The two best films of the recent Kansas International Film Festival — at least in the opinion of festival goers who voted on their favorites — open today (Oct. 14) at the Glenwood Arts. Plus a KIFF doc about a transgender icon gets a run at the Rio.
“eMANNzipation” My rating: B- (Opens Oct. 14 at the Glenwood Arts)
115 minutes | No MPAA rating
“eMANNcipation” would be the perfect movie for the Lifetime cable channel. It’s about a spousal abuse and how the victim overcomes many obstacles to achieve true emancipation.
Yeah, we’ve been there and done that.
But this German effort from writer/director Philipp Muller-Dorn pulls a switcheroo. It’s not about an abused woman. Its protagonist is a man…a man whose wife beats the crap out of him.
When we first meet Dominik (Urs Stampfli) he’s living with a married friends, having been beaten up (he’s got a patch over one eye) and kicked out of the house…this in addition to losing his job.
The mopey, unassertive Dominik is soon asked to leave and winds up in a shelter for abused men.
This has all the makings of a mildly sick comedy, but director Muller-Dorn plays it absolutely straight. In fact, this is a largely humorless film.
Anyway, by interacting with the other residents, reluctantly participating in group therapy sessions, and by signing up for a karate class where he meets a sympathetic lady lawyer, Dominic slowly reveals to us his history (we see it in flashbacks).
On vacation in a rural area, the virginal fellow met and fell for Hannah (Frances Heller), a hearty, lusty country girl who introduces him to sex. They marry and return to Berlin where they soon have a baby boy.
But Hannah’s behavior is increasingly deranged. She accuses Dominik of infidelity (a laughable notion), attacks him physically and verbally. His innate shyness, fear of confrontation and willingness to please seem to enrage his wife, who eventually vanishes, leaving their young son a ward of the state.
With his new lawyer ladyfriend and love interest (Anna Gorgen), Dominik sets out to reclaim his child and his manhood.
The same things abused women say to excuse their men’s bad behavior (I shouldn’t make him mad, I drove him to it, he really loves me) we hear coming from Dominik’s mouth. Sometimes you want to slap this guy up the side of the head and tell him to assert himself.
Making “eMANNzipation” something more than a mere curiosity is the acting, which is strong all around.
“LESSON PLAN” My rating: B+ (Opens Oct. 14 at the Glenwood Arts)
76 minutes | No MPAA rating
In 1967 Ron Jones, a charismatic young high school teacher in Palo Alto, launched a one-week experiment in his sophomore modern history class.
Cannily manipulating his students, he created a fascistic movement called The Third Wave, complete with official salute and litany (“Strength through discipline…strength through action”).
The Wave proved so attractive that students at other nearby high schools showed up wanting to join.
Students who asked probing questions or expressed doubt about the Third Wave and its goals were exiled to the library; one actually started an underground movement in opposition. Others more committed to the movement formed a sort of Gestapo to serve as Jones’ bodyguards and to intimidate non-participating students (like a reporter for the school paper).
Documentarists David Jeffrey and Philip Carr Neel (Neel was in Jones’ class) interview dozens of former students (now in their late 50s), their parents and the school’s principle (who initially supported Jones’ adventurous teaching techniques but later came to see this particular experiment as “immoral”). Most of the ex-students say they don’t regret their participation in the Third Wave, and that ever since they’ve been extremely cautious about buying into movements of any kind.
Jones lost his job over his experiment in social manipulation and now says he would never do it again because of the potential for genuine physical and emotional damage. The film ends with his return to the high school after 40 years to meet some of his old pupils.
“Lesson Plan” is a weirdly moving experience. And the final credits roll over Bob Dylan’s “Ballad of a Thin Man” (…you know something’s happening, but you don’t know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones?”) — the absolutely perfect song for this situation.
“BEAUTIFUL DARLING” (Opening Oct. 14 at the Rio)
85 minutes | No MPAA rating
The short, tragic life of Andy Warhol “superstar” Candy Darling (born James Lawrence Slattery) is the subject of James Rasin’s evenhanded and finally heartbreaking documentary.
A product of an alcoholic father and a suburban Long Island upbringing, Darling stood out in a crowded field of ’70s female impersonators for a couple of reasons.
For starters, she was genuinely beautiful (unlike campy Warhol drag queens like Jackie Curtis and Holly Woodlawn). For another, she was a true transexual who believed herself a woman trapped in a man’s body.
This doc reveals a sometimes stunningly attractive individual who may have been pathologically addicted to being treated like a movie star — she was determined to achieve the success and glamor of her idol, Kim Novak.
But she was adept at projecting a tone that has been called “gracious regality”; it helped mask her sexual insecurity (though much sought after, Darling seems to have been fundamentally asexual).
The filmmaker was fortunate to have locked onto Jeremiah Newton, who as a young man was a Darling acolyte, companion and gofer. As part of his continuing adoration of Darling he maintains her grave and recently purchased an appropriate headstone.
A sobering look at a lonely life that somehow transcended its sadness.
| Robert W. Butler
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