Sad Jokes (2024) Toronto 2024

 

Fabian Stumm’s SAD JOKES never clicked with me. The story of a filmmaker, played by Stumm, trying to deal with his career, single fatherhood (his son’s mom is in a hospital for depression)  and romance always kept me at arms length.

The problem is that Stumm isn’t that an engaging actor. He is a good looking guy who never really seems to have anything going on beyond looking good. His expression rarely changes. This is problem when the first person we see is Sonya played by Haley Louise Jones whose whole being is on display in everything she says and does. You can feel the waves of emotion washing over her and into the audience, you don’t get that from Stumm. You want to follow Jones or any other character other than the one played by the writer director.

It might have worked for me if Stumm had shot the film differently. Shot in longer takes with few close ups the film trades the intimacy of close ups and varied shots for sequences playing out in real time. If you have actors to pull it off it can result in emotional moments, but Stumm never manages to pull it off.

I never really cared.

A miss.

Cuckoo (2024) Fantasia 2024

Stop reading this review and buy a ticket.

Better yet don’t read any reviews, just buy a ticket?

Why?

Because this a batshit crazy ass film that is wild and wooly mash up of genres that is going to put a big smile on your face as it makes you laugh and chills you to the bone.

For those wanting to know more this is the story of a 7 year old girl who moves to Europe with her father, his new wife and her younger mute half-sister. Dad is supposed to have been contracted by the town to build a new hotel for the area.  As plans are set in motion weird things begin to happen.

I won’t say more because I don’t want to clue you into anything. It’s not because what is happening is obvious, but because it is not. CUCKOO is a film that moves in its own universe, in its own way and goes to its own conclusion. It is a film that is fresh and alive with its own way of telling a story. To be certain the film kind of sort of feels like some familiar things, say some Euro-horror from the 1970’s and 80’s but the truth is it’s only kind of like that. It’s kind of like things we know and its aware of it and it uses those similarities against us.

What an absolute joy.

After I saw the film I emailed Liz Whittemore to see if she has seen the film yet because it was such a delight that I had to compare notes with someone.

Destined to become a favorite and revisited film for many, myself and Liz included, CUCKOO is a must see.

CUCKOO opens August 9

Of Living Without Illusion (2023) NDNF 2024

An actress with an imploding relationship  rehearses a play with her ex-husband and tries to hold her life together.

Echoing the work of filmmakers like Chantel Ackerman who would use long takes to make us an observer from just out of a moment n real life, OF LIVING WITHOUT ILLUSION ups the ante by adding "deep and meaningful" dialog in an attempt to give meaning to the film. It’s a ploy that pushed me away as the film seemed intent on stating what we are supposed to be feeling in the dialog instead of showing us in the action.

I grew wary from the second scene where several of the characters sit around a table and discuss the meaning of film and how we are supposed to watch them. There was a Statement about how films are not for everyone, and it made my warning sensors going up since the statement and the conversation seemed intent on taking a stance in order to prevent us from poo pooing the film. The film seems to be taking a stance that it and its filmmakers are better than the audience.

The pretensions are wrapped around the broken relationships of the characters. While there is something there, the film is trying so hard to get us to connect to the people but the intellectual discussions overwhelm the emotion and it somehow feels artificial. The emotions being expressed don’t feel  as though they are being felt by anyone on screen but being expressed as an acting exercise, or more often just stated in the dialog rather than expressed in the performance. We can see  director Katharina Ludin moving her characters around.  

I want to apologize for expressing my feelings but the truth is that half way into the film I realized that the emotional core of the film, the actual story, the characters, the situations actually pack an emotional punch if you can strip the artistic artifice that Ludin has buried them in. If this was a less an art house film it would kick your ass. It doesn’t need the pauses and the silences and the camera always standing outside the action. This is a film that needs to be in the room where it’s all happening and getting up in all the actors' faces, something Ludin refuses to do.

A miss.

A Good Place (2023) NDNF 2024

Director Katharina Huber film is either going to be your favorite film at New Directors New Films or your least. A meandering tale set in an isolated community dealing with a mysterious disease that seems to kill some people or cause them to disappear, everyone seems not to do much except watch and listen to English broadcasts while speaking in German. There is talk of an upcoming rocket launch that will send people to the stars.

What does it mean? I have no clue.  There are hints at something but we don’t have all the answers. Huber said in an interview that she wants to give the audience room to piece together their own answers. I really don’t know if there is anything there other than what we bring to the table.

Shot to look like we are in an idyllic location the film looks and feels important. It will be up to you to determine just what is.

Unlike most people who seem to be split into rabid love for the film or a deep seated loathing, I’m somewhere in the middle. I like the look and feel of the film. I like it’s off kilter nature, but at the same time the lack of answers and it’s rambling nature really works against the film. There was a point where the rambling nature made me raise my hand and feel I was done.

If you are in a mood for a film with no answers and just lots of questions five A GOOD PLACE a try.

WHAT DID YOU DREAM LAST NIGHT, PARAJANOV? First Look Fest 2024

 

Filmmaker Faraz Fesharaki mixes some home video footage of when he was child performing in a school pageant with zoom calls between himself and other members of his family who have scattered all over the world after leaving Iran. Over the course of the film we see the state of the family and the country they left behind.

I’m going to be honest this film didn’t work for me. The fact that we are simply listening to family conversations is interesting for a while, but there was a point about a third of the way in where I kind of stopped caring.  The film is much too static with everyone sitting or laying down and simply talking to the camera. While what they are saying is interested there isn’t enough here to keep my interest. My gaze kept drift despite Fesharaki efforts to make it compelling.  Perhaps this will play differently in a darkened theater, but at home watching a review copy I drifted.

SUBJECT: FILMMAKING (Filmstunde 23) (2024) Berlin 2024

In 1968 in Munich, Edgar Reitz, soon to be the director of the film epic Heimat went to a girls high school and taught a class in film aesthetics. 55 years later he is approached by one of his students.  The decide to have a class reunion.

Made up of the documentary that was made about the class, the films made by the girls and footage of the reunion, this is glorious documentary exploring what film is and how it can change people's lives.

This is a great film. While I suspect that some non-hardcore film fans might have a problem with it, I think most people who love or like film and have any sort of interest in it beyond just vegetating in front of a screen are going to fall in love with it. I say this because  what the film does is it explores films and filmmaking. Over the course of it's run time it explains how films made and how knowing that changes how you view films. Watching the film I had numerous "ah ha" moments as things I had been thinking about, especially in today's world where over analyzing films is cottage industry on line and You Tube.

This maybe better for a film student then several years at a film school. Seriously outside of the technical bits about making a film, anything you are going to learn about anything else is going to be here. It's so good that I wish I had seen this rather than many of the film classes I took in college.

And don't think the film is in anyway dry, it isn't. This is a film about people and how they react to film. We learn to love the ladies and their younger selves. We also get to love Reitz, who proves himself to be the best teacher of film I've ever run across.

I came out of the film smiling and with a new appreciation for something I have spent much of my life exploring. This is one of the best films on film I have ever seen.

Highly recommended 

Teachers Lounge (2023) Toronto 2023

When things begin disappearing in her school and a student is accused of doing it a teacher begins to look into the matter and ends up causing all sorts of problems as she tries to negotiate between various groups.

This very mannered film walks the fine line between drama and uncomfortable comedy as a do good and principled teacher finds the way she sees the world is not compatible with the way things are. The drama comes from the situation and the dark humor comes from the way things just don’t quite play out the way out heroine wants them to. It’s not really funny as such but it’s in that uncomfortable place where bad things happen to good people and you laugh lest you squirm.

While everything in the film is really well done I found that I never connected to what was happening. I blame it on the tone which really didn’t connect to me. I’m not really a fan of cinema of discomfort and I usually need something to hold on to in order to make the connection. Here I didn’t have it and while I could intellectually appreciate everything on screen there wasn’t any emotional connection.

Because there is enough good here and because several other reviewers loved this I think this is worth a look.

Orphea in Love (2023) Fantaspoa 2023

One of a kind musical dance romance drama is for anyone who doesn’t want your typical Hollywood style film.

A retelling of the story of Orpheus gender flipped and set in the modern day the film focuses on a dancer and a singer who fall passionately in love.

This film let’s you know early on when Orphea is working at her job in a call center and her  boss comes over and shifts from yelling at her in sentences to pure jibberish. Soon after that people are bursting into song and others are dancing. Everything has a heightened sense of reality that you only get in theater. Its an effect that causes us to lean in and go along with the story because we get the feeling that anything is possible  and we want to see what that entails.

This is pure cinematic magic, and while there are some missteps, most of this is just glorious and delight.

Recommended

The Pure Place (2021)

Horror collides with heavy handed social commentary in a film that looks good but never manages to make the horror mesh with the lofty ideas

Allegorical horror film about children who are part of a cult. Considered the lowest of the low they wander a Greek Island living in filth and shoplifting what they need. They are waiting for the time when their leader will call them and lift them up into cleanliness and purity.  However the path to salvation takes unexpected turns for everyone involved.

Great looking film missed the mark for me. A little too insistent on being more than a horror film I never fell under its spell since it always seemed to be striving to be about something other than chills. This isn’t to sell the film completely short, it works as an drama an allegory, but it’s not really a scary film, which is what I wanted.

Reservations aside it’s worth a look for the curious.

Teachers Lounge (2023) Berlin 2023

When things begin disappearing in her school and a student is accused of doing it a teacher begins to look into the matter and ends up causing all sorts of problems as she tries to negotiate between various groups.

This very mannered film walks the fine line between drama and uncomfortable comedy as a do good and principled teacher finds the way she sees the world is not compatible with the way things are. The drama comes from the situation and the dark humor comes from the way things just don’t quite play out the way out heroine wants them to. It’s not really funny as such but it’s in that uncomfortable place where bad things happen to good people and you laugh lest you squirm.

While everything in the film is really well done I found that I never connected to what was happening. I blame it on the tone which really didn’t connect to me. I’m not really a fan of cinema of discomfort and I usually need something to hold on to in order to make the connection. Here I didn’t have it and while I could intellectually appreciate everything on screen there wasn’t any emotional connection.

Because there is enough good here and because several other reviewers loved this I think this is worth a look.

Hinterland (2022)

 

A soldier returning from the trenches of the first World War finds the city he once knew has become a weird surreal landscape. Back at work as a detective on the police force he is thrust into the case of serial killer murdering returning veterans.

Mostly shot on a soundstage with blue screens this is an impressionistic take on the surreal world of Europe between the World Wars. Looking more like a color version of the films coming out of Germany in the late teens and early 20’s this is a film with a lot on it’s mind. Yes it’s a solid thriller but it’s also an allegory about society in the wake of the war and how that lead  to the next.

While the mystery engages, the allegory makes it hard to fully latch on to the characters because some times they do things that only make sense in the exploration of the themes and not in reality. I was engaged but I wanted to be fully invested. The film also suffers in that the blue screen style of shooting puts occasionally doesn’t  mesh with the actors and they seem disconnected to their surroundings.

Problems aside this is a film I like and really admire. I don’t know when it was that I saw a film as invested in creating a world and environment and tying it to the story it was telling. This is a film that is going for it with a gusto rarely seen in cinema any more.  No, it doesn’t wholly work but it still manages to be a really cool film because we are watching a film where a director is giving us the story he wants to tell to the best of his ability. This is a film that is in love with film and story telling and as a result we are willing to sit and take notice.

In its own way this is a stunner and a must see.

Recommended

JB on WILD (2016) which plays on Ovid September 16th

Joe Bendel saw WILD a couple years ago at Sundance. I am reposting his review which originally ran at JB Spins to tie into the running on Ovid.TV starting on the 16th.

Wolves are solitary creatures, but they mate for  life. Perhaps that is why Ania is attracted to them. By ‘attracted,” we mean in the most provocative way possible. The call of the wild is strangely seductive to her in Nicolette Krebitz’s Wild (trailer here), which screened during the 2016 Sundance Film Festival.

Ania is a mousy office drone, but her blowhard boss can see just enough of the swan beneath her ugly duckling exterior to skirt the boundary of sexual harassment. Yet, Ania hardly seems to notice. She just plugs away, maintaining her emotional distance from everyone around her. One night, she locks eyes with a wolf on the edge of the woods surrounding her drab apartment building. Strangely, it is her first real connection that we know of. Soon she is leaving meat for it, hoping to win its trust. After an aborted attempt, she successfully entraps and smuggles him into an abandoned flat in her complex.

Initially, the wolf is generally not receptive to her plans. He is rather loud, hostile, and smelly, demonstrating several reasons why exotic pets are such a terrible idea. However, as their “courtship” progresses, Ania and the wolf come to an understanding. Yes, it will have a physical component. Yet, she is not just drawn to the wolf. She also finds his “lifestyle” enticing.

It is important viewers do not confuse the various films simply titled Wild. One features a beautiful actress doing awards caliber work and the other is a light-weight Reese Witherspoon vehicle. Fortunately, this is the former (though technically it is the later production). It also seems to bear comparison to Roar, the notorious Tippi Hedren film, in which the cast was regularly mauled by poorly trained lions. Human-wolf proximity is downright intimate here as well. It all gets rather alarming for safety reasons, rather than prurient concerns. However, wolf trainers Zoltan Horkai and peter Ivanyi deserve credit for the masterful control, as does lead actress Lilith Stangenberg for her nerves of steel.

Frankly, it is a bit of a surprise Stangenberg did not walk away with this year’s performance award. This is one of the darnedest empowerment arcs you will ever see, but she makes every animalistic step believable. Krebitz’s aesthetic is pretty severe and she lets the film get a slow start out of the blocks, but somehow she manages to take the potentially lurid material and make it feel dignified and cerebral.

Too bad Sundance does not have an animal handling award, because Wild would have won in a landslide (the same would have been true for White God last year). If you want to see a film about human-lupine relations and not feel guilty or embarrassed about it afterward than this is the one you have been waiting for. It is also worth seeing for the rest of us, thanks to Stangenberg’s fearless (in several ways) breakout performance, so expect to see it programmed aggressively, following its premiere at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

Bremen Town Musicians (1959) American release 1965

Another West German fairy tale film has four animals leaving their masters and going off to Bremen to become musicians.

Trippy telling of the classic tale has humans in animal masks playing the leads to mixed results. Certain to have played better in its day the film now has a certain quaint quality to it. At the same time the lessons of the original tale do come through. Guaranteed to warp your kids, this is the perfect film to watch with weird movie lovers.

The American dub features children's show host Paul Tripp (The Christmas That Almost Wasn't) telling the story which is perfectly fine.

Rumpelstiltskin (1951)

One of a number of West German fairy tale films produced after the Second World War that ended up washing up on American shores years after their European runs more often than not in  a form bent by K Gordon Murray who bought them and numerous Mexican films for release as kiddie only screenings on weekends.(It been speculated the Murray's weekend kids shows were responsible for drug use and mental illness in the generation who saw them)

A more or less straight forward telling of the tale this film is going to seem way too leisurely paced for today's audiences  who are weened on wild and crazy action. That the film takes 80 minutes to spin out is going to have many people reaching for the remote.

One the other hand if you want a nostalgic film that doesn't Disney-fy  a fairy tale give it a shot.

We Might As Well Be Dead (2022) Tribeca 2022

At an exclusive community may people would kill to get into the life of a security guard begins to slide. First her daughter locks herself in the bathroom and refuses to leave. The, as one resident’s dog goes missing  things and he breaks the rules about being drunken in public, the residents behavior begins to get strange.

Off kilter social satire is both amusing and kinda frightening as we watch as the residents become more cultish echoing the various communities both online and off that are forming all over the place. We clearly can see how the healthy mindset goes out the window for other thinking. I kept laughing and wondering why since it’s not that funny if you think about it since it all has dark overtones.

While I really liked this film a great deal I’m not going to pretend this film is for all audiences, satire is in the words of George S Kaufman, what closes on Saturday night. If you like satire or off kilter humor this is a must.

Holy Shit (2022) Fantaspoa2022

 

If you want to see a nifty comedic thriller and can completely shut off your mind, then ‘s film is for you. This is a crazy ass film about a guy who wakes up in a Porta-Potty that is in a worksite that is about to be dynamited. It’s off color and frequently over the top film that will have you laughing and wincing as the tension grows.

And as long as you do not think about the logic of it all it’s a fantastic thrill ride.

The key is at no point can you think about what is happening because as soon as you do the film begins to fold in on itself.

The problem with the film  is that once the film starts to explain how our hero ended up trapped in the toilet things begin to break apart. The turns of the plot make no sense even with in the frame work of the film. Clearly director Lukas Rinker wanted to go for a raucous reaction from his audience but he pushed things too far. Where the film’s logic begins to break  about half way in, the film completely collapses as any sort of real narrative in the final 15 minutes when things go for over the top gross humor instead making sense. Its literal shit covered comedy with a villain so unbelievably cartoony that he would  have been bounced from the stage in the mustache turning days of melodrama.

Don’t get me I watched to the end, laughing all the way, but I was disappointed that the cleverness of the first half lessens as the film goes on to the end.

This is gonna be best with a large audience. Otherwise this is a pass

This film screened as part of Fantaspoa 2022. For more information on the festival, please visit www.fantaspoa.com

Prince Achmed (1926) hits Ovid TV on March 4

This is an old journal entry on Prince Achmed made right after I saw the film. 

I finally completely watched the DVD of Prince Achmed and the documentary on its creator Lotte Reiniger. The film is animated silouettes and was done over several years being released in 1926 making it the first animated feature film (assuming the rumours of a South American film fail to be confirmed) 

 The film tells the story of Prince Achmed who travels the world trying to get home after an evil magician tries to kill him so that he can steal his sister away. Its much more complicated than that but that will do as a brief description. 

 I have no doubt that you've seen Reinger's silhouette films for yourself since she made over 80 films for groups such as the BBC and the Film Board of Canada. When I started the film I knew what the style was to be, little did I know I had seen the artists work previously. She was a one man band and did pretty much all of the silhouette films you can think of...including one in color in the 1950's. 

Whatever you think of those films this is better. When Reinger made the film there were no rules and no instructions as to what to do so she, along with her husband, and some friends set out to make the first animated film. The lack of rules and direction to me is what makes Achmed so wonderful, there is no formula, just the film. There is nothing like Achmed that I have ever run across, except perhaps in the realm of anime where animation can be serious and for adults. This is a serious fairy tale, borrowed from the Arabian Nights and its wonderfully told with a minimum of intertitles (its a silent film with an original score). This is sort of what Disney was trying for with Snow White, but the cute drawings got in his way. 

 Reinger had no one to tell her no, no market research and no audience to alienate if she got it wrong. All she had was her instinct and her desire to tell a story. The film is a fairy tale, with all its complexity come to life. Yes there are bumps in it, but it was a first and it was and is light years ahead of what was and is being produced by the majority of film makers working with animation. The story is the thing and there is no need to do anything but tell it. There is no product that has to be sold, no audience to protect simply the adventures of a Prince trying to get home and rescue the various Princesses. 

 How can I get a cross what a trip this film is? First off its a genuinely good film. Secondly its wonderful to look at the film and see how much may have been cribbed from it by Disney and other animated filmmakers over the years. The battle of the Magician and the witch reminds me of the battle of wizards in the Sword in the Stone- except not played for laughs. This would make a great lead into the Thief of Bagdad. 

My mind boggles at what might have happened had the film been a success. The film bombed since no one was ready for a feature length animated film, let alone one that was told straight forwardly. Could animation of a feature length started earlier? Could the art form have been taken seriously say fifty to sixty years before Ralph Bakshi and those of his generation began to prove that animation could be a serious thing? Yes I know that there were others working in the field doing serious feature work but they were few and far between and rarely had any sort of real success on a large scale- Bakshi with, Fritz, Lord of the Rings, Coonskin and other films helped, along with the adaptions of Watership Down and Plague Dogs (talk about a failure to find an audience) to push animation towards into the view of an adult market in the West. (I'm not forgetting anime, thats another kettle of fish all together.) 

 Achmed is a great film, years beyond its time. Watching it you get lost in the world it creates as if it was illustrations for a tale you are reading, your imagination fills in details. One of the joys of the film is watching the film be animated better and more complexly as the film goes on. This is due not only to the learning curve of the filmmakers technically as it was being produced in a garage over three years, but also because as time went on they changed their minds and realized that they could do more, they could make things grander and fill the screen with demons. 

 The movie is a trip and should be seen not only if you love great animation but also if you like good movies. Its a great way to spend 67 minutes.

Be Right Back (2022) Slamdance 2022

 

A stranger wanders into a group of people living in an abandoned vacation area deep in the forest. When the food disappears things get weird.

I'm not going to lie, BE RIGHT BACK completely eluded me. While I was intrigued enough by what was going on that I watched the film from start to finish, when I got to the end I honestly had no real idea what I had just witnessed.

The reason for this is that everything is just sort of off a couple of degrees from normal. People do normal things but there are odd twists, say a man staring into a window at a woman playing scabble, unending charades and a weird choice early on with some triumphant music that ends when the stranger goes to the bathroom in the woods.

I suppose I could be reading too much into all of this, but at the same time, maybe not. This film like a puzzle waiting to give up its secrets.

Definitely worth a look for the curious, I expect BE RIGHT BACK to be playing many festivals after this.

MR BACHMANN AND HIS CLASS (2021) DOC NYC 2021

Frederick Wiseman like portrait of a teacher in Germany who teaches immigrant children and makes them feel loved and part of the community.

This is an excellent film that is highly recommended for those who like films that play out at the speed of life. I say that because this film is shot in long takes where we watch Bachmann and his students interact during the days in classroom.  There are no cut aways and no rapid fire editing just life unfolding. The result is a film where we fall into it and bond with everyone on screen.

I really liked this film a great deal. I like the people in it. I loved Bachmann who is so good I wish I could have had him when I was in school.

A word of warning this is a long film. I started the film much too late at night and had to break it's almost four hour run time into two parts.  When I started the film I was not aware of how long it was and had to stop  when the late night viewing went way too late on a school night. Its a great flm but you should try and see it in one go.

If I have any quibble with the film its  the length because I know my trips returning to the film will be less frequent than I would like because I need to devote four hours to sit to watch the film. And while I suspect some people will be unhappy I say that, I know other people will understand it is a reflection of how much I loved the film since it means I can't visit a good friend as often as I would like.

Recommended.

Wood and Water (2021) NDNF 2021

 A German woman decides to travel to see her children, and her son in Hong Kong who said he has been unable to come home because of the Pro Democracy Protests

This is beautiful film with a glorious sense of place. Frankly I've rarely felt Hong Kong as a real a place as it does here. The forests of Germany are  the sort of thing that we can reach out and touch. It is a film that is alive and full of the  life.   I would  love to see what director Jonas Bak would do if he was allowed to create a mythical world.

How you react to the film as a whole is going to be determined by how you react to the films meditative style. The film is not one full of hills and valleys but a it's a steady straight line. It moves like life, there are no grand moments, however there are small revelations that work together to create a real emotional punch. When the film ended I was forced to consider the film more than if director Bak had put a bow on anything. Days passed and it was still haunting me.

While probably not for all audiences for those who want a quiet film that will haunt them this is very  recommended.