movie gourmet

Cinequest: MEMENTO MORI

February 26, 2017 by movie gourmet

Memento Mori can be translates as “remember that you die”. This documentary about organ donation must be the most emotionally shattering film at Cinequest. In Memento Mori, the stories of the donor families are woven into those of the recipient families. Filmmaker Niobe Thompson tells us at the outset that the specific donors are not actually linked to the specific recipients on a one-to-one basis; but the device of braiding these two threads delivers a powerful impact.

We all understand that people get sick when their organs fail and that their lives can be saved by switching in the organs from other people who have recently died. But that understanding takes on a new dimension when we see HOW SICK people are before the transplant and how vibrant they can be post-surgery.

And to make this all happen, someone has to die. And that person’s family – in their moment of deepest grief and shock – needs to find the donation of his organs acceptable. Accompanying a family through the death of their loved one is excruciating.

Memento Mori is also an insightful procedural about organ transplants. We see the organs harvested, transported and then implanted. A surgeon tell us how he finds it thrilling every time that he sees a brown organ turn red after he has connected it to a blood supply – essentially bringing life back to a human organ.

Memento Mori is the first feature as solo director for Niobe Thompson, and the US premiere for this Canadian doc is at Cinequest.

Cinequest: LAURA GETS A CAT

February 26, 2017 by movie gourmet

In the indie dramedy Laura Gets a Cat, the title character (Laura, not the cat) is a millennial “creative” who is drifting through life. At 32, she still hasn’t completed the novel that she supposedly has been finishing since college. Instead, she’s mired in a menial day job existence, underachieving away and reliant on her long suffering, devoted boyfriend, who restrains himself from grabbing her collar and talking some sense into her. Laura fills her weekends beating herself up after seeing her friends, who by now have careers, homes and kids. A shiny thing enters her field of vision in the form of a barista/avant-garde performance artiste.

Normally, I detest Mumblecore, an entire cinematic genre built around the naval-gazing self-absorption of Millennials who believe that they are owed careers (artistic and otherwise) and professional recognition on the basis of potential alone. I sure thought that Laura Gets a Cat was headed there, but writer-director Michael Ferrell’s sense of authenticity intruded. Ferrell doesn’t let Laura become rescued by romance and saved from the consequences of her choices. Laura finds herself on the journey of self-discovery as do all of us.

Laura is played by Dana Brooke, (the theater actress, not the pro wrestling celebrity). Brooke is in every scene, playing a not-too-sympathetic character, and she keeps us interested, so kudos to her.

Laura Gets a Cat is the second feature for Ferrell, whose debut Twenty Million People played the 2013 Cinequest. Cinequest’s 2017 festival hosts the world premiere of Laura Gets a Cat.

Cinequest: KING OF THE BELGIANS

February 26, 2017 by movie gourmet

Peter Van den Begin (right) in KING OF THE BELGIANS

In the deadpan mockumentary King of the Belgians, the King of Belgium, along with his royal handlers, is visiting Istanbul for a ribbon cutting. They are accompanied by a gonzo Brit who is a former war reporter; he’s been hired to film a puff piece documentary on the King. A constitutional crisis erupts back home and, at the same moment, a cosmic event grounds all commercial travel. The King is determined to make his way back to Belgium via ground transportation. This involves escaping Turkish security and traveling incognito through the Balkans, which creates all sorts of comic opportunities.

It’s the kind of dry comedy where a character says, “I trust fruit”. The band find themselves in Bulgarian folk singer drag, on a Balkan yogurt jury and on the run from a Serbian war criminal. We learn why it’s best not to let a King drive an ambulance. There is even a random appearance by the Bulgarian folk monsters featured in Toni Erdmann.

The King’s destiny is a life of routine, empty ceremony, and he (Peter Van den Begin) is chronically bored. When he might be really needed to unite his country, he instinctively plunges ahead to fulfill his duty, but it’s one that he and his crew of shallow shills are unequipped to handle. With very little dialogue, Van den Begin nails the role – both the dissatisfaction with his usual life and his earnest desperation to become relevant and helpful.

King of the Belgians is a gentle, thoughtful and appealing frolic.

Cinequest: GOLDSTONE

February 26, 2017 by movie gourmet

Aaron Pederson and Jacki Weaver in GOLDSTONE

The Australian crime drama Goldstone is writer-director Ivan Sen’s sequel of sorts to the 2014 Cinequest film Mystery Road. Both films feature Sen’s wholly original protagonist Detective Jay Swan (Aaron Pederson), an indigenous police investigator who must face racist locals and his own demons. Pederson’s performances in both movies are very strong, bringing out the inner conflict within a guy who needed to leave his hometown and his marriage but is tormented by the consequences of those decisions. In Goldstone, Swan is still reeling from a family tragedy when he finds a dark personal tie to the latest crime scene. Alcohol doesn’t help.

In Goldstone, a missing persons case brings Detective Jay Swan to a remote mining outpost. There’s a young local cop of ambiguous motivation – will he obstruct Swan, compete with him or become an ally? The local cop is working a human trafficking case, and the two cops pursue their investigations on dueling separate tracks until they inevitably converge.

Once again, the great Jacki Weaver (Animal Kingdom, Silver Linings Playbook) plays a peppy, ever-pleasant cutthroat as only she can.

The dialogue and most of the plot in Goldstone are pretty paint-by-the-numbers, but just as with Mystery Road, the character of Jay Swan and the performance by Aaron Pederson, along with the Outback setting, make Goldstone very watchable.

(Mystery Road is available to rent on DVD from Netflix and can be streamed from Netflix Instant, Amazon Instant Video, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.)

Cinequest: FOR GRACE

February 26, 2017 by movie gourmet

Andrew Keatley and Jacob Casselden in FOR GRACE

In the winning British dramedy For Grace, Ben (Andrew Keatley) is a young can-do guy who has started his own successful company. He’s adopted, so when he becomes a dad, it triggers a need for him to track down his biological family. He even hires a documentarian to film his quest. Of course, Ben’s journey doesn’t go as he might expect. Along the way, For Grace explores the kinds of connections to other humans that we need. And what, at its core, is “family”?

Ben is more than a little self-absorbed. After all, who makes a movie about a such personal moment, assuming that his experience will merit being documented and that others will want to watch it? Ben also has an odd way of dealing with difficult feelings; he completely withdraws until he has processed his feelings himself. Until he emerges from self-isolation, he really can’t hear what others have to say.

The hard-charging Ben encounters the laid-back Peter (Jacob Casselden), who seems nothing like Ben. Ben has had every advantage, but he is ever restless; Peter has a disability and grew up as an institutionalized orphan, but he seems sublimely free of resentment. Both men feel something missing in their lives, but only Ben aspires to fill that void. Peter is sweet and simple, and Peter has protected himself with low expectations.

I hesitate to call For Grace a “mockumentary” because it’s not a straight Best in Show-like comedy. But the pseudo-documentary format is very effective – for the first 15-20 minutes, I kept asking myself whether this was a real documentary that had been mislabeled as a narrative feature.

For Grace maintains a very clear-eyed perspective on human nature, which results in some acidly funny observations of human behavior. Watch, for example Ben’s reaction when his adoptive parents learn that he is hunting for his biological parents – it doesn’t go AT ALL as he had expected.

For Grace is a an especially promising first feature for director Sebastian Armesto. Keatley wrote the story, and the dialogue was improvised by the cast. For Grace works because it is essentially character-driven, and Keatley’s and Casselden’s performances are very strong.

And there’s a Big Plot Twist.

For Grace is a guaranteed crowd-pleaser. Have a hankie ready for the ending. I’ve seen over twenty films from this year’s Cinequest, and I will be shocked if For Grace fails to win an audience award.

Cinequest: EXILED

February 26, 2017 by movie gourmet

The gripping Latvian drama Exiled is one of the most emotionally powerful and visually arresting films at this year’s Cinequest. In the aftermath of World War I, a German military physician (Ulrich Matthes) arrives deep in the Latvian woods, at a sanitarium for shell-shocked soldiers. It is a terrifying place. The caretaker has been indifferent, even criminally negligent. Patients are howling and literally raving. It’s the kind of place where the patients are fed disgusting gruel, cower under beds and smear feces on the walls. A young boy lives in the woods as feral beast, and is hunted by the local peasantry. The squalor seems impossible to conquer.

The doctor crusades to bring compassion and decency to the place. But it is still a place where the patients’ heads are shaved and they wear night shirts all day and night.
Even the well-intended treatments, with their leather restraints, unsettle us.

Exiled is not what we think of as a horror film, but horror is at its core, in the form of humans who have been emotionally broken by experiencing horror. And the horror of inhumanity toward the broken and vulnerable. There’s also a flashback to the horrors of World War I combat that was experienced by the soldier patients.

Of course, there is terror in insanity itself. We find it disturbing to be amidst those whose realities are so disconnected from our own. And we worry, “There but for the grace of God…”

Ulrich Matthes, who played Joseph Goebbels in Downfall, delivers a charismatic performance as the doctor. His zeal to help his charges gleams, sometimes in desperation and sometimes in outrage. It is 1918. Warfare is brutal, the peasants are barbaric, psychiatric medicine is primitive and he has no resources. How much difference can he make? Will cruelty triumph?

Exiled is a striking first narrative feature by the documentarian Davis Simanis Jr. Visually astonishing, each shot is magnificent, whether in the fog shrouded woods or the oil lamp lit interiors. It is compelling from the get-go, with an eerie soundtrack that helps us imagine the terror of both the reasoning and the deranged. The final shot – a static long shot of very long duration is devastating. Keep your focus on the very center of the frame.

Exiled is an exquisitely haunting film.

Cinequest: CURTAIN CALL

February 26, 2017 by movie gourmet

In the madcap Korean comedy Curtain Call, a talent-challenged theater troupe is about to go under. The company specializes in soft porn, and they are so bad that – even though they are simulating sex on stage – they still can’t sell enough tickets. In desperation, they enter a competition to put on Korea’s best version of Hamlet.

It’s a motley crew. There’s the Bieber-coiffed millennial who thinks that he’s a method actor. One veteran suffers from being public recognized for his trademark “Shag Shag Shake It”. They add an aged career Shakespearean who can’t always remember which play he’s in right now. For personal reasons, the theater company owner foists upon them an inexperienced ingenue who refuses to speak anything except her lines. In a seemingly hopeless quest to master the elevated source material, these bottom feeders become scrappy underdogs.

Curtain Call is a pleasant enough diversion, with some happily ribald moments. Audience members who know their Shakespeare will find the Hamlet scenes even funnier. The trailer is in Korean, but you’ll get the idea.

Cinequest: ANISHOARA

February 26, 2017 by movie gourmet

Anishoara is an art movie of breathtaking visual quality. It also has a remarkable sense of time and place and . That place is the rural back country of Moldovia, a small, impoverished country wedged between Romania and Ukraine. That time is now, although it could just as easily be in a past century.

The visual artistry comes from writer-director Ana Felicia Scutelnicu, a Moldovan director who studied in Germany. I saw her first 61-minute feature Panihide, at the 2013 Cinequest. In both Panihida and Anishoara, Scutelnicu demonstrates a fine eye both for landscape and human observation. However, her pace is sloooooow. Scutelnicu is so gifted as a visual director, I’d really like to see a movie that she directs from someone else’s screenplay.

Anishoara begins with an Icarus-like folk parable about a girl’s unsuccessful quest to love the sun deity. We then see that tale reflected in a girl’s daily life over a year, as she sequentially deflects three suitors. Anishoara’s star is the non-professional actress Anishoara Morari, who was about 12-years-old in Panihide and about 16 in Anishoara. Morari is beautiful, with an unusual directness of gaze, and exudes striking alertnesss.

Not everyone is going to be able to stay with a movie this (ahem) unhurried, but the whole thing is great to look at. I’m thinking of a nighttime scene where we see Anishoara sitting on the ground in her cobalt dress before the camera pans to the landscape across a valley and the dramatic sky above. Every so often there’s a shot like that makes you gasp.

Cinequest: ALOYS

February 26, 2017 by movie gourmet

The title character of the Swiss drama Aloys is a solitary and harshly anti-social guy who repulses all gestures of human kindness and interest by others. He is a private detective who specializes in documenting infidelity through undercover surveillance. Using hidden microphones and cameras, he is steadfast in always avoiding contacting with his subjects. Then, in a moment of recklessness, he allows someone to rock his life, which results in the riveting story of Aloys.

An unknown woman steals his surveillance tapes and taunts him over the phone. In a completely original twist, she teases him with what she calls “phone walking”, daring him to use aural clues to visualize himself in places and situations and, ultimately find her. At first, his desperation to find her creates an obsession worthy of The Conversation. But then his imagination is unleashed, and he creates fantasies at once both more real and more outlandish. This is not a movie that you’ve seen before.

Aloys is on a thrill ride that he can’t get off. What is real, and what is fantasy? Can we be what we imagine? Can someone trade in his own life for a more appealing fantasy life? Can the fantasy be sustained? Aloys delivers surprise after surprise for the audience.

Cinequest 2017 around the corner

February 24, 2017 by movie gourmet

Make your plans now to attend the 27th edition of Cinequest, Silicon Valley’s own major film festival. By some metrics the largest film festival in North America, Cinequest was recently voted the nation’s best by USA Today readers. The 2017 Cinequest is scheduled for February 28 through March 12 and will present 132 films and virtual reality experiences from the US and over twenty other countries. And, at Cinequest, it’s easy to meet the filmmakers.

This year’s headline events include:

Celebrity appearances by actress Jane Lynch (Glee, Best in Show) and director Jason Reitman (Juno, Up in the Air, Young Adult).
Opening night film The Last Word, with Shirley MacLaine and Amanda Seyfried;
Closing night film The Zookeeper’s Wife with Jessica Chastain.
Preview screenings of films planned for theatrical release later this year: Carrie Philby (Nathan Lane, Gabriel Byrne), Tommy’s Honour (Sam Neill, Jack Lowden, Ophelia Lovibond), The Promise (Oscar Isaac, Christian Bale), The Ottoman Lieutenant (Michael Huisman, Josh Hartnett, Ben Kingsley) and (Re)assignment (Michele Rodriguez, Sigourney Weaver).
The silent Flesh & the Devil with Greta Garbo, projected in a period movie palace, the California Theatre, accompanied by its mighty Wurlitzer organ.
Ten programs of virtual reality cinema, accessible in nearly a hundred screenings.

This year, Cinequest presents the world or US premieres of sixty-two features. And of the feature and short films in the Cinequest program, films, 75 were directed by women!

I’m going to be strongly recommending at least two of these first features, the family dramedies For Grace and Quality Problems, along with the brilliant Czech drama The Teacher and the forehead-slapping documentary The Twinning Reaction. More on those to come.

Indeed, the real treasure at Cinequest 2017 is likely to be found among the hitherto less well-known films. In the past three years, the Cinequest gems Eye in the Sky, Wild Tales, Ida, The Hunt, ’71, Corn Island, The Memory of Water, Magallanes and Lost Solace Class Enemy, Heavenly Shift, Oh Boy/A Coffee in Berlin and The Grand Seduction all made my Best of the Year lists.

Cinequest is on my list of Silicon Valley’s Best Movie Deals. You can get a pass for as little as $165, and you can get individual tickets as well. The express pass for an additional tax-deductible $100 is a fantastic deal – you get to skip to the front of the lines!

Take a look at the entire program, the schedule and the passes and tickets. (If you want to support Silicon Valley’s most important cinema event while skipping the lines, the tax-deductible $100 donation for Express Line Access is an awesome deal.)

As usual, I’ll be covering Cinequest rigorously with features and movie recommendations. I usually screen (and write about) over thirty films from around the world. Bookmark my Cinequest 2017 page, with links to all my coverage (links on the individual movies will start to go live on Sunday). Follow me on Twitter for the latest.