Month: March 2014

 

Diego Luna’s Cesar Chavez glosses over some rather important aspects of the underlying essence of its subject matter. Although admirable in taking the course of the biopic Lincoln versus, say Mandela, in keeping its scope focused on a narrow swath of time, it fails to go deep in portraying the great 1960s labor organizer. Namely, what Chavez accomplished from the standpoint of his persuasive skills and how they affected the decision-making of the scores of common laborers. It was they who kept up a five-year United Farm Workers strike while Chavez instigated a massive boycott of Central California grape growers’ products. It would have been nice to have been a party to the psychological challenges a few of these laborers faced in deciding to risk all for an unknown result. They may have been making only $2 a day but their decision to give that up wasn’t easy.

Michael Pena, steadily effective as a character actor, and coming off his finest performance in End of Watch, holds down the role of Chavez well enough for most of the film but it seems he never snaps back to normal after his 25-day hunger strike. A lot of the movie is spent showing the abusive injustices local law enforcement and townspeople inflict on the strikers. They get insecticide sprayed on them. They get run over with pickup trucks. They get shot at. Once a few of the strikers lose control and fight back, the normally placid Chavez loses his temper and vows to stop eating until his union members sign a pledge of non-violence. Robert Kennedy (Jack Holmes) gets involved in support of Chavez. Ronald Reagan takes over the governorship of California and sides with the growers, calling the workers actions “immoral.” Richard Nixon gets elected president and calls up grape honcho Bogdonovich (John Malkovich) to let him know the union can boycott all they want, the grapes will just be sold in Europe and the rest bought up by the Defense Department. Chavez takes his boycott to Europe and the rest is history.

Rosario Dawson is sadly underused as Chavez’s fellow organizer. America Ferrera plays his wife and mother of their eight kids. A lot of shots focus on their three-bedroom shack of a bungalow. A subplot concerning Chavez’s strained relationship with his oldest son Fernando seems to go on forever. Right-wingers are complaining the film leaves out Chavez’s considerably less than liberal view of immigration as if that ought to be a focus here. I would rather the film have spent more time showing how so many ordinary consumers were convinced to boycott.

When the interspersed black-and-white documentary footage outshines the dramatic main body of the film, it begs the question whether an upcoming documentary on Chavez might not better get to the core of his outstanding work in advancing the severely depressed lot of an exploited minority. Labor may be going through some rough times in present day America but the gains made by this great American demonstrate that the unbending will of driven individuals can overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles. Luna’s film, presented with the difficult challenge of portraying an icon who in real life had little personal charisma, only hints at Chavez’s greatness.

2.5 A Great Man Shortchanged By Overly Familiar Biopic Construct (out of 5 stars)

Mixing the eloquent and the pointless and dressing up his profane observations with intellectual frosting, Lars Von Trier presents Nymphomnia Part 1, the first part of a three-hour-plus feeding frenzy of lust and guilt. Loveless sex holds court as Joe (Charlotte Gainsbourg), found bloodied on the street, reluctantly tells her rescuer (Stellan Skarsgard) her story.

Shown in flashbacks with a younger actress (Stacy Martin), Joe is both consumed with shamefulness and quick to defend her sordid past. “For every 100 crimes committed in the name of love'” she says, there’s “one committed in the name of lust.” I’m not sure the burgeoning global problem of sexual slavery is factored into that equation, but she goes on to add “love Is just lust with jealousy added.” Her friend, who shares her fondness of promiscuity beginning at the age of 15, later whispers to her, “the secret ingredient of good sex is love.” Joe, not so easily converted, goes on to have as many as 10 separate sexual encounters in a single evening. She assigns single letters of the alphabet to her different men before actually rolling the dice to inform the level of friendliness or rejection in her response to their phone calls.

There’s sex galore but also much talk of fly fishing, Fibonacci number sequences, ash trees, the appropriateness of cake forks, delirium tremors, tritone’s demonic past, and polyphony in Bach. Although it’s less trite than you might think (Skarsgard can make the most rarefied subject seem at least somewhat interesting), this is clearly not one of Von Trier’s near masterpieces. Breaking The Waves or Melancholia it is not. It’s more like the intermittently provacative but ultimately listless Dogville, with penises and vaginas taking the place of empty sound stages. Essentially about loneliness and destruction, Nymphomaniac, at least in its first part, is only too happy to yield any higher concerns to Joe’s observation that life sucks because “we’re all waiting to die.” Skarsgard doesn’t want her to blame herself for her addiction but she she can’t help the self-pity. When Uma Thurman brings her three kids over so they can see “the whoring bed” where their recently abandoning father is now spending his time, everyone cringes except Joe.

This inability to feel will significantly rear its head again in the film. Will Lars go deeper with this theme in Part Two, or will he settle for spouting more cockamamie claptrap perhaps meant to camouflage what remains a light-hardcore porn flick with two accomplished actors?

3.0 Whoring Beds and Ash Trees (out of 5 stars) (could go higher–or lower–once Part Two is unveiled)

Dumbfoundingly similar in its finale to the recent Oscar-nominated Palestinian film, Omar, the Israeli Bethlehem mines equivalent emotional turf. Devoid of explanatory context, Bethlehem, via credible and interesting characters, lays out a sad premise: both sides are inhumane, lying and vengeful to a mortal fault. As in Omar, what proceeds as a suspenseful action yarn contains layers of penetrating observation that may lie beneath the surface, but produce a nod of painful recognition.

What keeps Bethlehem from sinking to a low of foregone melodrama is its ability to keep us glued to its character’s plight as a real struggle of compelling, conflicting forces. Sanfur (Shadi Mar’i), still a teenager, lives in the shadow of his older brother Ibrahim (Hisha, Sulman) a leader in the militant al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. Sanfur chooses to protect his father at the expense of any personal cost. His dealings with Shin Bet secret service agent Razi (Tsahi Omari) have a father-son tone of their own. Razi himself bucks his superiors while perhaps getting too emotionally involved with Sanfur.

Here again, as in Omar, a largely nonprofessional cast give sharply defined performances. First-time director Yuval Adler, an Israeli, collaborates with Palestinian screenwriter Ali Waked in giving a finely wrought glimpse into the familial and tribal tensions surrounding the most dastardly act: collaboration with the enemy. Sanfur may feel he had no choice in crossing that highly dangerous line but Bethlehem chooses to explore his decision’s dangerous repercussions rather than give us even a flashback into the turmoil that must have gone into making the decision. We know he felt there was no other choice but we don’t get to feel what must have been an incredibly harrowing process.

Although the film portrays the tensions between al-Aqsa , Hamas, and The Palestinain Authority, it’s scattershot style makes no bones about doing so in an overtly blame free manner. Hatred and revenge transcend ideology, and ultimately, blur distinctions between not only the warring factions on the Palestinian side, but also between their collective lot and Israeli itself. In a conflict with no solution in sight, a weary cynicism ends up beating righteousness into a pulp.

3. 5 Youthful Martyrs (out of 5 stars)

Wes Anderson prefers not to enter himself into a particular time and place unless he’s able to twist and turn his subject until it’s ready to fit into HIS world. In The Grand Budapest Hotel, his eighth and best feature, his enchanting stylization rises to a level of obsessiveness that bodes well for the adventurous filmgoer. Anderson pulls all the stops in production values in taking on the vanished elegance of Old World Europe between the World Wars. His stock company, now enlarged by an even wider swath of familiar actors (no fewer than 17 this time) is here bolstered by a zany, bravura performance by Ralph Fiennes. Fiennes plays Gustave H., a genteel and dapper yet manic and profane hotel concierge who has a way with words and with ladies of a certain advanced age. He controls the Grand Budapest Hotel with a courtly whip.

Anderson may create his archly meticulous world with a glittering attention to detail but it is Fiennes who brings it to life with marvelous assurance. Any lesser hand in the lead role could easily have tipped the delicate balance between wacky whimsy and weary affectation that is present in all of Anderson’s work. When he’s on his game (Moonrise Kingdom, Rushmore) Anderson demonstrates that a deliberate, elaborately heightened style, rather than risk overcoming substance, can actually become the very substance of a film. His less than successful ventures (The Darjeeling Limited, The Life Aquatic…) erred on the side of precocious quirkiness. Neither had a savior like Fiennes to rein itself in.

Real places and real events are absent from The Grand Budapest Hotel. It takes place in a fictitious Central European country, Zubrowka (incidentally the name of a real-life Polish vodka). It deals with jackbooted secret police but never actually names their brand of fascism. In fact Gustave seems bothered more than anything by their rude intrusion on his orderly world of civility. Madame D. (Tilda Swinton, convincingly made up to be in her 80s) could be any rich, glitzy socialite of the day. Her greedy, heavy-handed son, Dmitri (Adrien Brody), means to make life difficult for Gustave, who after Madame D.’s untimely death, has surprisingly been named the heir to her valuable painting. A strange Jeff Goldblum presides as the executor of her will. Soon Dmitri and family henchman Jopling (Willem Dafoe) are pursuing Gustave and a lad named Zero (Tony Revolori), who is Gustave’s constant companion and lobby boy apprentice. An adult Zero (F. Murray Abraham) is actually telling the whole story-within-a-story from the framework of a flashback from the Communist-era setting in the 1980s, where he now owns the seen-better-days hotel.

Anderson uses 1930s film references and creative old-school stunts, miniatures, and nifty camera work to create an Old Hollywood suspense vibe. To great effect, he brazenly uses different film ratios and film stocks for each of his three time periods. His use of bold colors render his hand-painted backdrops particularly vivid. His sets encompass prison camps, railway cars, ski lifts, and of course, hotel lobbies. Elegant glamour with a light touch pervades.

Yet underneath the caper-movie front is an undercurrent of seriousness. Inspired by the writings of exiled Austrian Jew Stefan Zweig, who committed suicide in 1942, the rapid-fire The Grand Budapest Hotel leaves a lingering chill. Anderson may be presenting the impending horrors about to soon take over Europe in a manner entirely on his own terms, but the film’s final effect is as profound as it is madcap. You don’t miss the grace until it is gone.

4.5 Exceptionally Wild and Funny With Serious Afterglow (Out of 5)

Stephen Colbert voices the surly character Paul Peterson in Mr. Peabody and Sherman, the new animated reworking of the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show characters. Invited to the dog and his adopted human son’s home for dinner, Peterson is having none of this erudite mutt’s shenanigans. Peterson’s s daughter Penny bullied Sherman into actually biting her in school after she unconscionably called him, too, a dog. Sherman no more looks like a dog than Gomer Pyle and Penny’s as evil as Ted Cruz, but Peterson’s got a point in raising suspicions over this Peabody character. He’s all bark and way too bright.

No matter the impossible situation or the physical peril, Peabody has an algorithm, a formula, or a recalculation to fix things. Since this is a movie about time travel, his fix-its involve pharaohs in ancient Egypt, Agamemnon of Trojan Horse fame, Marie Antoinette and Leonardo DaVinci. Just in case modern figures feel left out, Bill Clinton makes an appearance and there’s a Monica Lewinsky joke. While the joke fits in with the rest of the film’s puns and quips, my 8-year-old charge was thankfully clueless on that one. The little guy did enjoy all the scatological stuff, though. Juxtaposed with an inordinate emphasis on derrières, director Rob Minkoff (Stuart Little) and screenwriter Craig Wright (Six Feet Under) are also caught up in spouting Family Issue Statements–a breach from the strictly-for-laughs original TV series. Peabody shrinks from using the word “love” when expressing his emotions to Sherman, preferring the chilly “have a high regard for.” While Peabody’s learning his lessons on affection, Sherman deals with his repressed resentments…Then it’s time for a fart joke.

Peabody must defend his right to keep possession of Sherman when outlandish schoolmarm-from-hell-Muss Grunion (Allison Janney) starts proceedings to take Sherman away. Since it’s probably not a spoiler to divulge that a children’s movie ends happily, she not only doesn’t succeed but she ends up strange bedfellows with of all people, the earthy enforcer, Agamemnon, who has a nasty case of B. O. A curious pairing but not any stranger than Peabody and Sherman themselves.

Sherman learns the lessons of true parental love but it’s almost an afterthought amidst the piling on of the incessant in-jokes and wisecracks, many of which fall to the ground rather than stick. Similarly 3D action sequences steal away from the more emotional moments, none of which occurred in the original Mr Peabody series anyway. In short, the film’s mishmash tone overrides its occasionally amusing scenes.

Naturally, my 8-year-old strongly disagrees. He’ll have to wait a couple of years for me to impress him with About Time, a far more satisfying time travel film. He’s already hip to the best “mad science” series of all-time: Beakman’s World. Next to Beakman, Peabody’s a smug know-it-all.

2.5 A Dog and His Boy Grow Closer Through Time Travel

Content to portray the daydreams, everyday life and sturdy determination of a nerdy kid turned genius aeronautical engineer, Japanese anime master Hayao Miyazaki has some observers ticked off at him. Based on the life of Jiro Horikashi, the designer of the Zero fighter plane used in Pearl Harbor, The Wind Rises exhibits the usual amazing virtuosity of Miyazaki. I didn’t find the film a glamorizing or glorifying look-the-other-way treatise on a committed yet self-deluded eventual possible war criminal. Unfortunately, stretches of the film suffered from a different malady usually absent in Miyazaki’s work: dullness. More on that later.

Much like an inverted The Act of Killing, The Wind Rises holds up a mirror to the creators of the war machine. In The Act of Killing the perpetrators of a near-genocide level of killings of suspected Communists in 1960s Indonesia are still alive, and freakily get to make their own movie within a movie. Their harshness, still intact more than 40 years later, is strangely celebratory, and a lack of remorse hangs over every frame. In The Wind Rises, it’s practically the opposite. Jiro (Joseph Girdon-Levitt) goes about his business as calmly and as oblivious to its eventual effect as if he were designing medical instruments. Miyazaki, whose father ran a munitions factory in Japan during World War II, may very well be subtly providing an even greater critique of Jiro’s passivity than if he were to have jumped up and down with more obvious agitprop.

Jiro’s innocence is further softened by a sub-plot where a commitment to his tubercular lover is as persistent as his lifelong obsession to build the lightest and fastest warplane. Here Miyazaki inserts Tatsuo Hori’s The Wind Has Risen as his text for the scenes between Jiro and Nohoko (Emily Blunt). Although the scenes where they first meet, during a sublimely evoked Kanto earthquake of 1923, may be the most compelling work Miyazaki has done, the film bogs down a bit from the repeated sentiments of their difficult relationship. The two different stories don’t always mesh well. Further, although Jiro’s dream sequences (most of them with his hero, Italian aircraft designer Gianni Caroni, voiced by Stanley Tucci) are refreshing at first, they, too, become repetitive. Perhaps Miyazaki, now 73, and proclaiming retirement, is such an unassailable figure in Japan that editing him is a near-impossible chore.

So much for nitpicking. While The Wind Rises may not be at the top of Miyazaki’s canon (a spot reserved for Spirited Away, in my view), the film is still head and shoulders above the digital doodads and CGI glop posing for animation these days. Watch the hand-drawn brilliance of this master filmmaker and literally enter another world. You may be haunted by that earthquake for some time but you’ll thank yourself for watching.

3.5 World’s Best Animator’s Final Film Soars and Stalls (out of 5)