Category: Film-Foreign

Quote of the Day: Film Snob

On By chrisbarsantiIn Film - Repertory, Film-Foreign, OmniculturalLeave a comment
A film snob's film, in all the best ways (Milestone).
Charles Burnett’s ‘Killer of Sheep’: A film snob’s film, in all the best ways (Milestone).

From A.O. Scott’s quasi-manifesto “Film Snob? Is That So Wrong?”

What I’m trying to say is: Yes, fine, I am a snob. I revere the formal achievement of the first and most recent “Mad Max” movies. I sneer at most biopics and costume dramas. I like my pleasures slow and difficult. I would rather watch a mediocre film from South America or Eastern Europe about the sufferings of poor people than a mediocre Hollywood comedy about the inconveniences of the affluent. I look up in admiration at models of artistic perfection, sound judgment and noble achievement, and I look down on what I take to be the stupid, cheap and cynical aspects of public discourse…

Sometimes a snob is a person enjoying certain things for their cachet, for what they believe it will say about them.

Other times, a snob is somebody with very definitive tastes that happen to not agree with the majority of people. This tends to make the majority annoyed and defensive about their own tastes.

Here’s to that kind of snob.

Screening Room: ‘The New Girlfriend’

On By chrisbarsantiIn Film - New, Film-ForeignLeave a comment

newgirlfriend-poster

In Francois Ozon’s The New Girlfriend, after a woman’s childhood friend dies, she discovers that her friend’s husband has a secret. Complications of a romantic and gender-blurring nature ensue.

My review of The New Girlfriend, which opens this week in limited release, at PopMatters:

There is a sharp, sublime Almodóvar film trapped inside the blurry outlines of François Ozon’s The New Girlfriend (Une nouvelle amie), as if aching to get out. You can see this in The New Girlfriend‘s sly opening, with its finely sculpted woman being dressed seemingly for a wedding before the gag is revealed, and in the moments of interlaced satire and desire in later sections. But Ozon’s highly polished surface allows for none of the Spanish filmmaker’s lurking wit or malevolence. Though Ozon’s penchant for putting pretty people in mildly baffling situations makes it hard to take his work straight, so to speak, this is the course with which you’re left in this ultimately confused film…

Here’s the trailer:

Screening Room: ‘Eden’ Goes to the Rave

On By chrisbarsantiIn Film - New, Film-ForeignLeave a comment

'Eden': The party never ends (Broad Green Pictures).
‘Eden’: The party never ends (Broad Green Pictures).
Ah, to be young, French, and to care what DJs think or do. That’s the short synopsis of the new film from Mia Hansen-Love, whose Goodbye, First Love was one of the sweeter romantic films of the last few years. This time, Hansen-Love dives into the electronic music scene of the 1990s and throws love into the mix as well.

Eden opens this week, here and there. My review is at Film Racket.

Here’s the trailer:

Screening Room: ‘A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence’

On By chrisbarsantiIn Film - New, Film-ForeignLeave a comment

(Magnolia Pictures)
(Magnolia Pictures)
If the question of what exactly A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence is would bother you if it can’t be answered, then by all means, don’t see it. Philosophical investigation, bad joke, or just a series of modern-art video installments strung together into a “film,” it resists easy definition. That doesn’t make it a masterpiece, but it’s something different, and in a good way.

A Pigeon… opens this week in limited release, and should cause a few furrowed brows as well as some rapturous praise. My review is at Film Journal International:

Roy Andersson (A Swedish Love Story) announces his newest film with a bravado that typifies the style of this acutely controlled and almost hermetically sealed piece of work: “The final part of a trilogy about being a human being.” The glacially paced circus that follows is certainly an investigation of being human, but one that’s done in the manner of an intellectual burlesque. Answers aren’t proffered in these short pieces that feature many of the same waxy-faced performers in absurd situations that range from a dance teacher who can’t keep her hands off a student to Charles XII riding into a bar. But plenty of evidence is found on the way…

Here’s the trailer:

Screening Room: ‘Gueros’ – French New Wave in Mexico City

On By chrisbarsantiIn Film - Festivals, Film - New, Film-ForeignLeave a comment

'Gueros' (Kino Lorber)
‘Gueros’ (Kino Lorber)
Style doesn’t go out of style. That’s why directors around the world are still aping the French New Wave, in good and bad ways.

Güeros is a grab-bag of the right and wrong ways to appropriate the Nouvelle Vague’s stream-of-conscious plotting and jazzy rhythms. It did the festival circuit last year and is now getting a limited release. My review from the Tribeca Film Festival is at PopMatters:

[Güeros] gets a lot of traction from its mainly directionless young protagonists. They wander through Mexico City through a couple formless days backgrounded by worries about the future and uncertainty about their place and purpose in the present. It’s a film riddled and with questions and switchbacks, circling in on itself time and again…

Here’s the trailer.

New in Theaters: ‘Clouds of Sils Maria’

On By chrisbarsantiIn Film - New, Film-ForeignLeave a comment
Juliette Binoche and Kristen Stewart in 'Clouds of Sils Maria' (Sundance Selects)
Juliette Binoche and Kristen Stewart in ‘Clouds of Sils Maria’ (Sundance Selects)

In Olivier Assayas’ Clouds of Sils Maria, a venerable actress with a prickly assistant agrees to play the older character in a play that made her famous when she was in the younger role, now cast with a Lindsay Lohan-esque up-and-comer. It’s a rich dramatic environment, suggesting a marriage of Persona and All About Eve.

Clouds of Sils Maria opens this week; my review is at Film Racket:

In this richly satisfying film about age and art, a battle of wills over a new production of a classic play becomes a Rorschach test for two women’s friendship. It’s another subtext-laden drama from Olivier Assayas, whose best work has dug into the simmering tensions of long-term relationships and come up with melodramatic gold. Clouds of Sils Maria won’t be counted among his greater achievements like Summer Hours. But it’s a return to form for a director whose more recent films (Carlos, Something in the Air) have been packed with energy but lacking heft…

Here’s the (somewhat misleading) trailer:

New in Theaters: ‘About Elly’

On By chrisbarsantiIn Film - New, Film-ForeignLeave a comment
Golshifteh Farahani in the mystery 'About Elly' (Cinema Guild)
Golshifteh Farahani in ‘About Elly’ (Cinema Guild)

Although Asghar Farhadi finished his multilayered mystery About Elly a couple years before his masterful A Separation, it’s only getting a proper American release now. It’s about time.

My review for About Elly is at Film Journal International:

Like bloodhounds that can’t ignore a scent once they have been put on it, the films of Asghar Farhadi keep circling back to one redolent and persistent problem: the demeaning, low status of women in Iranian society. They are not message films, announcing their lecturing intent by yoking their narratives to the most politically advantageous plot points. Instead, they tell stories that would carry dramatic weight regardless of their setting, and show how the circumscribed lives of Iranian women exacerbate already lamentable situations…

Here’s the trailer:

Now Playing: ‘Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter’

On By chrisbarsantiIn Film - New, Film-ForeignLeave a comment
Rinko Kikuchi goes to the Great White North in 'Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter' (Amplify)
Rinko Kikuchi goes to the Great White North in ‘Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter’ (Amplify)

Do you like Fargo? Chances are, even if so, you don’t know it as well as the titular anti-heroine of the Zellner brothers’ chilly odyssey of quirk, Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter. It might be one of the first great films of 2015.

kumiko-posterKumiko, the Treasure Hunter is playing now here and there. My review is at PopMatters:

She’s alone and obsessive, and her particular object of obsession is the Coen brothers’ film Fargo. Sitting night after night in her dingy apartment with only her adorable rabbit Bunzo for company, she pores over a worn-out VHS tape with Talmudic fervency, keeping a notebook full of scribbled clues that only make sense to her. Because of Fargo‘s famous opening epigraph—“This is a true story. The events depicted in this film took place in Minnesota in 1987”—she takes it as a faithful transcribing of reality. That’s why she keeps re-watching the scene where Carl (Steve Buscemi) buries the suitcase of cash by a fence in a snowy field. In Kumiko’s mind, she just needs to get to Minnesota…

Here’s the trailer:

New in Theaters: ‘White God’

On By chrisbarsantiIn Film - New, Film-ForeignLeave a comment

 

'White God': The dogs are coming (Magnolia Pictures)
‘White God’: The dogs are coming (Magnolia Pictures)

Ever year the Cannes Film Festival awards the Un Certain Regard prize to a standout film. For 2014, that film was Hungarian director Kornel Mundruczo’s White God, which is not about race or religion, but rather about what happens when people push dogs a little too far. Yes, it’s a metaphor.

White God is opening this week in limited release. My review is at Film Journal International:

They say that the eyes are the windows to the soul. That hasn’t always proven correct with some performers, who could look forcefully into a camera and still reveal nothing about themselves or the character they are inhabiting. The same problem presents itself in Kornél Mundruczó’s White God, only this time the eyes in question aren’t those of human actors, but canine ones. Eyes are important in this film because the story has so little to offer; about all that’s left to engage with are the dogs who spend a good amount of time peering soulfully out of the screen. And that’s before they rise up against their human oppressors…

The trailer is here:

New in Theaters: ‘Jauja’

On By chrisbarsantiIn Film - New, Film-ForeignLeave a comment

 

Viggo Mortensen (right) in 'Jauja' (Cinema Guild)
Viilbjørk Mallin Agger and Viggo Mortensen in ‘Jauja’ (Cinema Guild)

Jauja, a ghostly pseudo-Western set in the wilds of late-nineteenth century Argentina and starrting Viggo Mortensen, is opening this week in limited release. My review is at Film Journal International:

Given a précis of what Lisandro Alonso’s Jauja is ostensibly about, some might imagine they’re in for a South American updating of The Searchers. But even John Ford—who would have been happy to have a stolid leading man like Viggo Mortensen in his company—at his pokiest was never this unconcerned with story. Alonso is happy to let his scenes spool out at their own unhurried pace, captured in the old-fashioned boxy Academy framing. This can lead to some gorgeously observed tableaus but also stretches of dry tedium, hemmed in by a layered and mannered aesthetic…

Here’s the trailer:

New in Theaters: ‘Two Days, One Night’

On By chrisbarsantiIn Film - Festivals, Film - New, Film-ForeignLeave a comment
(IFC Films)
‘Two Days, One Night’ (IFC Films)

twodaysonenight-posterIn the latest film from the Dardennes brothers, Marion Cotillard deglams to play a factory worker who has to fight for her job in a particularly grueling way.  Hopefully, it’ll be the odds-on favorite for the Oscars next year.

Two Days, One Night opens on Christmas Eve in limited release and should expand around the country in the new year. My review is at Film Racket:

In the nervy pressure cooker Two Days, One Night, a hollow-eyed Belgian factory worker tries to convince her co-workers to keep her on at the company instead of getting a raise. The narrative is similar to those gladiator entertainments — see who wins and who goes home — but it’s structured around a different impulse. Here the protagonist is trying to succeed by convincing the other characters to listen to their altruistic instincts. It’s not the sort of thing people normally bet on…

The trailer is here:

New in Theaters: ‘Zero Motivation’

On By chrisbarsantiIn Film - Festivals, Film - New, Film-ForeignLeave a comment
Nelly Tagar tries to be all she can be in 'Zero Motivation' (Zeitgeist Films)
Nelly Tagar tries to be all she can be in ‘Zero Motivation’ (Zeitgeist Films)

The new Israeli film Zero Motivation—which played the film festival circuit earlier in the year—is a smart, dour comedy set in a military office where little gets done. The military satire is punched up with the occasional flash of surrealism; it’s a fantastic mix.

Zero Motivation is opening this week in limited release. I reviewed it at the Tribeca Film Festival for PopMatters:

On a base that feels as removed from any actual war as Sgt. Bilko, the human resources office is a den of sloth and ineptitude. Commanding officer Rama (Shani Klein) is frazzled trying to get any of the women in her command to care even remotely about their assignments. Her best friends Daffi (Nelly Tagar) and Zohar (Dana Ivgy) can’t be bothered to do much besides complain and play Minesweeper, as they all survive in a casually sexist division, where the men are assigned all the combat roles and so ascend to higher ranks, and female soldiers fetch coffee and bicker…

Here’s the trailer:

Now Playing: ‘Bird People’ Perches Between Rapture and Oblivion

On By chrisbarsantiIn Film - New, Film-ForeignLeave a comment
'Bird People' (Sundance Selects)
Anaïs Demoustier and friends in ‘Bird People’ (Sundance Selects)

birdpeople-posterTwo people, one hotel next to an airport, an atmosphere of rootlessness, a little bit of magic, and lots of sparrows. Those are the ingredients of Pascale Ferran’s gorgeously odd Bird People, which has almost everything going for it but a story. Plus Bowie.

Bird People is playing in very limited release now and deserves to be sought out. My review is at PopMatters:

Airports are all about promise. Springboards to the great elsewhere, they are also, for passengers en route, a comfortingly null zone wherein the normal rules of adult life are suspended. The promise of airports can be intoxicating. But the reality is more often deadening, not transportive.

In Bird People, Pascale Ferran’s ode to the in-between, Charles de Gaulle airport takes on both qualities. It’s at once an escape and a trap for the unwary…

You can see the trailer here:

New in Theaters: ‘We Are the Best!’

On By chrisbarsantiIn Film - New, Film-ForeignLeave a comment
werethebest1
Liv LeMoyne, Mira Barkhammar, and Mira Grosin in ‘We Are the Best!’ (Courtesy of Magnolia Pictures)

A trio of disaffected 1980s Swedish punks form a mostly tuneless band with one great should-have-been-a-hit song in Lukas Moodysson’s We Are the Best! It opens in limited release tomorrow after a batch of well-received festival dates.

My review is at Film Racket:

It’s assumed that the thorny flowers of punk need rocky, hostile ground to take root. Think of how the gone-to-seed, junkie-littered, class warfare cityscapes of late-1970s New York or Maggie Thatcher’s Britain bred those first mohawked shock troops. But that wasn’t always the case, as Lukas Moodysson’s slight but charming growing-up story We Are the Best! shows. Just as punk could flourish as easily in America’s sprawling, sunny suburbs as its bombed-out cities, its seething fury was also an enticing reaction to the complacent communitarianism of 1980s Sweden. The scrawny kids gelling their hair and scornfully twisting up their faces aren’t just angry about the miserable state of the world, they’re furious that nobody else seems to get it…

And here’s the trailer:

Now Playing: ‘The Lunchbox’

On By chrisbarsantiIn Film - New, Film-ForeignLeave a comment
Irrfan Khan in 'The Lunchbox'
Irrfan Khan in ‘The Lunchbox’

In The Lunchbox, a sad-eyed office worker nearing retirement in Mumbai gets his regular lunch delivery, only to discover that it’s meant for a married man. But the food is delicious, so he keeps the mistake going and takes up exchanging letters with the cook, a lonely housewife trying to get her husband to notice her.

The Lunchbox is playing now in limited release. My review is at Film Racket:

The sweet and savory epistolary romance The Lunchbox spins a variation on the adage about getting to a man’s heart through his stomach. In this case, the man in question’s heart is certainly touched, but the food he’s illicitly feasting on serves as a wakeup for something else: his soul. It’s more than the woman cooking the food intended. But then, spells have a way of getting away from the caster…

Here’s the trailer: