Cinequest

Cinequest: THE TEACHER

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THE TEACHER
THE TEACHER

In the superb drama The Teacher, it’s the mid-1980s and the Iron Curtain is still defining Czechoslovakia; (The Teacher is a Czech movie in the Slovak language). The title character’s position as a high school teacher makes her a gatekeeper to the children’s futures, and she’s unaccountable because she’s a minor Communist Party functionary. Wielding blatant academic favoritism and even overt blackmail, she uses the advantage of her political status for her own petty benefit – coercing shopping errands, car rides, pastries and other favors from the parents of her students.  Finally, she causes so much harm to one student that some of the parents rebel and seek her ouster.

Will the other parents support them?  What of the parents who benefit from the regime?  And what of the majority of the parents who must decide whether to risk their own futures?  The risk is real: the regime has already reassigned one parent, a scientist, to a menial job after his wife had defected.

The Teacher benefits from a brilliant, award-winning performance from Zuzana Mauréry in the title role.  What makes this character especially loathsome is that she’s not just heavy-handed, but grossly manipulative. Mauréry is a master at delivering reasonable words with both sweet civility and the unmistakable menace of the unspoken “or else”.

The acting from the entire company is exceptional, especially from Csongor Kassai, Martin Havelka and the Slovak director Peter Bebjak as aggrieved parents. Writer Petr Jarchovský has created textured, authentic characters. Director Jan Hrebejk not only keeps the story alive but adds some clever filmmaking fluorishes as he moves the story between flashbacks and the present.

The Teacher is one of the highlights of Cinequest 2017.

Cinequest: SWEET GIRLS

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SWEET GIRLS
SWEET GIRLS

In the dark, dark Swiss comedy Sweet Girls, the two teenage besties are lazy and unmotivated – even by teenage standards.  They will do ANYTHING to avoid an entry-level job that might plunge them into the adult workaday drudgery that they despise.  Left to their own devices with a deadline looming, the two  take unseemly advantage when an elderly woman dies in their apartment building.  Absurdly self-involved, the two start harvesting all the apartment building’s elderly in an absurdly harsh scheme.  Think Arsenic and Old Lace and Sweeney Todd.

Both girls are brats of the first order, but Elodie, the ringleader, also has an experience in her past which has scarred her feelings about the geriatric set.  Neither is a sympathetic character.  The humor here comes from the absurdist plot and from the social satire, which is probably more accessible to a Western European audience.

Cinequest: PRODIGY

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PRODIGY
PRODIGY

The psychological thriller Prodigy begins with a psychologist (Richard Neil) being brought to a secret government “black site” to interview a dangerous prisoner.  When he receives an orientation, he and we expect to see a superhuman sociopath like Hannibal Lector.  But he enters the secure room to face a freckled-face nine-year-old girl (Savannah Liles).  Her arms are pinned to her chair with restraints.  We learn that there is an understandable reason for this.

She is abnormal in every way – in her super intelligence, in her telekinetic powers and in her capacity for performing monstrous and lethal acts.  The two embark on a game of wits with very high stakes.  There’s a deadline (literally) so the game is also a race against the clock.

It’s the first feature for writer-directors Alex Haughey and Brian Vidal, and Cinequest hosts Prodigy’s world premiere. Haughey and Vidal have bet their movie, in large part, on the performance of a nine-year-old actor.  Savannah Liles is exceptional as she ranges between a very smart little girl and a monstrous psychopath and between a vulnerable child and a person who has made herself invulnerable.  It’s a very promising performance.

In the Cinequest program notes, Pia Chamberlain describes Prodigy as “reminiscent of a cerebral episode of the Twilight Zone“, which is pretty apt.  Just like the best of Rod Serling, Prodigy’s compact story-telling takes us to an environment that we can recognize, but which has different natural laws than the ones under which we operate.

Filmmakers have shocked us before with the juxtaposition of innocent looking children and their heinous deeds  Sometimes those children have been created fundamentally evil (The Bad Seed, Rosemary’s Baby, The Omen) and sometimes possessed by evil (The Exorcist).  Prodigy takes a different tack – exploring how a trauma can produce monstrous behavior and whether evil behavior is reversible.

Prodigy is a thinking person’s edge-of-the-seat thrill ride.  I’m looking forward to the next work from Haughey and Vidal.  Note that this trailer is in color, but the version of the movie that I screened is in black and white.

Cinequest: PAINLESS

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painless1

In writer-director Jordan Horowitz’ first narrative feature, Painless, he brings us a wholly original premise – a man who cannot experience physical pain. And here’s another twist – freedom from pain is a BAD thing. Pain does serve an important purpose by alerting us to our own injury and illness. The protagonist, Henry (Joey Klein) is obsessed with finding a solution to his condition.

Henry lives a solitary existence as an underground scientist, who makes his living by manufacturing recreational designer drugs. Self-taught, he has become a genius at diagnostics, and the audience will enjoy the Sherlock Holmes moments when he surprises someone by correctly nailing their medical condition. His obsession drives him to traffic with a disgraced medical researcher, and risk a sketchy drug trial. Along the way, he meets a very appealing free spirit (Evalena Marie) who seeks to distract him from the totality of his obsession.

Of course, the idea of a character obsessed with finding a cure for NO pain, when the global pharmaceutical industry is basically built on the quest for the opposite, is brilliantly absurdist. But Horowitz, as the director, gets the audience to buy in right away.

Joey Klein superbly brings alive both Henry’s eccentricities and the drive that masks his loneliness. It’s an excellent performance.

Desperation leads to obsession and, finally, to self discovery. Cinequest hosts the world premiere of Painless.

Cinequest: QUALITY PROBLEMS

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QUALITY PROBLEMS
QUALITY PROBLEMS

The remarkably successful dramedy Quality Problems plunges us into a contemporary world that most of us in the sandwich generation recognize – a life so busy that  the relative importance of our stress-inducers can blur.   Something like the cake for your kid’s birthday party can seem as important as paying the bills or dealing with an aging parent.   Until cancer reshuffles the deck.  Quality Problems‘ insights in navigating modern life are accessible because it’s so damn funny.

Bailey (Brooke Purdy) and Drew (Doug Purdy) are a couple in their early forties with two school-age kids. Each is  comfortable taking on one child-rearing or domestic task while handing off a competing responsibility to their partner.  Each knows – and accepts – what the partner is – or is NOT – good at.  Both have wicked senses of humor, and they are affectionate and even playful.  Their relationship has weathered the usual financial and parental challenges, along with an episode where Bailey beat back breast cancer.

Brooke Purdy wrote the screenplay and also co-directed with Doug Purdy.  The breezy banter between characters  is often flat-out hilarious.  This is not sitcom-grade humor, it’s much closer to a Hawksian screwball comedy.  The characters deal with cancer and parental dementia with a dark humor that is realistic and funny.

Bailey’s single neighbor and bestie Paula (Jenica Bergere) is an essential member of the family’s support structure, but Paula and Drew loathe each other.  Chained together because of their attachment to Bailey and the kids, every interaction sparks a new round of insults.  This isn’t good-natured teasing –  the jibes, in particular about his job and her reproductive health, are aimed to hurt.  The Paula-Drew relationship adds some edginess to the mix and contributes to the film’s authenticity.

Watch for an uncredited cameo by the prolific and versatile character actor Alfred Molina (Raiders of the Lost Ark, Love Is Strange). Veteran Chris Mulkey is excellent as Bailey’s dad, who is sinking into dementia.

Quality Problems is the directing debut for Brooke and Doug Purdy, and its world premiere is at Cinequest, where  I expect it to be an audience favorite.

Cinequest: NEW CHEFS ON THE BLOCK

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NEW CHEFS ON THE BLOCK
NEW CHEFS ON THE BLOCK

In the pleasantly addictive documentary New Chefs on the Block, we follow the course of two restaurant start-ups from financing and the initial lease, through remodeling and set-up, hiring staff and opening for the public and for professional food critics. One start-up is a trendy fine dining establishment in Washington, DC, and the other is a pizza place in the DC suburbs. It’s the movie equivalent of a page-turner – we’re always wondering what will happen next.

Both chef-owners are passionate and driven, and the restaurants are manifestations of their dreams. Each has bet his family’s prosperity on the endeavor, and the high stakes fuel the drama.

The stories of both restaurants take dramatic turns – and one is wholly unexpected. It turns out that writer-director Dustin Harrison-Atlas set out to document the journey of his brother-in-law’s new pizza restaurant. That guy is a remarkable subject. But his choice of the other aspirational chef was an act of either genius or stunning good luck – wait until you see how that story comes out!

In his first feature, Harrison-Atlas shows a gift for creating vivid portraits of his subjects. We come to know the two chefs and a remarkable number of their family members and employees

Harrison-Atlas also brings us some talking heads to provide an inside perspective on the business. I’ve watched more than my share of restaurant make-over reality television, and I know some real life restauranteurs, so I’ve understood that it’s hard to start a restaurant and easy for one to fail. Intelligent, personal and genuine, New Chefs on the Block is among the best treatments of this subject matter.

Cinequest hosts the world premiere of New Chefs on the Block.

Cinequest: MEMENTO MORI

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MEMENTO MORI
MEMENTO MORI

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

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Laura Gets a Cat
Laura Gets a Cat

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

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

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Aaron Pederson and Jacki Weaver in GOLDSTONE
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.)