Cinequest: Dose of Reality

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The American thriller Dose of Reality packs wire-to-wire intensity and a surprise ending that no one will see coming.  A woman is found in a bar’s restroom after closing time, apparently beaten and raped, but unable to remember by whom.  Two bar employees are the only possible suspects.  Both deny it, and the woman launches a series of searing mind games to determine her attacker.

Fairuza Balk (American History X, Almost Famous) commands the screen as the woman.  Her character, coming from a place of utter victimization, becomes totally dominant over the men.  The most interesting of the guys is played by Rick Ravanello, a veteran TV actor with 77 acting credits on IMDb.  Ravanello’s eyes are uncommonly able to portray dimness, cunning, tweaked impairment, guilt and terror.

But, although it’s a compelling movie for the first 75 minutes, Dose of Reality is all about the Big Surprise – which is on the scale of The Crying Game.  Afterward, I was able to identify at least four clues in the story, but none of the 250 audience members at Dose of Reality’s Cinequest world premiere was unsurprised.  Actor Ravanello recounts that when he first read the script, he got to the end and blurted “No Fucking Way!”.  Writer-director Christopher Glatis has a real winner in Dose of Reality.

Dose of Reality is playing Cinequest again on March 5 and 9, and will release on DVD and VOD on March 26.

Cinequest: Congratulations!

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In the very funny deadpan comedy Congratulations!, a squad of stolid cops search for missing ten-year old in his own house – and move into the home, too.  Writer-director Mike Brune sends up the police procedural in the vein of Airplane! (and Brune makes no secret of his admiration for the Zucker brothers).  The dough-faced John Curran is superb as the police detective who determinedly leads the search behind the couch and under the coffee table.

Filmmaker Brune cleverly finds new ways to sustain the joke throughout the movie, until an absurd climax and a very funny final shot.  Fittingly for such a subversive film, Brune shot the film at his parent’s suburban Atlanta home while they were vacationing.

I saw Congratulations! at its world premiere at Cinequest. Congratulations! plays again at Cinequest on March 5.

Cinequest: Solace

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In the solid drama Solace, we meet two characters talking in a confined space about a matter of life and death, then another couple in a separate story and finally another setting with two more characters.  The three tales are effectively connected together at the very end by writer-director-editor Vandon N. Gibbs.

I’m looking forward to Gibbs’ next work.  The middle segment is a little too stagey, but Solace keeps the audience engaged throughout and the denouement is compelling.  The best of the cast are Russell Durham Comegys as a regretful hit man, Dupree Lewis Jr. as a street hustler and Rhoda Griffis as a wronged wife.

I saw Solace at its world premiere at Cinequest.  Solace will be playing at Cinequest again on March 6.

Cinequest: Chaos

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Niels Schneider in CHAOS

In the unsettling and suspenseful French Chaos (Désordres), a teacher moves to a rural area only to have his family stalked by one of his new students.  It doesn’t take too long for us to figure out that the student Thibault is up to no good, but we can’t guess his plans or his motivation.  Writer-director Etienne Faure has created a story that grips the audience as Thibault is revealed to be more and more twisted and dangerous.

In a performance reminiscent of Robert Walker’s Bruno in Strangers on a Train, Niels Schneider plays Thibault.  The always reliable Isaach De Bankolé (Night on Earth, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, 24) plays the teacher who seeks his bliss but who underestimates the kid’s weirdness.  Sonia Rolland (Josephine Baker in Midnight in Paris) plays the teacher’s wife; so beautiful that she can make your teeth hurt, Rolland is excellent as a woman who moves from aggrieved to reckless with breathtaking speed.

[BTW later this year Sonia Rolland joins Niels Arestrup (A Prophet, Sarah’s Key, War Horse) and Julie Gayet to star in 72-year-old director Bernard Travenier’s political dark comedy Quai d’Orsay, filmed at the real UN Security Council.]

Chaos will play again at Cinequest on March 7.

Cinequest: The Deep

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The compelling The Deep tells the fact-based survival story of a shipwrecked Icelandic fisherman’s ordeal in frigid waters.   Amazingly, all of the footage was shot in the ocean (no tanks) without stunt professionals.  The lead actor Ólafur Darri Ólafsson makes the protagonist endearing, and he must be a hell of a good sport to spend all that time in icy water.  Writer-director Baltasar Kormákur made the unconventional and successful choice not to end the movie with a climactic rescue, but to instead explore the impact of the incident and the attempts to explain how it was possible.

Kormákur also wrote and directed a very different and even better 2006 film, the very dark neo-noir police procedural Jar City, available on DVD and streaming.

The Deep plays again at Cinequest on March 3 and 4.

Movies to See Right Now

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THE GATEKEEPERS

Three documentaries are dominating this week’s cinematic landscape:

  • The Gatekeepers is 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.
  • Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God, now playing on HBO, 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).
  • 56 Up is the surprisingly mellow next chapter in the greatest documentary series ever.  Starting with Seven Up! in 1964, director Michael Apted has followed the same fourteen British children, filming snapshots of their lives at ages 7, 14, 21, 28, 35, 42 and 49 – and now at 56.

We’re now in the third day of San Jose’s Cinequest Film Festival.  I’ve updated my CINEQUEST 2013 page, which includes comments on The Sapphires, In the Shadows, Lead Us Not Into Temptation, The Almost Man, Panahida, Dose of Reality, White Lie, Aftermath and The Hunt.

Opening this week, the drama Lore is about the innocent children of monstrous people, but its intensity is so unrelenting that it wearies the audience. You can read descriptions and view trailers of upcoming films at Movies I’m Looking Forward To.

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.

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 another documentary, Undefeated, last year’s Oscar winner for Best Documentary.

Turner Classic Movies is celebrating the Oscars with its annual 31 Days of Oscars, filling its broadcast schedule with Academy Award-winning films. This week, the lineup includes Inherit the Wind and Elmer Gantry.

56 Up: surprisingly mellow

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56 Up is the next chapter in the greatest documentary series ever. Starting with Seven Up! in 1964, director Michael Apted has followed the same fourteen British children, filming snapshots of their lives at ages 7, 14, 21, 28, 35, 42 and 49 – and now at age 56. Choosing kids from different backgrounds, the series started as a critique of the British class system, but has since evolved into a broader exploration of what factors can lead to success and happiness at different stages of human life.

We have seen these characters live roller coaster lives.  The surprise in 56 Up is how contented they seem to be.  They seem to have independently reached a stage in their lives where they live with acceptance and satisfaction.  Accordingly, it makes for mellow and pleasing viewing for us.

Michael Apted is a big time director (Coal Miner’s Daughter, Gorillas in the Mist, most recently the 2010 chapter of the Chronicles of Narnia saga).  It is remarkable that he has returned so faithfully to his subjects in the Up series.  I’ve included the 7 Up series in my list of Greatest Movies of All Time.

Because Apted includes clips from earlier films to set the stage for each character, you don’t need to watch all eight movies.  Because there is so little conflict in 56 Up, it would be ideal to first screen an edgier film like 35 Up or 42: Forty Two Up.  But 56 Up stands on its own, and it’s another gem in the series.

THE GATEKEEPERS: winning tactics make for a losing strategy

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The Gatekeepers: This Israeli documentary is centered around interviews with all six surviving former chiefs of Shin Bet, Israel’s super-secret internal security force.   We get their inside take on the past thirty years of Israeli-Palestinian history.  What is revelatory however, is their assessment of Israel’s war on terror.  These are hard ass guys who went to the office every morning to kill terrorists.  But upon reflection, they conclude that winning tactics make for a losing strategy.

Filmmaker Dror Moreh also makes file footage pop off the screen with 3D effects, and shows us the night vision helmet cam view of an Israeli military raid on a houseful of terrified Palestinians.  It’s powerful stuff, and a Must See for anyone with an interest in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or the American War on Terror.

The Gatekeepers is available to rent on DVD from Netflix and for streaming on Amazon Instant, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and Flixster.

Cinequest: Lead Us Not Into Temptation

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The best movie that I’ve seen so far at Cinequest is the French thriller Lead Us Not 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.  Inventively constructed, we see the story from the perspective of the guy, then from the young woman’s point of view and finally through the prism of another character.  Unlike in Rashomon, we don’t see different realities, but, as secrets are revealed, we finally understand the whole picture.  It’s a brilliant screenplay by writer-director-producer Cheyenne Carron.   In the young woman, Carron has created a character who is both predatory and damaged but who can act charming, vulnerable and sexy. The story hinges on actress Agnes Delachair’s ability to play that complex role – and she delivers a captivating performance.   The trailer below is not subtitled.   Lead Us Not Into Temptation plays again on March 1 and March 9.

I’ve updated my CINEQUEST 2013 page, which also includes comments on The Sapphires, In the Shadows, The Almost Man, Panahida, Aftermath and The Hunt.

Lore: das grimness

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As Lore opens, Hitler has just died and the German defeat in WW II is complete.  A Nazi couple are about to be imprisoned for WW II atrocities, leaving their 14- and 12-year-old girls, 8-year-old twin boys and an infant little brother to make their own way through the chaos of post-war Germany.  Lore is the oldest sister who must navigate the band to their grandmother hundreds of miles away.

It’s a very harsh environment.  Cities are bombed out, the economy has crashed and the German people are suffering such deprivations that even the warm-hearted cannot afford to give away food to strangers – and there aren’t many warm hearts around.  Social order has completely broken down, and everyone is suspicious of everyone else.  On top of it all, the German people are shaken by the exposure of the extermination camps.  The occupying forces run the gamut from hard-eyed Americans to homicidal Russians.   The safest route involves hiking through the Black Forest and crossing a major river, all while trying to finagle some morsels to eat and avoid getting killed.

Along the way, they are guided by another refugee, a Holocaust survivor.  Yes, that is ironic and unsettling, and the relationship between this figure and the kids never gets comfortable.

Lore’s strength is its singular viewpoint – that of the innocent children of monstrous people.  The audience’s instinct to root for children is challenged because these kids, while not culpable for their parents’ crimes, have been indoctrinated with some very ugly beliefs.   The arc of the Lore character is particularly dramatic.

However, Lore is very grim.   The intensity is so unrelenting, as the children face danger after danger, that it wearies the audience.  Aussie director and co-writer Cate Shortland has chosen not to include any moments of respite for the audience.  For better movies that mine this subject, see my list of 5 Essential Holocaust Films.