his wife (Akiko Monou).

The dialogue is lame, the acting is stilted and the film lacks almost any color but that won’t matter to those for whom noise and mayhem are sufficient, and it’s over in less than 80 minutes.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

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VENICE FILM REVIEW: Oliver Stone doc ‘South of the Border’

Posted on September 6, 2009 by admin

southoftheborder x650By Ray Bennett

VENICE – Good humored, illuminating and without cant, Oscar-winning director Oliver Stone’s documentary “South of the Border” is a rebuttal of what he views as the fulminations and lies of right-wing media at home and abroad regarding the socialist democracies of South America.

Featuring interviews with seven national leaders who all express great affection for their neighbors to the north if not for historical United States foreign policy, the film suggests a clear way forward for a continent that has largely shaken off the grip of imperialism and what Stone calls predatory capitalism as opposed to benign capitalism.

Greeted with extended applause at its Venice press and industry screening, the film will fare well internationally and will attract liberal audiences in Stone’s homeland. Conservative outrage could also spark wider interest and it should thrive among educators and have a long ancillary life.

Clips from CNN and Fox News establish quickly the buffoonish tone with which news about South American politics is usually treated with democratically elected leaders invariably depicted as dictators, but Stone also indicts the network news and media institutions including The New York Times.

Following a brief history of the events in Venezuela that led to the presidency of Hugo Chavez (pictured with Stone, the filmmaker shows how the media in that country altered film of violent demonstrations to show his supporters firing on their opposition and how those images were fed to the rest of the world. He details similar exaggerations in other countries and quotes facts and figures from each region.

His cameras follow Chavez, who was born in poverty, to the place of his childhood and on trips to a cattle farm and a plant that produces flour with help from Iran. On the way there, Chavez tells the director, “This is where we’re building the Iranian atomic bomb.” There is similar black humor from other leaders with Rafael Correa of Ecuador saying of the U.S. media, “I’d be more worried if they spoke well of me.”

The expressed view of the fraternal leaders is that they want independence and equality, and freedom from the International Monetary Fund and U.S. economic control. They all see in President Obama the opportunity for lasting, mutually beneficial change.

Stone is clearly impressed with the leaders he meets and there are many relaxed scenes including one in which he gets a great kick out of Bolivian leader Evo Morales showing him the best coca leaves to chew, a benign cure for the nauseous effects of the altitude in La Paz.

Venice International Film Festival, Out of Competition; Director: Oliver Stone; Writers: Oliver Stone, Tariq Ali; Directors of photography: Albert Maysles, Carlos Marcovich, Lucas Fuica; Music: Adam Peters; Editors: Alexis Chavez & Elisa Bonora; Producers: Fernando Sulichin, Jose Ibanez, Rob Wilson; Executive producers: Chris Hanley, Juan Riva, Serge Lobo; Production: Pentagrama Films, New Element, in association with Good Apple; Not rated; running time, 78 mins.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

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VENICE FILM REVIEW: Patrice Chereau’s ‘Persecution’

Posted on September 6, 2009 by admin

persecutionBy Ray Bennett

VENICE – Everybody persecutes everybody else and they all feel persecuted in Patrice Chereau’s talkative roundelay “Persecution”, which stars Romain Duris and Charlotte Gainsbourg as a Parisian couple who spend more time talking about their relationship than getting on with it.

Charismatic stars and the film’s Gallic shrug of acceptance over the difficulties that being in love creates will take the film to festivals and art houses but it’s far from a classic.

Duris plays Daniel, an independent guy who lives from hand to mouth renovating apartments, and seems happy that way. He even takes time to be a volunteer visitor at a retirement home and his very insouciance draws men and women to him including long-time girlfriend Sonia (Gainsbourg), whose job means she travels a lot and she’s kind of glad about that too.

Daniel has a cluster of friends including accountant Michel (Gilles Cohen), who spends all his time grousing that he cannot be like Daniel, and Thomas (Alex Descas), whom Daniel calls “brother” but seldom sees.

Working on two different jobs at the same time, Daniel is disturbed to discover that a stranger (Jean Hughes Anglade) is stalking him. Soon, the man has broken into one of the places and is declaring his love for Daniel, who responds violently.

The willingness of everyone he knows to place Daniel at the centre of their lives becomes a persecution of its own although he berates himself for persecuting all of them. He increasingly encounters strange incidents on the Metro and Paris streets but they seem only to puzzle him.

A requisite nude love scene between Duris and Gainsbourg adds little insight and their constant bickering grows tiresome. Daniel’s tolerance of the stranger’s annoying intrusions seems a bit odd even though he opens up to him about why he volunteers at the retirement home.

Some viewers may end up feeling a bit persecuted themselves.

Venue: Venice International Film Festival, In Competition; Cast: Romain Duris, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Jean Hughes Anglade, Gilles Cohen, Alex Descas; Director: Patrice Chereau; Writers: Patrice Chereau, Anne-Louise Trividic; Director of photography: Yves Cape; Production designer: Sylvain Chauvelot; Music: Eric Neveux; Costume designer: Caroline de Vivais; Editor: Francoise Gedigier; Producer: Bruno Levy; Production: Movie Movie; Sales: Vendite International; Not rated; running time, 100 mins.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

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VENICE FILM REVIEW: Yonfan’s ‘Prince of Tears’

Posted on September 6, 2009 by admin

prince of tearsBy Ray Bennett

VENICE – Very pretty people seen against beautiful landscapes provide most of the enjoyment in Chinese director Yonfan’s glossy melodrama set in Taiwan in the 1950s when the hunt for communists on the island led to the period known as the white terror.

More a tale of personal betrayal than a depiction of a nation going through turmoil, the film may travel reasonably well in Asia but success elsewhere will have to rely on audiences’ appetite for its romantic flourishes and fairy-tale wrapping.

Joseph Chang and Xuan Zhu play a flawless couple named Sun-Han and Ping with two gorgeous infant daughters. Sun-Han is a pilot and so the girls attend a school for children of pilots while Ping is a perfectly appointed and doting wife and mother noted for her dumplings.

The girls’ favorite reading is a fantasy picture book titled “The Prince of Tears” with a great hero, and they view the world through romantic eyes, especially their kindly teacher who one day disappears having been accused, sentenced and executed on grounds of treason.

Meanwhile, a friend of their father, a scarred and damaged veteran whom they call Uncle Ding (Fan Chih-wei), is a regular in their household and it doesn’t seem to bother anyone that he works for the right-wing government’s security bureau.

Also in the picture is the glamorous Madame Liu (Terry Kwan), who once knew the couple but is now married to the powerful General Liu (Kenneth Tsang).

The relationships between all the adults become strained when it appears that Ping has a history not only with Ding but also with Madame Liu. There is also a secret involving the parentage of one of the daughters. When Sun-Han and Ping are also arrested on grounds of treason, the internecine affairs become somewhat heated.

It’s good that Yonfan is able to tell a story that has such an ugly period in Taiwan’s history as its background but the real horror of the time is not fully explored and the film keeps its focus on the very handsome players.

Xuan Zhu, Yonfan, Terry Kwan at the festival

Xuan Zhu, Yonfan, Terry Kwan at the festival

Venue: Venice International Film Festival, In Competition; Cast: Fan Chi-wei, Terri Kwan, Joseph Chang, Zhu Xuan; Director, writer, production designer: Yonfan; Director of photography: Chin Ting-Chang; Music: Yu Yat-jiu, George Lam; Editors: Kong Chi-Leung, Derek Hui; Producer: Fruit Chan; Production: Far-Sun Film, Peony5 Film; Sales: Fortissimo Films; Not rated; running time, 120 mins.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

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VENICE FILM REVIEW: ‘Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans’

Posted on September 4, 2009 by admin

bad lieutenant x650By Ray Bennett

VENICE – Filled with unexpected turns and subversive humor, Werner Herzog’s “The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans” is a jazzy and very entertaining riff on the theme of a cop who spends too much time in a sewer of criminality and corruption.

It’s a far cry from Abel Ferrara’s NC17 1992 film with a similar title and it will appeal to a different audience. It has a seriously involved performance by Nicolas Cage as a good detective on a downward spiral of drugs and gambling. There is a lot of very black humor, and it develops, somewhat surprisingly, into something that suggests a kind of cheerful pessimism.

Herzog has made a piece of mainstream entertainment with quirky particulars and with Cage’s star power it could see substantial rewards from the box office both domestic and international. The film was greeted in Venice with much laughter and, at the end, with loud and sustained applause.

Veteran TV cop show writer William Finkelstein’s screenplay sets the story in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and it allows Herzog to explore the way bad things happen to good people while crooked people prosper.

Cage plays a dedicated police officer named Terence McDonaugh who in the opening sequence jumps into a flooded basement cell to save a locked up prisoner from drowning. He causes permanent injury to his back and while prescribed medicines ease the chronic pain that he’s left with, soon he’s taking illegal drugs, whatever he can find or steal.

The framework of the picture is a police procedural with McDonaugh and his colleagues, including Steve (Val Kilmer) on the trail of the killers of a family of five caught up in drug dealing.

All the while, McDonaugh is trying to score whatever will make the pain go away and there are many inventive, scary and sometimes hilarious scenes to show how he goes about it. He has a hooker junky girlfriend (Eva Mendes, pictured with Cage) and a tolerant bookie (Brad Dourif), and he runs afoul of some powerful bad guys while playing ball with a significantly dangerous drug lord.

Kilmer doesn’t get to do much but Mendes and Dourif make fine contributions, as do Fairuza Balk as an amorous former flame and Alvin “Xzibit” Joiner as the drug king. But it’s Cage’s show and his body language conveys just how much pain McDonaugh is in with one shoulder permanently clenched and his gaze on alert for the next fix. It’s a sly and intelligent performance that brings to mind the tortured character he portrayed in the grievously overlooked “Vampire’s Kiss” (1988).

Ferrara’s “Bad Lieutenant” was a lurid depiction of a very damaged detective made memorable by a fully committed performance by Harvey Keitel. That cop’s drug induced delusions involved a lot of Catholic guilt and visions of Christ. Herzog mischievously has the cop in his film see lizards. Iguanas and alligators pop up when least expected and there’s a very funny scene in which the camera captures an iguana up close with Cage’s demented cop in the frame and they look weirdly related.

Venue: Venice International Film Festival, In Competition; Cast: Nicolas Cage, Val Kilmer, Eva Mendes, Fairuza Balk, Jennifer Coolidge; Director: Werner Herzog; Writer: William Finkelstein; Director of photography: Peter Zeitlinger; Production designer: Toby Corbett; Music: Mark Isham; Costume designer: Jill Newell; Editor: Joe Bini; Producers: Edward R. Pressman, Randall Emmett, Alan Polsky, Gaby Polsky, Stephen Belafonte; Executive producers: Avi Lerner, Danny Dimbort, Trevor Short, Boaz Davidson; Production: Nu Image/Millennium Films; Sales: Millennium Films; Not rated; running time, 121 minutes.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

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FILM REVIEW: Penelope Cruz in Almodovar’s ‘Broken Embraces’

Posted on August 27, 2009 by admin

penelope cruz broken embraces 2 x650By Ray Bennett

LONDON – Aside from the fact that one is a genuine film artist while the other is an annoying twerp, the difference between the sublime Pedro Almodovar and the ridiculous Quentin Tarantino can be seen in their latest films.

With “Inglourious Basterds”, the American director has made a rubbish movie based on other rubbish movies whereas the Spaniard has drawn on the classic influences of Alfred Hitchcock and Douglas Sirk for his sumptuous melodrama “Broken Embraces” (Los Abrazos Rotos).

penelope cruz broken embraces x325Received warmly at the Festival de Cannes in May, “Broken Embraces” opens in the United Kingdom on Aug. 28 from Warner Bros./Pathe, It’s a treat for movie lovers. Not as tightly focussed or significant as Almodovar classics such as “All About My Mother” or “Volver”, it is a sprawling picture that mixes romance, mystery and suspense.

There’s laughter, betrayal and murder in a tale about a now blind filmmaker who recalls his days as a director and the circumstances that led to his loss of sight. The film makes the most of Penelope Cruz, who appears in several different guises in flashbacks to films within the film in which he plays Audrey Hepburn (left) and dons a blonde wig to play Marilyn Monroe (below) and she is never less than stunningly gorgeous. It helps that she also is a great actress.

Almodovar with his superb crafts team – production designer Antxon Gomez, Art Director Victor Molero, cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto, and editor Jose Salcedo – makes the most of it. Composer Alberto Iglesias tops it off with a simply lovely score.

I agree with Peter Bradshaw, who said in his review of “Broken Embraces in The Guardian, “I defy anybody to watch it without a tingle of pure moviegoing pleasure.”

broken embraces

 

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LOCARNO FILM REVIEW: ‘Under Bauern: Saviors of the Night’

Posted on August 26, 2009 by admin

under bauern 1 x650

By Ray Bennett

LOCARNO, Switzerland – German cinema’s growing number of films willing to address topics relating to World War II has a fine addition in Ludi Boeken’s “Under Bauern: Saviors of the Night”, which tells of farmers — unter bauern — in Westphalia who sheltered Jewish friends from the Nazis.

The appearance at the end of the picture of characters whose real life stories are related to the subject adds depth to a production filled with emotional power and a constant sense of dread. The film will find an international welcome from audiences who wish to add to their knowledge of the time and appreciate a riveting human drama well told.

Working from a smart screenplay by Otto Jagersberg, Imo Moskowicz and Heidrum Schleef (based on a memoir by Marga Spiegel) director Boeken spurns melodrama in favor of understatement and a clear depiction of events while sustaining an extraordinary degree of tension throughout.

The film begins in 1943 with the Nazis deporting the last German Jews to death camps. Genial horse trader Menne Spiegel (Armin Rohde) won an Iron Cross fighting for Germany in World War I but now his country’s rulers want to kill him and his family.

Desperate, he turns to neighboring farmer Heinrich Aschoff (Martin Horn) and his wife Maria (Margarita Broich) who immediately offers to hide Menne’s wife Marga (Veronica Ferres) and their young daughter.

Menne elects to move from farmer to farmer, living in dire conditions and mostly in the dark for two years. Under constant threat of exposure from nosy SS officers, over-enthusiastic Hitler Youth and frightened citizens, the Spiegels struggle to get by in their separate hideaways.

The film boasts fine performances and is all the more persuasive because it underplays the dogged strength and loyalty of the rural Germans who reject the merciless extremism of dictatorship and put themselves at grave risk.

Even at the end of the war, with the light of freedom about to bring relief, extraordinary tension remains due to the threat of vengeful cowards, freed war prisoners who go on the rampage, and even the liberating Allies who cannot tell a good German from a bad one.

Venue: Locarno International Film Festival; Cast: Veronica Ferres, Armin Rohde, Margarita Broich, Martin Horn, Lia Hoensbroech; Director: Ludi Boeken; Writers: Otto Jagersberg, Imo Moskowicz, Heidrum Schleef; Director of photography: Dani Schneor; Production designer: Agnette Schloßer; Music: Martin Meissonnier, Max Raabe; Costume designer: Elisabeth Kraus; Editor: Suzanne Fenn; Producers: Joachim von Mengershausen, Karl Baumgartner, Werner Wirsing, Pascal Judelewicz; Executive Producers: Christoph Friedel, Claudia Steffen; Production: Filmform Koln, Pandora Films, 3L Filmproduktion, Acajou Films; Sales: Filmform Koln; Not rated; running time, 100 mins.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

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LOCARNO FILM REVIEW: Frederic Mermoud’s ‘Partners’

Posted on August 25, 2009 by admin

partners x650By Ray Bennett

LOCARNO, Switzerland – Swiss director Frederic Mermoud’s “Partners” is a police procedural with sex that deals with two sets of couples on both sides of the law involved in the murder of a male prostitute.

The provocative behavior of the two younger characters, who experiment in having threesomes for money, and an intriguing view of the way detectives deal with a key element of the case make the film stand out from the average crime pic. With attractive players and a considerable amount of naked skin, “Partners” could attract attention in key markets.

The tale begins with the discovery of the body of a young man named Vincent (Cyril Descours), whom detectives Herve (Gilbert Melki) and Karine (Emmanuelle Devos) soon discover sold his body online to married men.

The film flashes back and forth from the detectives’ trail to the events that show Vincent flirting with Rebecca (Nina Meurisse) in a cybercafe. They become lovers, and when the impressionable girl learns what Vincent does for a living, she suggests they become a team.

That inevitably bad idea leads to the events that result in Vincent’s death, something the two officers doggedly track until they face a dilemma only they can resolve.

Director Mermoud and co-writer Pascal Arnold’s screenplay makes the behavior of the youngsters just about plausible and gives the detectives sufficient quirks and self-doubts to add depth to the story.

Cagan is especially good at reflecting an inner torment that makes this crime particularly disturbing to him and in conveying the surprise that comes when he sees a chance for redemption.

Although not explicit, the sex scenes contain full-frontal nudity, and the camera lingers on the young bodies perhaps longer than necessary for a film that appears to condemn the exploitation of naive youth.

Venue: Locarno International Film Festival; Cast: Gilbert Melki, Emmauelle Devos, Nina Meurisse, Cyril Descours; Director: Frederic Mermoud; Writer: Frederic Mermoud, Pascal Arnold; Director of photography: Thomas Hardmeier; Production designer: Francois Renaud Labarthe; Music: Gregoire Hetzel; Costume designer: Dorothee Lissac; Editor: Sarah Anderson; Producers: Tonie Marshall, Damien Couvreur; Production Tabo Tabo Films, Saga Production; Not rated; running time, 93 minutes.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

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LOCARNO FILM REVIEW: Urszula Antoniak’s ‘Nothing Personal’

Posted on August 24, 2009 by admin

nothing-personal x650By Ray Bennett

LOCARNO, Switzerland – Holland-based Polish director Urszula Antoniak’s “Nothing Personal” is an intensely personal and engrossing tale of a ferociously independent young woman’s involvement with a kind widower in a remote part of Ireland.

Lotte Verbeek (pictured) won the best actress prize at the Locarno International Film Festival as a resourceful woman hiking in wild country and thoroughly enjoying her solitude until she stumbles upon a beautiful house by a lake occupied by a genial man named Martin (Stephen Rea), who offers her food for work.

Oblique and enigmatic, it’s a film that will win audiences at festivals and in art houses and have a long life on DVD and Blu-ray as fans relish its performances and images, and ponder its deeper meaning.

The woman refuses to give her name or answer any questions about her life and is singularly uninterested in anyone else’s life stories. Having hiked and occasionally hitched a ride through wind and rain and camped out in fierce weather, she arrives at a destination she probably didn’t know she was seeking.

Curt and indifferent, she slowly allows Martin to offer more than just food as he agrees to her rule of no questions, and after a while she moves into a room in the house. Little is revealed about Martin, although he is clearly well off, dining well with wine at the table each night, besides being a capable gardener and outdoorsman.

Their odd relationship grows as Martin suggests that if he breaks the rule then he has to sing, and when he does, his rendition of a psychobilly country gothic number is hilarious. When the woman finally breaks her own rule, she sings quite beautifully.

The pair’s mutual satisfaction with solitude breeds respect and then a kind of love, and while curiosity about each other does crop up, events do not play out in a predictable way.

Rea is typically sympathetic, and Verbeek brings a unique character to life vividly. At 85 minutes, it’s a short film that, because of the increasingly absorbing characters, many will wish would go on much longer.

Venue: Locarno International Film Festival; Cast: Lotte Verbeek, Stephen Rea; Director, writer: Urszula Antoniak; Director of photography: Daniel Bouquet; Production designer: Jane English; Music: Ethan Rose; Editor: Nathalie Alonson Casale; Producers: Reinier Selen, Edwin van Meurs; Production: Rinkel Film & TV, Fastnet Films, Family Affair Films; Sales: Bavaria Film International, Holland Film; Not rated; running time, 85 mins.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

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LOCARNO FILM REVIEW: Sarah Leonor’s ‘A Real Life’

Posted on August 22, 2009 by admin

a real life x650By Ray Bennett

LOCARNO, Switzerland – Sarah Leonor’s “Au Voleur” (A Real Life), starring the late Guillaume Depardieu, is an odd little picture that runs along like a somewhat dull tale of petty criminals but in the last third becomes something else entirely.

The fate of lovers who find themselves on the wrong side of the law is hardly new but these two end up on a small craft rowing down an idyllic river and while it probably shouldn’t work, good acting and an understated script hold it together. The film could well prosper in art houses and travel on the festival circuit.

Depardieu plays a small-time thief named Bruno who leads a ramshackle existence in a nondescript dwelling on the edge of a city, stealing a car here, breaking into a home there. For an hour, the film plods along as an ex-convict (Jacques Nolot) comes to share his place with the intention of going straight while one of his neighbor’s kids gets involved with some boys who buy the car Bruno stole.

At the local bar meanwhile, Bruno encounters easygoing Isabelle (Florence Loiret Caille, pictured), a supply teacher who says she’s just passing through and is more than willing for a short-term affair that soon becomes more complicated.

The rustic and idealized last part of the film is sparked when the police nab the boys with the stolen car and it tracks back to Bruno. Learning of his affair with the teacher, they go to the school but Isabelle breaks free and together they go on the lam.

The adjustment in mood takes some getting used to and there is incongruous use of American folk songs on the soundtrack but as Bruno and Isabelle float downstream, the simple freedoms offer more than they had imagined.

It could easily end up stilted and pretentious but even though their tranquil state is soon disturbed, the film suggests that these particular outlaws who have made one or two bad choices, really have the most ordinary human aspirations.

Venue: Locarno International Film Festival; Cast: Guillaime Depardieu, Florence Loiret Caille, Jacques Nolot; Director, writer: Sarah Leonor; Director of photography: Laurent Desmet; Production designer: Brigitte Brassart; Costume designer: Marie Cesari; Editor: Francois Quiquere; Producers: Michel Klein, Laetitia Fevre; Production: Les Films Hatari; Sales: Shellac; Not rated; running time, 96 minutes.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

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