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6 years ago
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They Remain, Philip Gelatt’s adaptation of Laird Barron’s short story “--3--," is a mysterious, slow-building thriller, as disquieting as it is visually striking. With an unsettling electronic score to match Sean Kirby’s stark, atmospheric cinematography, the film is haunting and hallucinogenic, with no straightforward answers and a somewhat open-ended resolution. Anyone looking for a tidy narrative or classic horror story won’t find it here.
The story concerns two young scientists, Keith and Jessica (William Jackson Harper and Rebecca Henderson, both very good), who have been sent to investigate a secluded wooded area to find an explanation for inexplicable changes in animal behavior. They are both aware that the area was once the site of a massacre by a Manson-like cult; in Jessica’s case, the subject is an admitted obsession. Aside from being told that the mission “could make you famous,” they’re not altogether clear on the motives of their shadowy corporate employer. As the days go on and they experience increasingly disturbing phenomena, their relationship becomes fraught, veering from wary professionalism to paranoia and worse.
Camped out in a triad of high-tech geodesic domes housing a lab and sleeping quarters, Keith and Jessica at first banter philosophically about the mission and the area’s history, as they get to know each other. During the day, he goes out exploring and sets up several cameras in the woods; Jessica runs tests on specimens he brings back, but t[...]
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6 years ago
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Like a good short story, a well crafted short film can really pack a punch. Unlike features, which often have the luxury of a couple of hours to set the scene, establish a tone, animate characters and tell a story, a short film must get the job done in (generally) less than 40 minutes. With his trio of debut shorts, British journalist-turned-director Neville Pierce skillfully manages to do it all in under 11 minutes each.
In Bricks, the scene is the basement of posh rich-boy William (Blake Ritson), who gets a bricklaying lesson from the earthy Clive (Jason Flemyng), hired to renovate the wine cellar. Clive is clearly dismissive of his effete employer, who doesn’t know one type of trowel from another. “You people and your money,” he sneers at one point. They seem to bond over a nice glass of Rioja, but things soon turn horrific. Great acting (especially from Ritson, creepy as hell); understated, unsettling music and quiet direction make for a chilling update of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado.”
Ghosted, a charming, offbeat, black-and-white film, has quite a different vibe, though it too has a slightly surreal quality. Widowed artist Rebecca (Alice Lowe) suffers through a series of lackluster first dates, as the charismatic ghost of her late husband Nigel (Christian Anholt) looks on, wisecracking and generally getting in the way. Though he seems to be trying to help, we learn that he was far from an ideal mate, and in fact expired while cheating on his[...]
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6 years ago
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Maysaloun Hamoud’s debut feature In Between is not only entertaining and engrossing, but a cinematic rarity. The film is partially set in Tel Aviv’s Palestinian underground club scene, a hip mini-society that isn’t generally represented on film (or anywhere). Hamoud’s three main characters are young Arab-Israeli women, seemingly very different from one another on the surface, but each facing major challenges in a rigidly patriarchal society and, to a lesser degree—at least in this movie—as an unwelcome minority. The multi-layered narrative is buoyed by the charismatic performances of its stars: Mouna Hawa as droll lawyer/party girl Leila, Sana Jammelieh as soulful DJ Salma, and Shaden Kanboura as strictly observant Muslim college student Nour. Though Hamoud’s direction has a casual, verité-like vibe, the unfolding plights of each woman, especially Nour, add growing tension to the film. There are also flashes of levity in the drily humorous dialogue, especially on the part of the free-wheeling Leila.
Leila and Salma, roommates in the bustling Yemenite Quarter of the city, are denizens of a hard-partying club scene featuring pounding Palestinian hip hop and a variety of drugs. A successful lawyer by day, Leila lets loose at night with a cadre of male friends, while aspiring DJ Salma humors her strict Christian parents by attending arranged dinners they’ve planned in hopes of marrying her off. A lesbian, she clearly has no intention of acquiescing to their wishes. One[...]
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6 years ago
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Around a decade ago, Jonathan Olshefski began taking photographs of a basement music studio in North Philadelphia, a hangout for local hip hop artists. The planned photo essay would reflect working life vs. creative life, specifically that of music promoter/producer Christopher “Quest" Rainey, owner of the studio. But Olshefski got so caught up in Rainey’s life and that of his family, that he wound up switching to film and shooting for almost a decade.
The result is Quest, an intimate documentary about a working-class African-American family struggling — and ultimately coping — with crime, poverty and illness. For those who aren’t familiar with rough neighborhoods like North Philly, the film also offers a glimpse into an impoverished but tight-knit community that is both frustrated and hopeful about its prospects. Neither glibly upbeat nor utterly despairing, the film achieves a believable balance that seems to reflect the current situation of so many Americans.
Quest, which opens with the 2008 presidential election as backdrop and closes with Trump soundbites from the 2016 debates, includes various events as time markers, including Obama's second win in 2012. Though Quest, who exhorts his community to vote, is clearly thrilled with those victories and is suspicious of Trump’s promises to African-Americans, it becomes pretty obvious that the national political scene doesn’t really have much of an effect on the day-to-day realities of his neighborhood.
At the [...]
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6 years ago
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It’s a great time of year for New York's documentary lovers, as the nation’s largest nonfiction film festival comes to town. The eighth edition of DOC NYC runs November 9 –16 with screenings and panels taking place at the IFC Center, SVA Theater and Cinepolis Chelsea. Among the fest’s 250 films and events are 11 feature-length works, from already released films such as Agnès Varda’s acclaimed Faces, Places to films making their world premieres, including Sam Pollard’s Maynard, a portrait of Atlanta’s first black mayor, and Julia Bacha’s Naila and The Uprising, about a Palestinian woman in Gaza who must make an impossible choice between love, family and freedom.
Among the festival’s 18 categories are two competition sections: Viewfinders, for distinct directorial visions, and Metropolis, dedicated to stories set in NYC. More than 350 filmmakers and special guests (often film subjects) will be in attendance for Q&As after most screenings and for DOC NYC PRO panels, including Steve Madden (for Maddman), Dan Rather (for Fail State) and Susan Sarandon (for Soufra).
Opening the festival is Greg Barker’s The Final Year, which follows key members of outgoing President Barack Obama’s administration; closing it is Lili Fini Zanuck’s Eric Clapton: Life in 12 Bars, about the life and career of the legendary guitarist. In between are docs of all sizes and shapes including centerpiece film Far from the Tree, Rachel Dretzin’s world premiere adaptation of Andrew Solomon’s book,[...]
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7 years ago
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The subject of Lana Wilson’s documentary The Departure, Ittetsu Nemoto is a fascinating individual. The former rebel-turned-Buddhist priest has made it his life’s work to personally help people who want to kill themselves. Because he cannot turn anyone down when they call or text him—and because suicide is rampant in Japan—the 44-year old’s own health has been terribly compromised. This impressionistic portrait of a heroic yet flawed character is meditative and often quite beautiful, as befitting its extraordinary subject and his environment.
At the monastery where he lives with his wife and young children, we see Nemoto welcome visitors to the Departure, a retreat specifically geared to help people who are contemplating suicide. He does this by having them “experience” death; we see a small part of the process, which involves writing down things they’re leaving behind and crumpling up these pieces of paper one by one until nothing is left. The idea is to find something worth living for. Later in group discussions, the participants discuss their feelings. It's interesting that so many utterly despondent people have allowed themselves to be filmed. On the other hand, suicide has a long tradition of honor (kamikaze pilots, the ritual of seppuku) in Japan, so there’s probably less shame attached to it. This may make people more open about their feelings, but also guarantees that Nemoto is seriously overworked.
The film shows him riding his motorcycle to meet with the vari[...]
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7 years ago
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The first Dominican film to screen at Sundance (and recently announced as the Dominican Republic’s Academy Award submission for Best Foreign Language Film), Woodpeckers (Carpinteros) is not your typical prison drama. Sure, writer/director José Maria Cabral includes some familiar elements: the new guy initiated into the brutal, dehumanizing ways of the institution; an uneasy alliance formed with the cell block’s bully/fixer. But Woodpeckers, which was filmed on location in the notorious Najayo prison outside of Santo Domingo, is also a love story with a spectacular ending that is Shakespearean in its resolution. With its raw, authentic setting, which includes throngs of actual Najayo inmates, the film has a gritty, documentary feel that really gets under the skin. It’s easy to get caught up in its slowly intensifying narrative.
When petty thief Julián (Haitian actor/director Jean Jean, quietly riveting) is incarcerated, he notices his fellow inmates crowded around the prison windows, executing elaborate hand signals. Turns out they’re communicating with inhabitants of the neighboring women’s penitentiary, who signal back from their yard. Through this detailed language, known as “woodpecking,” romantic relationships are formed, as are jealousies and resentments as rivals fight over love interests. (The practice is completely true to life; Cabral spent ninth months visiting Najayo and other prisons, where he got to know the inmates.)
When the volatile Manaury (Ramón Emilio[...]
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7 years ago
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Co-directed by Valérie Müller and renowned dancer/choreographer Angelin Preljocaj (who are married), Polina is the story of a budding Russian ballerina who forsakes a coveted job with the Bolshoi Ballet to pursue the freedom of contemporary dance. Based on the graphic novel by Bastien Vivès, Polina stars soulful young Russian dancer and first-time actress Anastasia Shevtsova as a girl from a humble background who is chosen to train for a career in ballet. Inspired by contemporary dance, she moves first to France, then Belgium—enduring a series of physical, artistic and romantic setbacks, before finding her true passion in creating her own dances. We can almost feel her physical and psychological release when she finally experiences that fulfillment.
Early in the film we see a serious, young Polina (Veronika Zhovnytska) struggling in ballet class under the glowering eye of the demanding Bojinski (Aleksey Guskov), a classic cinematic ballet master. The stifling mood of these vignettes are juxtaposed with scenes of the girl joyfully losing herself in wild improvised dance while walking home from the academy. Later the teenage Polina endures grueling rehearsals under Bojinsky, who harangues her for her inability to express feeling behind the movement, a theme that runs throughout the film. Somehow, though, she perseveres and manages to ace an audition for the Bolshoi in a terrific scene that's shot from overhead. (Another enthralling scene follows Polina’s expressive feet [...]
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7 years ago
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The feature film debut by director William Oldroyd (with a screenplay by Alice Birch), Lady Macbeth is a stark, violent drama that takes place in a classically sedate setting: rural, 19th-century England. Based on the 1865 novella Lady Macbeth of the Mtensk District, by Nikolai Leskov, Oldroyd’s film stars Florence Pugh as Katherine, a young bride who claws her way out of a stifling marriage with a cold, much older husband. The young actress (19 at the time this was filmed) is riveting in a role that demands tremendous effort, physically and emotionally.
We first see Katherine at her wedding, wet-eyed and frightened under her veil; that night her glowering husband Alexander (Paul Hilton, darkly Dickensian) orders her to take off her nightgown, then doesn’t touch her. It’s clear this is a loveless, almost perverse match. Expected to stay indoors and play dutiful wife and daughter-in-law, respectively, to Alexander and his even chillier father Boris (Christopher Fairbank), the teen is clearly bored out of her mind, nodding off at dinner and napping constantly. Whatever hopes she may have had for this marriage, they sure aren’t being fulfilled. A resentful maid, Anna (Naomi Ackie), seemingly in thrall to “the master,” roughly brushes Katherine’s hair and yanks tight her corset, adding to the latter's general discomfort.
When Alexander and Boris have to leave town, Katherine escapes the dull house to walk out on the moors and the film’s mood changes drastically, bec[...]
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7 years ago
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The 28th edition of the Human Rights Watch Film Festival takes place this year from Friday, June 9, through Sunday, June 18. With 21 feature documentaries and panel discussions that showcase the courage and resilience of activism in these challenging times, the event seems more relevant than ever. The festival is co-presented by the Film Society of Lincoln Center and IFC Center, and all screenings are followed by discussions with filmmakers, their subjects, Human Rights Watch researchers and special guests.
Several films address the worsening refugee crisis and migration, including opening night presentation Nowhere to Hide, directed by Zaradasht Ahmed. Using a camera given to him by the filmmaker, Iraqi nurse Nori Sharif documents the catastrophic events surrounding his family as war and ISIS devastate their region.
The need for change in U.S. law enforcement and the justice system is another festival theme, represented by films including Erik Ljung’s The Blood Is at the Doorstep, about a fatal shooting by Milwaukee police, and Peter Nicks’s The Force, about the long troubled Oakland Police Department. One of the films addressing the changing face of journalism and how we get our information, closing night’s Nobody Speak: Trials of the Free Press, directed by Brian Knappenberger, explores the recent Hulk Hogan vs. Gawker case and others.
The Resistance Saga, a daylong special event, includes a trilogy of films by Pamela Yates on the plight of the Mayan people of[...]
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7 years ago
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Tomorrow Ever After is Israeli-American filmmaker Ela Thier’s second full-length feature (the first, 2012’s Foreign Letters, was inspired by her own immigration story). This smart, entertaining indie, about a historian from the year 2592 who is accidentally transported back to present-day New York City, mixes comedy and science fiction to tell a story that resonates deeply in these unsettled times. Unlike many time-travel movies, in which the future is a post-apocalyptic dystopia, Tomorrow Ever After features a protagonist, Shaina (played wryly by Thier herself), who comes from a much better era than the period known as The Great Despair (that’s us, folks!). She's initially shocked by everything here, from litter to our isolation from each other. Through her eyes, we see ourselves and it’s not a pretty picture.
We first see Shaina wandering the streets, wearing a long dress and pants ensemble that's vaguely high-tech, but not enough to stand out in modern-day New York. She gapes at everything from heavy bike chains to cigarette butts and discarded fast-food cups. Spotting fellow humans at an outdoor café, she runs over and hugs one guy, happily introducing herself and asking what year it is. Of course he’s freaked out and she is repeatedly rebuffed when she hugs other strangers, asking for their help. Shaina tries to contact home on her "Implement," a cool device that morphs from a small card into a tablet, and reports her shocking findings (“I’m looking at plastic and[...]
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7 years ago
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Nise: The Heart of Madness, directed by Roberto Berliner, tells the story of Dr. Nise da Silveira (Gloria Pires), a Brazilian psychiatrist who pioneered the treatment of schizophrenic patients with kindness and art therapy, resulting in both medical and artistic breakthroughs. Though a conventional film, Nise is fascinating and poignant. Not only is da Silveira a heroine well worth rooting for, but these outsider artists and their creative processes are portrayed with great respect. (And, unlike some depictions of psychiatric patients, the actors playing Nise's charges seem believably afflicted.)
The film opens in 1940s Rio de Janeiro. A small woman knocks repeatedly at a metal door unless it finally opens. This is a fitting introduction to da Silveira, who has come to work at the National Psychiatric Center, the only female doctor on the staff. In a meeting, lobotomy is discussed dispassionately as miracle cure, while a demonstration of a patient forced to undergo electroconvulsive treatment is looked upon equally casually by everyone but da Silveira, who can barely contain her horror. Refusing to take part in these conventional methods, she is relegated to supervising the Occupational Therapy Sector, previously run by a nurse and an orderly.
Despite the fact that several of the hospital’s inmates have violent tendencies, Nise is compassionate and patient, unlike most of the staff, who treat them with cruelty and ridicule. Under her care, the previously filthy OC w[...]
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