InNo, Gael Garcia Bernal stars as an ad man brainstorming the guerrilla advertising campaign that dethroned Chilean dictator Pinochet in a 1988 plebiscite. It turns out that the key was not to rehash the atrocities of the repressive Pinochet dictatorship, but to get his audience to picture the alternative democratic future. The ad man’s biggest challenge is to pitch his soft sell campaign to Pinochet’s ideologically driven opponents.
No has a grainy look and was shot in the same aspect as is television (i.e., not widescreen). This allows the transition between the filmed scenes and the inserted historical footage (including the original Yes and No campaign commercials) to be seamless.
I visited Chile in the last days of the Pinochet dictatorship, after the October 1988 plebiscite but before the new democratic government took office fifteen months later. No ably captures both the scariness of the authoritarian regime and the culture of the period. As always, Garcia Bernal is excellent. No was nominated for the 2013 Foreign Language Oscar.
Completely destroyed by US aerial bombardment and facing nuclear annihilation, Japan has just surrendered. General Douglas MacArthur has just arrived to lead the American occupation of Japan, with the long-term goal of rebuilding Japan as a modern, democratic, pro-Western and relatively demilitarized country; in the short-term, he has to punish Japan’s WW II war criminals. MacArthur makes a grand strategic decision not to blame the Emperor of Japan for the war, but to enlist the authority of the Emperor in support of MacArthur’s efforts. Emperor is the story of this moment in world history, with Tommy Lee Jones playing MacArthur.
Tommy Lee Jones is always fun to watch, especially when he is not suffering fools, and he does an excellent job of portraying MacArthur’s decisiveness, self-promotion and vanity. But he is is perhaps too sympathetic here, failing to capture MacArthur’s absolute and defining narcissism.
But we only occasionally see MacArthur. Most of the screen time is reserved for the officer (Matthew Fox of Lost) gathering the evidence that will justify MacArthur’s preferred option (absolving the Emperor). Unfortunately, Fox’s character is also searching for the Japanese woman who was his pre-war lover. Unpeeling the onion of the Japanese imperial bureaucracy is more interesting than the sappy love story.
Given that it was directed by Peter Webber (Girl With a Pearl Earring), I had higher hopes for Emperor. I would recommend it only for those with an interest in WW II and Japanese history.
It’s Papal Conclave Week here at the Movie Gourmet, and my weekly DVD pick is last year’s Italian comedy We Have a Pope (Habemus Papam) – also available on Netflix Instant. In We Have a Pope, the papal conclave elects a Pope, but just as he is about to be introduced to the faithful, he cries out and shrinks from the balcony. He is having a severe panic attack, and the Curia secretly sends for a psychiatrist to get him in emotional shape for a public appearance. After some awkward attempts at individual talk therapy (with the therapist and patient surrounded by cardinals), the Pope-elect bolts from the Vatican and runs off on his own, pursued by frantic Pope-handlers.
If this premise weren’t funny enough,the psychiatrist himself can probably be diagnosed as a narcissist and becomes obsessed with organizing the cardinals into a volleyball tournament. Another shrink diagnoses every patient with parental deficit. The cardinals are a quirky and flawed bunch, and the Vatican bureaucrats are suitably sinister.
The troubled Pope is played by the great French actor Michel Piccoli (Contempt, Belle De Jour, La belle noiseuse). Piccoli embues his character with humanity and authenticity – he is not a weak or crazy man, just a good and able guy who is unable to shoulder great responsibility at this stage of his life. Writer-director Nanni Moretti plays the shrink and is himself very funny.
The most exhilarating moment of Cinequest has been the screening of the Danish drama The Hunt (Jagten) – one of the very best films of the year. Mads Mikkelsen won the Best Actor at Cannes for his portrayal of a man whose life is ruined by a false claim of child sexual abuse. You’ll recognize Mikkelsen, a big star in Europe, from After the Wedding and the 2006 Casino Royale (he was the villain with the bleeding eye).
The story is terrifyingly plausible. The protagonist, Lucas, is getting his bearings after a job change and a divorce. He lives in a small Danish town where everyone knows everyone else, next door to his best friend. The best friend drinks too much and his wife is a little high-strung, but Lucas embraces them for who they are. He’s a regular guy who hunts and drinks with his buddies and is adored by the kids at the kindergarten where he works. He’s not a saint – his ex-wife can get him to fly off the handle with little effort.
A little girl hears a sexual reference at home that she does not understand (and no one in the story could ever find out how she heard it). When she innocently repeats it at school, the staff is alarmed and starts to investigate. Except for one mistake by the school principal, everyone in the story acts reasonably. One step in the process builds upon another until the parents become so understandably upset that a public hysteria ensues.
Director Thomas Vinterburg had previously created the underappreciated Celebration (Festen).The Hunt is gripping – we’re on the edges of our seats as the investigation snowballs and Lucas is put at risk of losing everything – his reputation, his job, his child, his friends, his liberty and even his life. Can Lucas be cleared, and, if he is, how scarred will he be? The Hunt is a superbly crafted film with a magnificent performance by Mikkelsen.
The first thing you notice about The Dead Man and Being Happy (El muerto y ser feliz) is the narration. Breaking every film school precept, the narrator describes what we are seeing for ourselves. Then he confides a fact that we can’t see, but with the caveat, “But you aren’t supposed to know that yet”. As the movie goes on, it’s clear to us that some of the narration is patently false.
And then there’s the sound design: all the sound in the film is abruptly silenced every time the narrator is about to hold forth. The effect of the narration and the sound design is to let us know that The Dead Man and Being Happy is pretty wacky and doesn’t take itself too seriously.
Give credit to director and co-writer Javier Rebollo for creating a decidedly offbeat and completely entertaining Argentine road movie. A professional hit man in his sixties (Jose Sancristan) is dying of cancer, loads up with pain medication and goes on a final road trip. He picks up a woman in her mid thirties (Roxana Blanco) with her own demons, and they, seemingly randomly, drive around and across Argentina. We’re not talking tourist Argentina here. The prickly pair drives around way out in the boonies, stopping at shabby roadside cafes and inns, even visiting a lake that belongs in an apocalyptic sci-fi movie. Of course, we all know how the hit man’s trip must end.
The whole ride is funny and curious and intoxicating.
In the Turkish dramedy One Day or Another (El yazisi), writer-director Ali Vatansever does a better job writing than directing. The story seems to contain four threads, each about a different couple; but Vatansever cleverly reveals one decades-long romance by illustrating stages of that story with the other seemingly contemporaneous relationships. In a funny side story, a French backpacker happens upon the town and is mistakenly embraced as the new English teacher. The child actors are especially good. Unfortunately, the directing is clunkily paint-by-the-numbers. But it is still a worthwhile and enjoyable film.
You’ve never seen a film like the absurd Czech comedy Polski Film, in which four Czech actors play themselves banding together to make an ill-fated movie with Polish financing. Think of a film-within-a-film mockumentary made by Christopher Guest’s repertory company with the actors in their own personae – and with a touch of Bunuel; then flavor the whole thing with the Czech Republic’s own unique humor. Of course, there are also comments on the Poles and a very funny German joke.
A Czech tabloid concocts a false story that one of the actors is dying of cancer; he uses the lie to gain the sympathy of a beautiful Polish actress and then must continue the charade. Another actor enjoys getting reactions from friends and even passersby by acting outrageously; we never quite know whether his meltdowns with his colleagues are real or performance art. And then there’s the Czech GPS system that berates drivers for not following directions – actually voiced by one of the stars of Polski Film.
This movie is not for anyone who needs to understand what’s going on at all times, but those who will just let it unfold will be rewarded. Unfortunately, the trailer is in Czech without subtitles, so we non-Czech speakers miss out on the deadpan humor.
We’re now in the final two days of San Jose’s Cinequest Film Festival. It’s been a good year for thrillers at Cinequest, and you can still see Lead Us Not Into Temptation, Dose of Reality and Chaos, as well as the German dark comedy gem Oh Boy. Check out my CINEQUEST 2013 page for comments on these films, plus another 20 or so that I’ve seen.
In the theaters, I recommend The Gatekeepers, a documentary centered around interviews with all six surviving former chiefs of Shin Bet, Israel’s super-secret internal security force; these are hard ass guys who share a surprising perspective on the efficacy of Israel’s war on terror. The Alex Gibney (Taxi to the Dark Side) documentary Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God is now playing on HBO; it explores the Catholic Church’s decades-long cover-up of priest abuse from a Wisconsin parish to the top of the Vatican (and I mean the top). I admire Steven Soderbergh’s psychological thriller Side Effects, starring Rooney Mara, Jude Law and Catherine Zeta-Jones.
Quartet is a pleasant lark of a geezer comedy with four fine performances. The charmingly funny Warm Bodies has made my list of Zombie Movies for People Who Don’t Like Zombie Movies. The drama Lore is about the innocent children of monstrous people, but its intensity is so unrelenting that it wearies the audience.
I haven’t yet seen the Chilean historical drama No (with Gael Garcia Bernal), which was nominated for the 2013 Foreign Language Oscar and opens widely today. Nor have I seen Emperor, with Tommy Lee Jones as Gen. Douglas MacArthur leading the American occupation of Japan. You can read descriptions and view trailers of upcoming films at Movies I’m Looking Forward To.
You can still catch the Academy Award winning Argo, as well as Zero Dark Thirty and Silver Linings Playbook. To ride the momentum of director Ang Lee’s surprise Oscar win, Life of Pi is now out again in 3D, which I recommend. The Oscar winner for Best Foreign Language Picture, Amour, is brilliantly made and almost unbearable to watch.
My DVD of the week is still Undefeated, last year’s Oscar winner for Best Documentary.
Ranging from wry to hilarious, the German dark comedy Oh Boy hits every note perfectly. It’s the debut feature for writer-director Jan Ole Gerster, a talented filmmaker we’ll be hearing from again.
We see a slacker moving from encounter to encounter in a series of vignettes. Gerster has created a warm-hearted but lost character who needs to connect with others – but sabotages his every opportunity. He has no apparent long term goals, and even his short term goal of getting some coffee is frustrated.
As the main character wanders through contemporary Berlin, Oh Boy demonstrates an outstanding sense of place, especially in a dawn montage near the end of the film. The soundtrack is also excellent – the understated music complements each scene remarkably well.
Here are my top picks from San Jose’s Cinequest Film Festival so far. I’ve updated my CINEQUEST 2013 page, which includes comments on all nineteen films that I’ve seen to date at the fest.
Topping my list so far is the inventively constructed French thriller Lead Us Into Temptation. A middle-aged married man does a good deed for a beautiful young woman and finds himself the pawn in a dangerous game. Lead Us Not Into Temptation plays again on March 1 and March 9.
The American thriller Dose of Reality packs wire-to-wire intensity and a surprise ending that no one will see coming. Dose of Reality is playing Cinequest again on March 5 and 9, and will release on DVD and VOD on March 26.
The deadpan American comedy Congratulations! sends up the police procedural and will screen at Cinequest again on March 5.
The very dark and suspenseful French Chaos is centered on a creepy character that you know is up to no good, but the audience has to wait to find out what he plans and why. You can see Chaos at Cinequest on March 7.
The compelling The Deep tells the fact-based survival story of a shipwrecked Icelandic fisherman’s ordeal in frigid waters.
In The Shadowis a Czech paranoid thriller that won Best Film at the Czech Film Critics’ Awards and was the Czech submission to the Academy Awards. It plays at Cinequest on February 28, March 6 and March 8.
In the Belgian drama Offline, we meet a character struggling to redeem himself. You can see Offline at Cinequest on March 5 and 7.
In the solid American drama Solace, three stories are interlinked. Solace plays Cinequest again on March 6.
In the documentary We Went to War, the filmmaker goes to small town Texas to revisit the Vietnam vets who were the subjects of his 1970 I Was a Soldier. It’s a poignant snapshot of a 40-year-old war that is still going on for the participants and their families. We Went to War is told successfully in a style that contrasts from other talking head docs. We Went to War will be screened again on March 5.
The documentary Plimpton! Starring George Plimpton as Himself shares the extraordinarily rich life of the Zelig-like George Plimpton. He was somehow able to marry the most highbrow literary world with cheesy TV celebrity. You can see Plimpton! at Cinequest on March 8.
I haven’t yet seen it, but the Danish drama The Hunt (plays on March 6) has been univerally acclaimed at other festivals. Mads Mikkelsen (After the Wedding, Casino Royale, A Royal Affair) stars as a teacher wrongly accused of child molestation, spurring hysteria in his town. Mikkelsen won the Best Actor award at Cannes.
I’ve also heard credible good buzz on two other films that I haven’t seen: the Turkish comedy One Day or Another and the American comedy The Playback Singer.
After seeing Lawrence of Arabia digitally restored in the very impressive Sony 4K, I wanted to point out that, also recently restored in Sony 4K, Taxi Driver plays on March 6 and Dr. Strangelove plays on March 9.
And again, you can always check my CINEQUEST 2013 page, which also includes comments on Aftermath, The Almost Man, I Am a Director,The Sapphires, Panahida, Pretty Time Bomb, Welcome Home and White Lie.
