Butler's Cinema Scene

Tom Hollander, Martin Freeman in “The Voorman Project”

This program of the 2013 Oscar-nominated live-action shorts opens Jan. 30 at the Tivoli.

“THE VOORMAN PROBLEM” (Directed by Mark Gill; UK; 13 minutes) My rating: B-

It features a couple of recognizable faces and some impressive ultra-widescreen cinematography, but basically Mark Gill’s “The Voorman Problem” plays like a truncated “Twilight Zone” episode.

Martin Freeman (“The Hobbit,” PBS’s “Sherlock”) is Doctor Williams, a psychiatrist summoned to a prison to examine an inmate who claims to be God.  Williams interviews Voorman (Tom Hollander) — who is trussed up in a straightjacket — and finds that his patient is smart, cocky, droll, and absolutely committed to his, er, delusion.

Voorman announces that the universe is only nine days old — that he created it only a week earlier. When the doctor protests that he has years worth of memories stretching back to early childhood, Voorman says that’s because he gave the doc those memories.

“I know you’re skeptical, Doctor,” Voorman says. “I made you that way.”

As proof of his powers, the prisoner announces that he’s going to do away with Belgium. Crazy, right? Except that when Williams goes home that night and opens his trusty world atlas,  he discovers that the space formerly occupied by Belgium is now a large inland sea.

“The Voorman Problem” is technically accomplished (but why wide-screen treatment for so claustrophobic a topic?), well acted and quite amusing. But it’s a lot of effort devoted to a jokey idea.

Pelle Falk Krusbaek and Casper Crump in “Helium”

“HELIUM” (directed by Anders Walter; Denmark; 22 minutes) My rating: A

A quiet little heartbreaker of extraordinary power, the Danish “Helium” unfolds in a children’s hospital where a newly-hired janitor, Enzo  (Casper Crump), befriends the terminally ill Alfred (Pelle Falk Krusbaek).

Alfred has no illusions about his future — “They say I’m going to heaven…looks like a boring place to me” – and Enzo responds by creating for him a world called Helium, “where sick kids go to get their health back.”  Alfred – who is a big aviation fan – will be transported to this alternate universe aboard the Helium Express, a huge Jules Verne-ish airship.

As Alfred’s health fails and Enzo tries to wrap up his story while there’s still time, “Helium” raises all sorts of moral conundrums.  Does Enzo – not a parent or a doctor but a mere janitor — have any right to fill the boy’s head with nonsense? Is Helium any more ludicrous a concept than a cloudy afterlife filled with harp-strumming angels? And where do you stand on lies when those lies provide hope?

Director Anders Walter dishes some lovely fantasy sequences set in the ethereal Helium, but the film’s greatest triumphs take place in a hospital room where two souls struggle to find meaning in tragedy.

Leah Drucker, Miljan Chatelain in “Just Before Losing Everything”

“JUST BEFORE LOSING EVERYTHING” (directed by Xavier LeGrand; France; 30 minutes) My rating: B+

Small, seemingly insignificant details add up to a gut-knotting nail biter in “Just Before Losing Everything,” a French production that keeps us on the edge of our seats.

Director Xavier LeGrand builds his story slowly.  A little boy (Miljan Chatelain) ditches school and hides under a brdige. His mother (Lea Drucker) picks him up in her car. Then they get his teenage sister (Anne Benoit), who bids a tearful farewell to her boyfriend.

They drive to the mother’s workplace, a big box store where her coworkers – everyone from sales clerks to the manager – bends over backwards to facilitate what we finally realize is an escape from an abusive husband and father.

And then Daddy (Denis Menochet) shows up at the store looking for the Missus.

With a lived-in feel and almost documentary performances, “Just Before Losing Everything” brings us face to face with a story repeated hundreds of times a day. Frankly, it’s scarier than any horror movie I’ve seen in a long time. (more…)

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“Prison Terminal”

This program of the 2013 Oscar-nominated documentary shorts opens Jan. 30 at the Tivoli.

“PRISON TERMINAL: THE LAST DAYS OF PRIVATE JACK HALL”  (directed by Edgar Barens; USA: 40 minutes) My rating: A-

Nearly three decades ago Jack Hall – a decorated veteran of World War II who spent time in a German POW camp – murdered the drug dealer who had hooked Jack’s teenage son, leading to the boy’s suicide.

Jack has spent the last 12 years of his life sentence in the infirmary of  the Iowa State Penitentiary in Fort Madison. But his chronic heart and lung ailments now have reached the point that he’s moved to the prison’s hospice facility.

There other inmates – many of them serving life terms for murder – will bathe Jack, massage him, lift him, and pray with him. It’s volunteer work – the state has no money to staff the hospice. None of these men has much chance of dying outside the prison walls – the best they can hope for is to reclaim some of their humanity by caring for each other.

“Prison Terminal” follows the 82-year-old Jack through his last days. The cinema verite style adopted by director Edgar Barens certainly captures the grimy reality of life behind prison walls.

The down side is that without a narrator, the film seems a bit stingy with facts. I wanted to know more about Jack’s crime and his earlier life. He seems harmless now, but there are hints of multiple marriages, post traumatic stress disorder, alcoholism, and regular run-ins with the law.

But as a purely emotional experience, “Prison Terminal” is powerful, gut-wrenching stuff. Dare you not to shed a tear over the death of this killer.

FYI: “Prison Terminal” debuts on Jan. 13 on HBO.

Ra Paulette in one of his creations

“CAVE DIGGER” (directed by Jeffrey Karoff ; USA; 37 minutes) My rating: B

Art and artists come in many forms. But Ra Paulette and his work are one of a kind.

Paulette, 65, digs caves in the sandstone near his New Mexico home. He’s been doing it for 30 years, creating astonishing underground spaces – they’ve been called cathedrals – of soaring columns, winding corridors and intricately carved friezes. He does it working alone with just hand tools and a wheelbarrow. No blasting. No power tools.

He calls his work “a celebration…I want to create a space that is transformative.”  Well, mission accomplished.

But as Jeffrey Karoff’s documentary shows,  it’s not an easy vocation. Though obviously smart and well spoken, Paulette is driven to “uncover something that’s already there.” He doesn’t work from plans, but feels his way through his growing subterranean spaces. He knows when it’s time to stop, but more often than not his projects end when their sponsors – folks who think it would be cool to have a shrine-like cave on their property – grow short of cash and patience.

“I am not the paintbrush,” he says, “and my client is not the painter.” In other words, Ra Paulette is always in charge.

Unlike the artist Andy Goldwsworthy – famous for installations using materials from nature – Paulette has never figured out how to earn a living from his art. He survives largely through the good graces of his oft-exasperated wife.

And yet like all good artists, he does it because he must. His purpose in life, he says, is “digging a hole in the ground and finding God in that hole.”

Amen.

“Karama Has No Walls”…the charge against the barricade

“Karama Has No Walls” (directed by Sara Ishaq; Yemen; 27 minutes) My rating: B+

In March 2011 thousands of protestors gathered in Change Square in the center of Yemen’s capitol city. Inspired by the Arab Spring that was fomenting revolutionary movements  all over the Islamic world, the protestors demanded the retirement of the president who had ruled for 33 years.

Sara Ishaq’s documentary – drawing heavily from footage shot by two young cameramen – follows the growing peaceful protest and expanding tent city. Watching the dancing, singing, and drum playing, you can’t help but be reminded of Occupy Wall Street movement in NYC and elsewhere.

But the president’s security forces weren’t giving up easily. They built a wall blocking one street into the square, and from behind this barricade launched a wave of burning gasoline while snipers fired into the crowd from rooftops.

It’s at this point that “Karama Has No Walls “ (“Karama” is the Arabic word for “dignity”) kicks into high gear. The two cameramen were targeted by the snipers, and they captured extraordinary footage of unarmed protestors charging and toppling the barricade, even as people around them were mowed down by bullets meant for the journalists.

Ishaq peppers her film with talking-head interviews with the fathers of two of the incident’s young fatalities, and with the testimony of the cameramen.  It’s touching, but nothing can match the hair-raising footage of the confrontation itself. (more…)

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