WELCOME TO NEW YORK

This was originally published for cutprintfilm.com back in March of 2015. But since the site/publication has apparently vanished - I'm posting it here with a few updates. Enjoy...

Normally I'd roll my eyes at someone making a film about the Dominique Strauss-Kahn case for fear that it would come off as either pandering or opportunistic (there was a lackluster episode of Law & Order: SVU that was loosely based on the Kahn/Diallo case). But Abel Ferrara is someone who knows about scummy people. I'm willing to hear what he has to say about this. From Harvey Keitel in Bad Lieutenant to Chris Penn in The Funeral, Ferrara has crafted some majorly dysfunctional/fucked-up characters. Dominique fits in seamlessly within the cinema of Abel Ferrara.

The Dominique Strauss-Kahn case was also very much a New York City story and Abel Ferrara is an unofficial representative/voice of NYC (75% of his films are set in the big apple). If anything, this film serves as two giant middle fingers, courtesy of the people of New York City, to the privileged/entitled Kahn who got away Scot-free. And given Gerard Depardieu's current personal beef with his homeland of France, I imagine it didn't take much convincing for him to take part in a film like this.

 

While Welcome To New York is obviously inspired by very real events, it's only loosely based in the same way Gus Van Sant's Last Days was loosely based on the (real) last days of Kurt Cobain (names are changed, speculations are made, etc).

In the film, Gerard Depardieu plays “Devereaux” - a French politician (like Strauss-Kahn) whose in New York City for 24 hours to visit his soon-to-be married daughter and to have sex with as many prostitutes as possible before his departure back to France. When orgies and threesomes don’t seem to be enough to please Devereaux, he forces himself on a nameless hotel maid who just so happened to enter the room at the wrong time (a few hours later he's arrested and booked for rape). For the rest of the film Ferrara explores the judicial system that surrounds the case as well as the strained relationship between Deveraux and his no-nonsense wife “Simone” (Jacqueline Bisset). Welcome To New York is also very much a post-”Occupy Wall Street” story as we see the special treatment wealthy people get when they stand trial for a serious crime. Although Devereaux is charged with rape and has to spend a night in jail, he eventually gets to stay on house arrest in a swanky luxury suite. Seem fair to you?

 

Between The Blackout (1997) & 4:44 – Last Day On Earth (2011), Ferrara's work has become quietly experimental in terms of editing (Napoli Napoli Napoli), structure (New Rose Hotel) and even in some of the performances (Forest Whitaker in Mary). At first glance one might find Welcome To New York to be more of a straightforward film but just beneath the surface there's quite a bit of experimentation going on. The chemistry/interactions between Depardieu & Bisset come off incredibly improvised (mostly in a good way) rather than scripted. There's also a slightly playful sequence towards the end of the film that looks more like something out a post-Tree of Life Terrence Malick film rather than a Ferrara film (voice-over narration and all).

 

My only concern with Welcome To New York is that no matter how much of an obnoxious piece of shit spoiled brat Devereaux is, I still get the sense that Ferrara wants us to have some kind of understanding and/or sympathy (although I could be wrong). Ferrara gives us a polarizing/introspective scene where Devereaux is explaining himself to a psychiatrist and at the start of the film he's even referred to as the “protagonist”. Now...protagonist definitely doesn’t mean “the good guy”, but 9 times out of 10 the protagonist is in fact the good guy in a story. Using a term that's often associated with a “good guy” to describe a person like Devereaux/Strauss-Kahn (when there are so many other more accurate/less flattering labels to use) is a little problematic in my book. But at the end of the day it would take a special kind of sociopath to see Devereaux's side.

For those of you who weren’t satisfied with the exploration of privilege & greed in Scorsese's The Wolf Of Wall Street, Welcome To New York might just satisfy the needs that Wolf didn’t fulfill (it certainly did for me as I found the tone of Wolf to be incredibly irresponsible).

Welcome To New York also has a transparent/existential quality in that certain aspects of this film mirror Gerard Depardieu's real life. At the start of the film we get a quick scene of a fictionalized interview where Gerard plays himself and talks about what drew him to portray “Devereaux”/Strauss-Kahn. Derpardieu also seems to have no shame in his glutenous qualities in real life. Not only does he seem to not care about his weight gain over the years, but just recently he bragged to the press about the insane amount of wine he drinks on a daily basis (and I don’t mean to bring up his weight to be petty or to poke fun. I'm overweight myself. But Gerard Depardieu's transition from hunky french leading man to morbidly obese veteran actor is a bit troubling).

In the same way we could never imagine any other actor besides Dennis Hopper portraying “Frank Booth” in Blue Velvet, I can't picture another actor playing the role of Devereaux in Welcome To New York.

Oh and side note - this is the best performance Jacqueline Bisset has given in years. She easily joins the ranks of Chris Penn (The Funeral), Forest Whitaker (Mary) & Harvey Keitel (Bad Lieutenant) in the pantheon of great Abel Ferrara performances.

Not only will hardcore Abel Ferrara fans enjoy this, but it's also the perfect film for Ferrara novices that are looking to get familiar with his filmography.

UNCLE JOHN

 This was originally published for cutprintfilm.com back in March of 2015. But since the site/publication has apparently vanished - I'm posting it here with a few updates and to honor the career of the last John Ashton. Enjoy...

Uncle John doesn’t waste any time getting started. Less than three minutes in we’re thrown in to the aftermath/cover-up of a murder, and, in my opinion, it works thanks to the eerie score. Before we go any further I have to say that the minimalist droning score, courtesy of composers Adam Robl & Shawn Sutta, is both inspiring and a key element to this film. Not to overshadow or take anything away from the performances but without the music I personally feel Uncle John would be an entirely different film (not necessarily a worse off film, but certainly not as intriguing). And what’s even more of a success with Uncle John is that director Steven Piet knows when to use music and when not to use any music. Film scores are important but they can sometimes be a distraction depending on how they’re used. Piet understands the genre he’s working within. Uncle John is a noir/murder-mystery so it requires a bit of silence from time to time in order to build tension and set the right ambiance.

After the mild anxiety-inducing opening sequence where we see our protagonist, “John” (John Ashton), trying to get rid of the nameless body, the film’s tone drastically shifts out of nowhere and we follow a young graphic designer (“Ben”) in a seemingly separate/unrelated story centered around him and his co-worker/love interest “Kate”. Naturally the two stories connect in the final act (as do the reasons for the murder at the very beginning) but for the most part it’s like we’re watching two completely different movies for the first two thirds of the movie (we eventually come to learn there’s a strong family connection that binds the two stories together).

Uncle John is bound to be compared to something like Blue Ruin (both films are “young-spirited” indie noirs that take place in small towns) but in my opinion it falls somewhere in between Clay Pigeons (without the humor), Shotgun Stories, Blood Simple, Night Moves (2014) and a (good) mumblecore film like Cold Water (in terms of style & cinematography, Uncle John also shares some of the same DNA as Chad Hartigan’s This Is Martin Bonner – another solid straightforward American indie that floated under the radar). But all comparisons & similarities aside, this is very much its own movie. It’s easy to take a directorial debut and compare it to a million other titles but Steven Piet crafted a solid debut. Uncle John’s strongest quality is that the story is simple yet, as I stated earlier, it pulls you in. Piet doesn’t rely too much on “cool” Tarantino-esque time shifting or forced “innovative” camera work. Piet seems to have a somewhat of an old soul as he’s drawn to simplicity & minimalism instead of “bells & whistles” (I don’t mean to discredit today’s young filmmakers but it is pretty rare to find a film like this from someone Piet’s age). With Uncle John we get a lot of hints & implications rather than things spelled out for us which is something I appreciate.

On an existential level, watching John Ashton give it his all in the lead (title) role felt like he was intentionally trying to shed the stigma of his Beverly Hills Cop notoriety. There’s certainly nothing wrong with being remembered as one of the key supporting characters in a successful Hollywood franchise but Ashton is a seasoned actor with decades of experience. I always felt his presence in films like Midnight Run & Gone Baby Gone were overlooked & underrated). Even though Uncle John won’t get the same audience as a studio feature, this is still a career-defining role for Ashton.

DA SWEET BLOOD OF JESUS

This was originally published for cutprintfilm.com back in January of 2015. But since the site has apparently vanished - I'm posting it here with a few updates. Enjoy...

 

Da Sweet Blood Of Jesus is not as bad as critics made it out to be. It's far from perfect and I think late period Spike Lee will always be a bit tone-deaf and somewhat out of touch, but I respect him for the ambitious undertaking of remaking a cult classic that is kind of out of his wheelhouse. Sorry, but these days if I have the choice between something “safe”/non-threatening versus something imperfect & ambitious – I’m going to go with the latter.  Much like how A Most Violent Year is a non-gangster GANGSTER film, Da Sweet Blood Of Jesus is a non-vampire VAMPIRE film. The story centers around “Dr. Hess Green” – a lawyer & collector of ancient African artifacts who comes under a mysterious spell that makes him addicted to blood. He’s not exactly a vampire (he doesn’t have long sharp teeth and isn’t allergic to sunlight) but his thirst for blood (and what he does to attain it) would make you think he is a vampire. Like most vampire (…or vampire-ISH) films, Dr. Green’s curse becomes too much for him to handle and things spiral out of control.

In some circles Ganja and Hess is looked at as a low-budget cult film. But beyond that, it went on to influence the next generation of Black American filmmakers. If anything - Da Sweet Blood Of Jesus gave the original a momentary spotlight for rediscovery...

My tree scene was an homage to Bill Gunn's Ganja and Hess. I figured it's all part of the continuum of the Black aesthetic - Julie Dash

Ganja and Hess /
Daughters Of The Dust

Between Only Lovers Left Alive & A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night, vampire films were a “thing” again within independent/art-house cinema between 2013-2015. In some ways, Spike’s latest reminded me of Claire Denis’ Trouble Everyday (another modern non-vampire vampire film where you never actually see any sharp teeth, but there’s plenty of blood & murder). There’s even a painful scene in Da Sweet Blood Of Jesus where our protagonist Dr. Green murders a woman during sex that kind of mimics the disturbing finale of Trouble Everyday where Vincent Gallo literally “eats out” his poor victim.

There are quite a few levels to this film yet no one seems to be looking deeper. Putting aside the noir-ish/thriller aspects of this movie, it obviously touches on issues like addictions, gender, racism & class. Da Sweet Blood Of Jesus also clearly acts as a metaphor for the transmission of STD’s (specifically HIV & AIDS) among people of color. Is this Spike Lee doing his iteration of Abel Ferrara's Addiction?

I found myself getting incredibly frustrated at people (specifically so-called Spike Lee fans) dismissing Da Sweet Blood Of Jesus upon seeing the trailer (I honestly thought the trailer was great). Unfortunately, whether Spike Lee fans realize this or not, he’s held to a strange (unfair?) high standard where people are still expecting him to make another Do The Right Thing or Malcolm X (I guess that’s what happens when you’re one of the very few talented black filmmakers working in the mainstream). Some of you may disagree with that statement but that’s the way I see it. Perhaps some folks forgot Lee’s indie/D.I.Y. roots (Joe’s Bedstuy Barbershop & She’s Gotta Have It). From the subjects & characters in Shirley Clarke’s films to the work of Melvin Van Peeples, the origins of black people in independent film has always been a little against the grain, “left field” & grass roots-based. Da Sweet Blood Of Jesus is no exception. Plus, not every Spike Lee film is going to be a game-changer. I think some people have a hard time accepting that. If you aren’t expecting a 40 acres & a mule classic and just looking for an interesting film to kick back with (it’s now streaming on Vimeo), Da Sweet Blood Of Jesus is certainly worth your time (although I don’t think it needed to be 130 minutes long).

No matter how problematic this movie is, it represents Spike Lee’s ability to still step outside of his comfort zone and do something different. It shares strands of the same DNA as his previous work. Da Sweet Blood Of Jesus definitely takes place in the same cinematic realm as Redhook Summer. The opening sequence feels like a scene out of He Got Game, there’s a touch of She Hate Me in there, and the supporting cast features long-standing Spike Lee repertory actors like Joie Lee, Cinque Lee & Thomas Jefferson Byrd.

There’s been a tiny black cloud looming over Spike’s head (and his career) for quite some time. That’s partially his fault. His last film Oldboy (a remake of the popular Korean film) felt a little flat, and his film before that, Redhook Summer, might be the worst thing he’s done since Girl 6 (sorry, just my opinion). Lee caught a lot of heat for crowd-sourcing his latest project and I understand that on some level. Back in 1992 he reached out to a few famous celebrities & athletes (Michael Jordan, Bill Cosby, Janet Jackson, etc) for additional funding in order to finish Malcolm X when he went over budget. That was in 1992. What stopped him from reaching out to his famous (wealthy) friends/peers in 2014? Why does he need our money? Maybe that’s none of my business. I certainly don’t want to be in other people’s pockets. I just find it peculiar when rich people take to crowd-sourcing to fund a project. Spike’s recent rant about gentrification in New York City also didn’t sit well with some folks, even though he was right in what he said for the most part.

Because of all this, I feel people are going unfairly judge and/or dismiss Lee’s new work (possibly before even seeing it). Da Sweet Blood Of Jesus has a lot working against it. It’s being released with its back against the wall which is unfortunate because it really isn’t that bad. Had Ava Duvernay or Lee Daniels made the same exact film, I’m sure people wouldn’t be so harsh.

JAUJA

This was originally published for cutprintfilm.com back in March of 2015. But since the site has apparently vanished - I'm posting it here with a few updates as my love for this movie has grown over the last nine years.

This is also the perfect time to revisit Jauja with it's loose sequel set to be released soon (click here to read)

Before going in to Jauja – Lisandro Alonso’s latest multinational semi-surrealist period drama, please erase any & all comparisons to the cinema of David Lynch. Between the initial film festival reports and the IMDB message board discussions, I found that Lynch was the most commonly used reference point in a lot of early reviews of this film. While David Lynch is certainly one of the greatest modern surrealist directors to pick up a camera, he certainly didn’t influence every single movie that could possibly be categorized as “strange” or “different”, and Jauja is definitely an example of this (the Lynch comparisons have since cooled off, but I worry some folks will still expect his style of surrealism here when they really shouldn’t). David Lynch did invent nor does he have a trademark on surreality.

For those of you looking for some kind of a comparison (which I feel helps when dealing with a movie like this), I’d place Jauja somewhere in between the cinema of Carlos Reygadas (specifically Japon & Silent Light) and Philip Ridley’s The Reflecting Skin, which, coincidentally, co-stars Jauja leading man & film score composer Viggo Mortensen (the criminally underrated Reflecting Skin was one of Moretensen’s earliest roles). The multi-nationalism/multi-culturalism that we see in Jauja is reminiscent of the Danish/Latin-American hybrid dialogue in Silent Light, while the rural environment and gorgeous landscape shots, courtesy of cinematographer; Timo Salminen (with the subconscious influence of Nestor Almendros), are right out of The Reflecting Skin (the exploration of boredom within The Reflecting Skin also appears to be a possible influence on Alonso’s latest film). There’s also a touch of Kelly Reichardt’s Meeks Cutoff in that Jauja is more of a realistic “road movie” that shows the grueling side of making a long journey prior to the invention of the automobile (and even with cars, road trips were far from glorious). And like Meeks Cutoff, Jauja challenges what one might expect from a western.

There is something in that story in terms of the visual poetry and his use of time, the simplicity of his shot selection… all that reminded me of Tarkovsky’s movies, which I like a lot - Viggo Mortensen, electricsheepmagazine.co.uk

Solaris /
Jauja

 

Set in the 19th century (…or is it?), Danish general “Gunnar” (Viggo) is stationed on an outpost in Argentina on a mission to ultimately rid the Patagonian land of its indigenous people (this aspect of the movie plays the background but should not be forgotten). When his daughter “Ingeborg” unexpectedly runs off with a young soldier, Gunnar sets out to find her but slowly loses his mind in the process similar to Chris Kelvin in Solaris (in fact, the environment surrounding Gunnar on his journey almost mimics the planet of Solaris). Like some elements in the cinema of Andrei Tarkovsky, the last 10-15 minutes of Jauja is an especially trippy (although calm) journey in to the subconscious (I know Tarkovsky is another overused reference point in film criticism but the comparison to Jauja is reasonable in my opinion). The relationship between fathers & daughters can sometimes be complicated and Lisandro Alonso gives us an abstracted view in to this relationship.

Yeah, it made me think of Tarkovsky a lot, just that unhurried pace - Viggo Mortensen, thefilmstage.com

The Mirror / Jauja

 

Stalker / Jauja

Jauja has the tone & pacing of a four hour long movie when in fact it’s under two hours. You’d think when a filmmaker only has 110 minutes to spare they wouldn’t waste the audiences time with long unbroken shots of horses drinking water or characters just sitting around but Lisandro Alonso doesn’t seem to care. Personally, I find that commendable. For quite some time I’ve been advocating for more movies, both mainstream & “art-house”, to have less talking and Jauja definitely answered my personal request. At its core, this is a meditative film (with hints of issues like colonialism & the ownership of land) that borders on a feature length experiment. Not only does Alonso test our patience with the pacing, but the cast of actors is a mixture of professional & non-professional (that’s always a crap shoot). The script was also co-written by a poet (Fabian Casas) rather than a traditional screenwriter.

Solaris /
Jauja

 

This film is also impressive because of Lisandro’s age. While he certainly isn’t young (39), Jauja at times feels like the final film of an 80-something year old filmmaker going through a personal existential crisis. Lisandro Alonso has a bit of an old soul and it shows here.

I wouldn't be surprised if Dreyer was a subconscious influence in addition to Tarkovsky...

Day Of Wrath / Jauja

Summer With Monika / Jauja

  

Another important factor to be aware of here is that this film is not for everyone (if you haven’t already figured that out by now). I know that sounds like one of those copout excuses for a slow “art-house” movie, but Jauja has very little dialogue (when compared to more “traditional films”) and the overall pacing is very slow (even the conversations and exchanges of words between the actors is a bit delayed). Casting popular/established/well-known actors like Viggo in films like this can sometimes be problematic. Although this won’t be screening at a multiplex in midtown Manhattan or downtown LA, Viggo Mortensen’s name is still synonymous with names like Peter Jackson (The Lord Of The Rings trilogy) & David Cronenberg (A History Of Violence & Eastern Promises) and this could potentially attract the wrong demographic. I remember all the disappointed movie-goers complaining about how “nothing happened” in the Matt Damon/Casey Affleck-starring Gerry or how “boring” Broken Flowers was in comparison to most other Bill Murray movies. Jauja is not your typical film in the Viggo Mortensen cannon so don’t expect a lot of “action” (although some of you will be happy to learn that around the 62-63 minute mark, there is some mild action). Actually, if your favorite part of LOTR was the journey involving Frodo & Sam schlepping through middle earth for what seemed like an eternity, perhaps you just might enjoy Jauja.

This is the kind of movie that will be unfairly labeled as boring & pretentious by some and hastily called a beautiful work of art by others. After almost a decade of re-watches and over-analysis on my part - I personally think this is a masterpiece. 

EDITS, UPDATES & REVISIONS PART TWO

I've been going over old blog entries here & there to make some adjustments. There may have been a comparison that I missed when I originally wrote something, an important point I completely forgot to make, or maybe I re-watched a movie recently and something just came to me that I hadn't noticed before. In the second installment we take a look at a few things I may have missed the first time I watched Olivier Assayas' 'Carlos', briefly delve back in to the world of Michael Mann's 'Miami Vice' and look at how I completely forgot to add one of the best movies of last year in my top 10. Oops.

EDITS, UPDATES & REVISIONS PART ONE

I've been going over old blog entries here & there to make some adjustments. There may have been a comparison that I missed when I originally wrote something, an important point I completely forgot to make, or maybe I re-watched a movie recently and something just came to me that I hadn't noticed before. In this first installment we take a closer look at the world of movie poster art (specifically action films from the 60's & 70's) and its influence on 'The American' and Kenneth Anger's small influence on 'Drive'. I've also been slowly reading "Brutal Intimacy"; a new book/analysis on modern french cinema with a focus on feature film debuts, the coming of age genre and the "the new french extremity" scene (Gaspar Noe, Bruno Dumont, Marina De Van, Francois Ozon, Marina De Van, etc). While I'm reading a film book I usually like to have the related films on rotation at the same time. Marina De Van's 'In My Skin' has been on heavy rotation for the last few days and there's a few more quick points I forgot to make when I originally wrote this over a year ago.

enjoy