SONG LANG: operatic romance in a Vietnamese opera

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Isaac and Lien Binh Phat in SONG LANG, playing at Frameline.

Song Lang is writer-director Leon Le’s groundbreaking romantic tragedy. Set in 1990s Vietnam, Dung (Lien Binh Phat) is an effectively brutal collector for a loan shark, Sent to collect from an on-the-skids traditional opera company, Dung is about to trash the company’s wardrobe, when he encounters the opera’s charismatic lead singer Phung (Isaac). Dung has a female bed buddy, but Phung triggers some strong feelings in Dung. The evolving relationship between the two soars – until the consequences of Dung’s business catch up.

Song Lang is a great-looking movie. The color palette reflects the tropical vibrancy of Vietnam, and the sets and the costumes of the cải lương opera are breathtaking.

Isaac and Lien Binh Phat in SONG LANG, playing at Frameline.

Song Lang is also a love letter to cải lương itself; the art form is depicted beautifully and affectionately. And the story reveals that Dung himself has his own connection to cải lương.

Both leads are very good. This is the first screen credit for Lien Binh Phat, who won an acting award at the Tokyo International Film Festival.

American audiences will expect more physical expressions of passion than are portrayed in this film romance. This is a Vietnamese film.

On the other hand, there is one distracting moment for Vietnamese-American – when there’s a quick hug of grandma – no one hugs their grandma in Vietnam.

But, as is common in Vietnamese cinema, this is a tearjerker. It’s too easy to call this just “the Vietnamese Brokeback Mountain“. It’s an especially beautiful film with two original characters.

I also recommend this LA Times article on Leon Le and how he came to make Song Lang.

Frameline hosts the North American premiere of Song Lang. This is the directorial debut for Leon Le and is one of several first features in the Frameline program.

FRAMELINE: New Directors

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Marius Olteanu’s MONSTERS.

Frameline, the San Francisco International LGBTQ+ Film Festival, is underway and showcasing a spate of promising new filmmakers.

Romanian writer-director Marius Olteanu‘s innovative drama Monsters., may be Frameline’s most cinematically ambitious film. A dynamic aspect ratio and a figure-it-out-yourself story structure make it clear that Oltenau is an aspirational filmmaker.

Leon Le‘s groundbreaking romance Song Lang takes us into the vivid world of cải lương, the Vietnamese folk opera, for an operatic love story. More than just “the Vietnamese Brokeback Mountain“.

Leon Le’s SONG LANG

The first feature for Spanish director Arantxa Echevarria, Carmen y Lola, is a sexual coming of age story set among urban Romani people in contemporary Spain.

Making Montgomery Clift, the first feature-length documentary for Robert Anderson Clift and Hilary Demmon, is an unexpectedly insightful and nuanced probe into the life of Clift’s uncle, the movie star Montgomery Clift. Demmon also masterfully edited the film.

Frameline’s closing night film, the emotionally powerful documentary, Gay Chorus Deep South, is the first film for director David Charles Rodrigues. It tracks the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus concert tour through the Deep South in the aftermath of the Trump election.

Through the Windows, the first feature for directors Petey Barma and Bret “Brook” Parker, tells the story of the famed bar Twin Peaks – the first San Francisco gay bar set up to let patrons and passers-by obdsrve each other directly. And, playing before Through the Windows, the documentary short Dressing Up Like Mrs. Doubtfire, about movie depictions of cross-dressing and the impact of the Robin Williams performance, is one of several shorts by director Will Zang, and could be developed into a future feature.

MAKING MONTGOMERY CLIFT, directed by Robert Anderson Clift and Hilary Demmon

FRAMELINE: the documentaries

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MAKING MONTGOMERY CLIFT, directed by Robert Anderson Clift and Hilary Demmon

Frameline, the San Francisco International LGBTQ+ Film Festival, is underway and offers a rich selection of documentaries.

  • Frameline’s closing night film, the emotionally powerful documentary, Gay Chorus Deep South. It tracks the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus concert tour through the Deep South in the aftermath of the Trump election. This will be an audience-pleaser; bring hankies.
  • The best doc in the fest may be Making Montgomery Clift, from directors Robert Anderson Clift and Hilary Demmon. It’s an unexpectedly insightful and nuanced probe into the life of Clift’s uncle, the movie star Montgomery Clift.
  • Anybody who attends Frameline (or SFFILM or Noir City, for that matter) knows the Twin Peaks bar at the corner of Castro and Market. Through the Windows tells the story of the first San Francisco gay bar set up to let patrons and passers-by observe each other directly.
  • The documentary short that plays before Through the Windows, Dressing Up Like Mrs. Doubtfire, explores the history of cross-dressing in the movies and the impact of the Robin Williams performance in Mrs. Doubtfire. There are several intriguing threads in this short, which could be expanded into a future doc feature.

Stream of the Week: HEADHUNTERS – from smoothly confident scoundrel to human piñata

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Aksel Hennie in HEADHUNTERS

The smug Norwegian corporate headhunter named Roger Brown (don’t ask) explains his motivation at the very beginning of the movie: at 5 feet, 6 inches, his insecurity about keeping his six foot blond wife leads him to cut some corners. As ruthlessly successful as he is in business, he feels the need to also burgle the homes of his clients and steal art treasures. So the dark comedy thriller Headhunters (Hodejegerne) begins like a heist movie. But soon Roger becomes targeted by a client with serious commando skills, unlimited high tech gizmos, and a firm intention to make Roger dead.

Roger Brown is played brilliantly by Aksel Hennie, a huge star in Norway who looks like a cross between Christopher Walken and Peter Lorre. The laughs come from Roger’s comeuppance as he undergoes every conceivable humiliation while trying to survive. As a smoothly confident scoundrel, Roger is at first not that sympathetic, but Hennie turns him into a panicked and terrified Everyman when he becomes a human pinata.

HEADHUNTERS

Headhunters is based on a page-turner by the Scandinavian mystery writer Jo Nesbo. A Hollywood remake of Headhunters is somewhere in development.  In the meantime, stream Headhunters on Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube or Google Play and have a fun time at the movies.

Movies to See Right Now

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Beanie Feldstein and Kaitlyn Dever in BOOKSMART. Credit: Francois Duhamel / Annapurna Pictures

I can recommend Booksmart for fun and smarts and Rocketman for fun. This weekend, there is a wave of movies that I haven’t seen yet, both critically praised (The Last Black Man in San Francisco, Late Night) and popcorn movies (Men In Black: International, Shaft).

OUT NOW

  • The wildly successful comedy Booksmart is an entirely fresh take on the coming of age film, and a high school graduation party romp like you’ve never seen. Directed and written by women, BTW.
  • The Fall of the American Empire is a pointed satire cleverly embedded in the form of a heist film.
  • Rocketman is more of a jukebox musical than a filmbiography, but it’s wonderfully entertaining.
  • So you think you know what you’re going to get from a movie titled Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese. It is indeed a documentary of a concert tour, but Scorsese adds some fictional flourish, as befits Dylan’s longtime trickster persona.
  • Charlize Theron and Seth Rogen are pleasantly entertaining in the improbable Beauty-and-the-Beast romantic comedy Long Shot.
  • The documentary Framing John DeLorean is an incomplete retelling of this modern Icarus fable. If you already know the basics of the DeLorean story, I’d recommend this Car and Driver article instead. Framing John DeLorean is available to stream from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

ON VIDEO

My DVD/Stream of the Week is Bay Area writer-director Ryan Coogler’s emotionally powerful debut, Fruitvale Station. Coogler, of course, has become one of the top American filmmakers with Creed and Black Panther (both also with Michael B. Jordan). Fruitvale Station is available on DVD from Netflix and Redbox and streaming from Amazon, Vudu, Google Play and YouTube.

ON TV

On June 20, Turner Classic Movies presents David Lean’s WWII epic The Bridge on the River Kwai.  It’s the stirring story of British troops forced into slave labor at a cruel Japanese POW camp.  The British commander (Alec Guinness, in perhaps his most acclaimed performance) must walk the tightrope between giving his men enough morale to survive and helping the enemy’s war effort.  He has his match in the prison camp commander (Sessue Hayakawa), and these two men from conflicting values systems engage in a duel of wits – for life and death stakes.  William Holden plays an American soldier/scoundrel forced into an assignment that he really, really doesn’t want.  There’s also the stirringly unforgettable whistling version of the Colonel Bogey March. The climax remains one of the greatest hold-your-breath action sequences in cinema, even compared to all the CGI-aided ones in the  62 years since it was filmed.

Sessue Hayakawa in THE BRIDGE OVER THE RIVER KWAI
Alec Guinness in THE BRIDGE OVER THE RIVER KWAI

ROLLING THUNDER REVUE: A BOB DYLAN STORY BY MARTIN SCORSESE: doc and playfully not

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Scarlett Rivera and Bob Dylan in ROLLING THUNDER REVUE: A BOB DYLAN STORY BY MARTIN SCORSESE

So you think you know what you’re going to get from a movie titled Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese. Indeed, Scorsese documents Dylan’s 1975 Rolling Thunder tour. But he also, in what critic Jason Gorber calls an “anti-documentary” adds some fictional flourish, as befits Dylan’s longtime trickster persona.

Now for the documentary, which gives us a look at a mid-career Dylan (on the downside of his superstardom). The talking heads are great: lots of Bob Dylan himself, his sidemen, performers Joan Baez, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Ronnie Hawkins and Ronee Blakley, and even the subject of a Dylan song, Rubin “Hurricane” Carter. There’s a hilarious encounter between ex-lovers Baez and Dylan, as they mull over who left who.

There are explosive concert performances of Hurricane, Isis and A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall (but also a disappointing version of the tour’s signature song, Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door).

Baez aside, the real co-star of the Rolling Thunder Revue was violinist Scarlett Rivera, whose violin licks elevated almost every song, especially Hurricane. My favorite Dylan performance – One More Cup of Coffee (Valley Below) from the live album – is really more Rivera’s song than Dylan’s. In Rolling Thunder Revue, we get to hear from Rivera – and about her and her spirited personal life.

And now for the playful part – Scorsese has dotted this “documentary” with stuff that is not true. The performance artist Martin von Haselberg claims to have shot the concert footage for a pretentious art film that was never made, which Dylan credits to Stefan van Dorp. Hasleberg didn’t shoot it and van Dorp doesn’t even exist. The guy identified as the tour promoter is actually a movie exec. And Sharon Stone was too young to have been on this tour, although she spins a ROFLMAO faux anecdote about Just Like a Woman.

Michael Murphy, who starred in Robert Altman’s political mockumentary Tanner, is shown as a real Congressman Tanner. And did Scarlett Rivera really have a sword collection? Was Allen Ginsberg really a good dancer?

The critical praise for Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese has been rapturous, with one respected critic pegging it as the best doc of year. This reeks to me of Scorsese worship. I’m not sure I would recommend Rolling Thunder Revue to a general (non-Baby Boomer) audience. It does do a great job of taking us backstage for the inside morsels – and it is creatively sly.

Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese is now streaming on Netflix.

BTW I highly recommend Peter Sobczynski’s comprehensive essay on the Cinema of Bob Dylan in rogerebert.com. It’s kind of spectacular.

Stream of the Week: FRUITVALE STATION – the human moments that define a life

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FRUITVALE STATION

The emotionally powerful Fruitvale Station explores the humanity behind the news. If, as I do, you live in the San Francisco Bay Area, you know what happened to Oscar Grant. Returning to the East Bay after 2008 New Year’s Eve revelries in San Francisco, the unarmed 22-year-old was handcuffed and lying on his stomach when he was mortally wounded by a transit cop’s gunshot. Oscar Grant was African-American. The transit cop was white. Multiple cell phone videos of the incident went viral on New Year’s Day. Fruitvale Station opens with one of those shaky videos.

But the beauty and strength of this impressive film is that Fruitvale Station is not about the incident and its political fallout – it’s about the people involved, in their workaday and familial roles to which all of us can relate. It follows the fictionalized life of Oscar Grant as he lives out what he doesn’t know is his last day.

Writer-director Ryan Coogler’s Oscar Grant is a complete and textured character. Oscar is a charming guy, a loving father and the fun dad/uncle who children love roughhousing with. He’s remarkably unreliable as a boyfriend, son and employee. He’s done a stretch in San Quentin, and he’s got a temper. He’s capable of random acts of kindness. He’s a complete package of decency, fecklessness, irresponsibility and possibilities. Would he have turned his life around if he hadn’t been at Fruitvale Station that night? We’ll never know. And that’s the tragedy laid bare by Fruitvale Station.

Although it’s a tragedy with some heartbreaking moments, Fruitvale Station isn’t a downer – it’s too full of humanity for that. Neither is it a political screed; Coogler lets the facts speak for themselves and the audience to draw its conclusions.

The acting is first-rate, especially Michael B. Jordan as Oscar, Melonie Diaz as his girlfriend and the great Octavia Spencer as his mom. Equally, important, the supporting cast is just as authentic.

It’s was stunning debut feature for then 27-year-old filmmaker Ryan Coogler,  (Coogler is also an African-American from the East Bay who was roughly the same age as Oscar Grant.)  Coogler, of course, has become one of the top American filmmakers with Creed and Black Panther (both also with Michael B. Jordan).

Fruitvale Station was justifiably honored at both the Sundance and Cannes film festivals, and played Cinequest.  Fruitvale Station is available on DVD from Netflix and Redbox and streaming from Amazon, Vudu, Google Play, YouTube and Xbox Video.

HELMET HEADS: engaging characters can take a light comedy a long way.

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HELMET HEADS

Engaging characters can take a light comedy a long way.  (And light comedy can take social commentary a long way, too.)  That’s the case with Neto Villalobos’ amiable comedy Helmet Heads (Cascos Nomados).

Mancha (Arturo Parda) buzzes around San Jose, Costa Rica, as a motorcycle delivery driver and canoodles with his girlfriend Clara (Daniela Mora). Mancha hangs out with his buddies from work. Clara tends a pack of 700 wild dogs on a mountainside outside the city. There’s a job crisis at Mancha’s employer, and Clara is moving to another town – so Mancha faces some choices.

The core of Helmet Heads is the bro-buddy camaraderie of the drivers. They all know each other by nicknames (and not their real names). “Mancha” means “Stain” and refers to the protagonist’s prominent facial birthmark. I especially loved the ever-blissed out Chito, the bombastic Gordo and the conveniently/inconveniently diabetic Gato. I was surprised to learn that most of the cast are non-actors and some are motorcycle delivery drivers.

Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose. These guys, especially Mancha, value their independence, but Helmet Heads reminds us – usually slyly – that their place in Costa Rica’s society is insecure, even fragile. Even with the social comment, Helmet Heads is pretty funny throughout.

There is also a sex scene unlike any I’ve seen. The sex is conventional, but the setting is not.

[Oddly, I flashed on another motorcycle messenger movie, the 1981 French thriller Diva, even though that is an entirely dissimilar movie – sleeker production values, a Hitchcock homage, an iconic chase through the Paris Metro, etc.]

I saw Helmet Heads at Cinema Club Silicon Valley, with a post screening Q&A with director Neto Villalobos.. I’ll let you know when and if Helmet Heads can be streamed.

FRAMING JOHN DELOREAN: a pulpy story, partly rehashed

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John DeLorean in FRAMING JOHN DELOREAN

Ever since the myth of Icarus, we have understood that audacity can take you only so far – but it often makes for a great story. The biodoc Framing John DeLorean tells PART of the story of a man whose audacious risk-taking invented the muscle car, propelled a meteoric corporate career, led him to found an automaker and to become a global celebrity and to marry a supermodel. And then to stumble into criminal prosecution, bankruptcy and divorce.

Framing John DeLorean leads through the familiar DeLorean story of his rise and flame-out and General Motors, the founding of the DeLorean Motors Company and the FBI videotaping him in a hotel room with $6.5 million of cocaine. We hear from Bill Collins – DeLorean’s engineering whiz for the Pontiac GTO and the DeLorean – and from DeLorean’s son and daughter. (But not from Cristina Ferrare, DeLorean’s celebrity trophy spouse). There a few unfamiliar nuggets, like DeLorean’s getting cosmetic surgery to enhance his jaw – and make him look like the swashbuckler that he was.

However, there’s a massive hole in Framing John DeLorean. A sketchy deal with a company called GPD is mentioned, but even with a forensic accountant as a talking head, the film doesn’t answer, or even pose, some questions that come immediately to mind. This article in Car and Driver provides more insight into the real story than does Framing John DeLorean.

The actor Alec Baldwin claims that DeLorean himself once suggested that Baldwin play him on screen. Framing John DeLorean has Baldwin play DeLorean in re-enactment scenes (along with Josh Charles as Bill Collins). The scenes with Baldwin add nothing to the film. I suspect that these Baldwin scenes were added only to use Baldwin’s drawing power to create a more marketable, not a better, film.

Framing John Delorean repeatedly asks why a narrative feature film has not been made about DeLorean and his pulpy story. But there isn’t a clear answer, and asking that question should be left to the audience of any documentary.

If you don’t know anything about John DeLorean, Framing John DeLorean is a decent primer. If you already know the story, I’d recommend the Car and Driver article instead. Framing John DeLorean is available to stream from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

Movies to See Right Now

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Summer means popcorn movies – and Rocketman fills the bill – but smart adult movies like Booksmart and The Fall of the American Empire are in theaters, too, and are at least as entertaining.

OUT NOW

  • The wildly successful comedy Booksmart is an entirely fresh take on the coming of age film, and a high school graduation party romp like you’ve never seen. Directed and written by women, BTW.
  • The Fall of the American Empire is a pointed satire cleverly embedded in the form of a heist film.
  • Rocketman is more of a jukebox musical than a filmbiography, but it’s wonderfully entertaining.
  • Charlize Theron and Seth Rogen are pleasantly entertaining in the improbable Beauty-and-the-Beast romantic comedy Long Shot.

ON VIDEO

My DVD/Stream of the Week is the documentary Stories We Tell, the brilliant director Sarah Polley’s exploration of her own family’s secrets. Which secret is more shocking, and which family member’s reaction is more surprising?
You can rent Stories We Tell on DVD from Netflix and Redbox and stream it from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

Elisabeth Moss’ powerhouse performance as a monstrously narcissistic and drug-deranged rock star Her Smell is the acting tour de force of 2019. The movie could have been a great one if shorter, but Moss makes it worthwhile watch nonetheless. Her Smell is out of theaters, but it’s already streaming on Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play, an available on DVD from Redbox. 

And I just caught up to the hypnotically compelling Burning.  This 2 hour, 28 minute slow burn begins as a character study, evolves into a romance and then a mystery, and finally packs a powerful punch with a thriller climax. It’s a superb achievement for director and co-writer Chang-dong Lee. You can stream Burning from Netflix, Amazon, iTunes and Vudu.

ON TV

On June 10, Turner Classic Movies brings us the especially nasty noir Detour, in which poor Tom Neal is practically eaten alive by Ann Savage as perhaps the most predatory and savage female character in film noir history. One of the few Hollywood films where the leading lady was intentionally de-glamorized with oily, stringy hair.

Ann Savage and Tom Neal in DETOUR (Hint - she's trouble!)
Ann Savage and Tom Neal in DETOUR (Hint – she’s trouble!)