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“LABYRINTH OF LIES”: Good Germans

November 12, 2015 by butlerscinemascene

*** ****

Alexander Fehling

“LABYRINTH OF LIES” My rating: B- 

124 minutes | MPAA rating: R

“Labyrinth of Lies” is an earnest slice of history in which the various characters are less personalities than easily recognized political points of view.

Normally this would not bode well for the enterprise.  But the subject of Giulio Ricciarelli’s drama is so big and compelling — the prosecution of Nazi war criminals (or, rather, the reluctance of post-war Germany to seek justice for the millions of murdered) —  that “Labyrinth” sucks us into its vortex of national guilt.

It’s 1957 and Johann Radmann (Alexander Fehling, who plays Carrie’s boyfriend on the current season of “Homeland”) has his first gig as a Frankfurt prosecutor. As the youngest man on the office totem pole he spends most of his time in traffic court.

One day he arrives at work to find his fellow prosecutors being harangued by Thomas Gnielka (Andre Swymanski), a rabble-rousing newspaperman who claims to have discovered a notorious former Auschwitz guard contentedly teaching at an elementary school.

The legal brains aren’t interested. The older attorneys don’t want to stir up trouble.  The younger ones, like Johann, don’t even recognize the word “Auschwitz.”

When Johann asks around about the veracity of Gnielka’s accusations, he’s told that rumors of war crimes are all part of an anti-German smear campaign: “The victors get to make up stories.”

“Labyrinth of Lies” is about how Johann contracts Gnielka’s passion for chasing down war criminals, how he launches his own independent investigation (one opposed by most of his superiors) and little by little begins identifying those war criminals who have hung up their uniforms and resumed civilian life as if nothing had happened.

He spends days in vast musty repositories of fading Nazi documents (think the final warehouse scene in “Raiders of the Lost Ark”). He interviews concentration camp survivors.  Before long he’s raised his aim from a lowly school teacher to the notorious Josef Mengele, the physician who conducted inhuman experiments on death camp inmates.

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“THE ASSASSIN”: Slo-mo martial arts

November 5, 2015 by butlerscinemascene

assasssin“THE ASSASSIN” My rating: C+

105 minutes | No MPAA rating

Achingly beautiful and glacially paced,  Hsiao-Hsien Hou’s “The Assassin” is not your run-of-the-mill martial arts flick.

Depending on your tolerance for art film posturing, you may find yourself wishing for a run-of-the-mill martial arts flick.

A deliberately intellectual effort that places the utmost importance on mood and ambience, “The Assassin” offers no gore and really not much action. Virtually no effort is made to forge an emotional bond between characters and viewers. Many scenes take the form of beautiful tableaus.

Yinniang (Qi Shu) is a young noblewoman kidnapped as a child and for several years trained as an assassin by a nun (Fang-yi Shue) who apparently sees herself as some sort of avenging angel. Now Yinniang is told she must kill her cousin Tian Ji’an (Chen Chang) to whom she was once betrothed.

While there is plenty of corruption that needs punishing (the time is the 8th century), Tian seems to be a responsible regional leader who cares about his wife, children and the general welfare of his people. Why the nun wants him dead is a mystery.

And in fact Yinniang — who can infiltrate any high-security area and lurk there unseen for indefinite periods — cannot bring herself to complete her assignment.

assassin_3-2__article-house-780x440And that, folks, is about all I can tell you of “The Assassin’s” plot because I didn’t understand a damn thing that was going on.

There’s court intrigue of some sort, a jealous wife, a big dance sequence…but Hou and his screenwriters don’t seem to care at all about delivering a digestible narrative.

Nor do the players go out of their way to provide three-dimensional characters. Most speak in monotones, as if hypnotized.

“The Assassin” all boils down to sight, sound, atmosphere.  If you can slow down enough to soak it up, I’m sure there are rewards.

I didn’t have the patience.

| Robert W. Butler

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“HEART OF A DOG”: Love with tenderness

November 1, 2015 by butlerscinemascene

heart thumbnail_23253“HEART OF A DOG” My rating: B

75 minutes | No MPAA rating

Except in the form of an animated avatar, we never  see Laurie Anderson as she delivers the film-as-performance piece that is “Heart of a Dog.”

But this could be the work of no other artist. Anderson’s voice — soothing, calming, seemingly unemotional yet often tinged with deadpan irony — is instantly recognizable to her fans.

And through the visual collages she has created for this film, Anderson offers a total sensory experience, a melding of sight and sound that is hypnotic, captivating, and strangely moving.

The topic of “Dog…” is a biggie:  death.  Curiously,  Anderson doesn’t talk about the passing a year ago of her husband, rock icon Lou Reed (although one of his recordings is featured under the closing credits). Perhaps that’s for the best…the loss of Reed still may be too painful.

Rather, Anderson explores her heavy-duty topic mostly through her experiences with Lolabelle, the pet rat terrier that also died not long ago.

The film consists of brief essays, stories, anecdotes, musings.  For instance, there’s a yarn about how Lolabelle got a whiff of her own mortality when, on a walk along the Pacific coast, a couple of condors targeted her for dinner.

 

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“OUR BRAND IS CRISIS”: Truth is relative in politics

October 29, 2015 by butlerscinemascene

Sandra Bullock and Joaquim Alameda

Sandra Bullock and Joaquim de Alameida

“OUR BRAND IS CRISIS”  My rating: C+ (Opens wide on Oct. 30)

107 minutes | MPAA rating: R

“Truth is relative in politics,” observes campaign consultant “Calamity” Jane Bodine (Sandra Bullock) in the opening moments of “Our Brand Is Crisis.”

“I could convince myself of anything if the price is right.”

A catalog of the many dispiriting ways in which the electoral process has become an exercise in lying and slime-slinging, “Our Brand…” is grimly satiric and thoroughly depressing.

Dramatically it is undercooked, with outrage outscoring humanity.

The latest from chameleonic director David Gordon Green is a fictional remake of a decade-old documentary of the same name. That film followed a group of American campaign strategists — among them Clinton stalwart James Carville — working their black magic for candidates in a Bolivian presidential election.

The doc showed these Yankee fixers bringing their mercenary campaign marketing tactics to the developing world.

Gee, thanks, fellas.

Bullock’s Jane Bodine is a one-time terror of the campaign trail who, in the wake of a humiliating defeat, has spent the last six years in eccentric isolation in a Colorado cabin.

Now she’s offered a chance to get back into the game by working for a Bolivian presidential candidate. Jane is ready to reject the idea until she learns that her old nemesis Pat Candy (Billy Bob Thornton with Carville-esque chrome dome) is working for the competition. This will be her chance for revenge.

Jane and her team (Anthony Mackie, Ann Dowd, Scoot McNairy, Zoe Kazan) are working for Pedro Gallo (Joaquim de Almeida), a surly plutocrat and past president whose first term was marked by the crony-pleasing sale of Bolivia’s national resources to multinational corporations.

Now the Americans must figure out how to propel this unsavory character to the top of a six-candidate race.  Their plan is to emphasize crises for which their man offers the best solutions. That these “crises” don’t actually exist is beside the point . They will strike fear in the hearts of Bolivia’s various economic and ethnic voting blocs. Continue Reading »

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“BURNT”: Pretty, but not filling

October 29, 2015 by butlerscinemascene

Bradley Cooper

Bradley Cooper

“BURNT” My rating: C+ (Opens wide on Oct. 30)

100 minutes | MPAA rating: R

There’s plenty of gastro porn on display in “Burnt”: fruits and veggies exploding in vibrant colors, lusciously marbled meats, clouds of steam and rings of blue flame, plates of edibles arranged with the precision/happy chaos of a modernist painting.

In most other regards director John Wells’ film about a megalomaniacal chef working his way toward redemption is standard-issue stuff. Yeah, it accurately captures the politics and pecking order of a high-end restaurant kitchen (as did the recent sleeper hit “Chef”).

But the big story, the big drama, never materializes.

The film has an invaluable asset in Bradley Cooper, who even when playing a dick oozes charisma. But this yarn (screenplay by Steven Knight, story by Michael Kalesniko) relies too much on stock characters and time-tested dramatic devices without ever digging deep.

Adam Jones (Cooper) is a once-acclaimed chef at a top Paris restaurant. But his career ran aground on drugs, drink and women (a common-enough narrative among this breed) and he retreated to New Orleans where he got sober, gave up sleeping around, and got a lowly job shucking oysters.  After working his way through exactly 1 million of the mollusks (he kept meticulous records of his shucking activities) Adam walked out the door and caught a flight to London.

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“THE SECOND MOTHER”: Curse of the serving class

October 29, 2015 by butlerscinemascene

**, **

Camilla Mardilla, Regina Case: Mother and daughter

“THE SECOND MOTHER” My rating: B (Opens Oct. 30 at the Tivoli)

112 minutes | MPAA rating: R

Having a live-in servant means that you’ve arrived, economically speaking.

Wether you ever become comfortable with the idea is something else entirely.

In Anna Muylaert’s “The Second Mother” the delicate domestic equilibrium of an affluent Brazilian household goes spinning out of control with the arrival of an unexpected guest.

But even before the interloper’s appearance, there are hints that not everything’s as rosy at it seems.

The middle-aged Val (Regina Case) has devoted 13 years to being a housekeeper and the nanny to Fabinho (Michael Joelsas), who has grown into a handsome adolescent. In truth, she’s been more a mother to Fabinho than his real mother, Barbara (Karine Teles), who keeps busy with some sort of high-profile career in the fashion world.

Fabinho’s father, Carlos (Lourenco Mutarelli), is a bearded, balding slacker who inherited great wealth and is content to spend his life dabbling in this and that on the sidelines. He’s a dope.

Muylaert’s screenplay initially depicts a friendly environment. The family treasurers Val.

The adolescent Fabinho even goes to her with problems that by all rights should be aired before his parents, and Val in return views him as her own boy. She spoils him rotten.

Which apparently is fine with Barbara. She’s just pleased that her housekeeper is so efficient. Granted, the dumbass Carlos can’t even get himself a glass of water without Val’s assistance, but she does so happily. She’s a nurturer, and this is her job.

Then trouble arrives in paradise. Val’s teenage daughter Jessica (Camilla Mardilla), who was raised by Val’s ex husband in another city, is coming to town to enroll at university. Val asks her employers if it’s OK for Jessica to stay with her in her room until she can find an apartment near campus.  The family says yes, of course.

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“THE KEEPING ROOM”: War is hell

October 29, 2015 by butlerscinemascene

Left to right: Hailee Steinfeld, ** and Britt Marling

Left to right: Hailee Steinfeld, Muna Otaru and Brit Marling

“THE KEEPING ROOM” My rating: B- (Opens Oct. 30 at the Alamo Drafthouse)

95 minutes | MPAA rating: R

The Civil War drama “The Keeping Room” opens with a quote from Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman to the effect that war is cruel — and that the crueler it is, the sooner it will be over.

Not a happy thought. Not a happy movie.

But despite a tendency toward preciousness, Daniel Bart’s period drama  effectively conveys the desperation, ugliness and moral vacuum of war — not by depicting the chaos of battle but by describing the plight of unfortunate civilians in its path.

Augusta and Louise (Britt Marling, Hailee Steinfeld) are sisters living on their once-prosperous family farm.  But all the men are off fighting for the Confederacy and things are slowly falling apart.  Their only companion is the slave woman, Mad (Muna Otaru).

In better days the sisters no doubt lived pampered lives — Louise, the younger, still exudes the attitude of a spoiled aristocrat — but the war has turned everything topsy turvey.  Now all three women must work the fields if they’re to keep eating.

Meanwhile a pair of  soldiers, Moses and Henry (Sam Worthington and Kyle Soller) are marauding their way around the countryside — raping, stealing and murdering with impunity. They claim they were sent by the Union Army to soften resistance, though it’s difficult to believe their murderous excesses are sanctioned.  Their clothing is a mishmash of civilian items and those scavenged from the dead of both armies. They may simply be deserters out to indulge their worst instincts.

A confrontation between the three women and the killers is inevitable — especially after Moses casts eyes on Augusta at a general store, determines to have her, and tracks her back to the homestead.

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“A BALLERINA’S TALE”: The agony of dance

October 29, 2015 by butlerscinemascene

Misty Copeland

Misty Copeland

“A BALLERINA’S TALE” My rating: B (Opening Oct. 30 at the Tivoli)

85 minutes | No MPAA rating

“A Ballerina’s Tale” is several things.

First, of course, it is about the career of Misty Copeland, principal dancer with the American Ballet Theatre, who has defied dance convention both racially (she’s African American) and physiognomically (she’s curvy, not celery-stalk emaciated) to rise to the top of her art.

But while Nelson George’s documentary touches upon the highlights of Copeland’s career trajectory, it is in no way a conventional biography. In fact, the film deals with Copeland’s personality and her private life in only the most rudimentary fashion. (There’s not a hint of negativity anywhere in this portrait.)

What we get here is lots of footage of Copeland rehearsing and dancing and walking around NYC, balanced with lots of talking heads discussing her impact on the ballet world.

In addition, the film takes a look back at the handful of black ballerinas — among them Raven Wilkinson, who has become something of a mentor and role model for Copeland — who paved the way over the last century.

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“BEASTS OF ALL NATIONS”: Casualties of war

October 22, 2015 by butlerscinemascene

Abraham Attah

Abraham Attah

“BEASTS OF NO NATION” My rating: A-

137 minutes | No MPAA rating

To the small handful of brilliant movies about the madness of war — among them “Apocalypse Now” and the Soviet “Come and See” — we must now add Cary Joji Fukunaga’s “Beasts of No Nation,” a ghastly but hugely moving story about child soldiers in an African civil war.

In this sobering feature — a Netflix original that is also being booked into theaters — we never do learn the nationality of Agu (Abraham Attah), our young protagonist.  Only that he lives with his family in a demilitarized zone where civilians are safe from the violence that swirls around them.

But their sanctuary doesn’t last long. Soldiers — apparently they represent the central government — show up to do a bit of cleansing.  Agu’s mother and younger siblings have already fled to the big city, but now he watches as his unarmed father and older brother are gunned down.

The boy races into the bush, living like an animal. Then’s he’s captured by a band of rebels led by Commandant (a hypnotic Idris Elba) and slowly indoctrinated into their martial ranks.

Commandant is the only adult in sight. His next-in-command is a teenager and most of the troops under him are mere children playing soldier. It’s like “Lord of the Flies”
with machine guns.

But Commandant is a charismatic leader for whom his “men” would do anything. So when newbie Agu is ordered to execute a captive with a machete, he obeys. Reluctantly at first, and then in a frenzy as the lust to kill takes over.

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“COMING HOME”: After the purge

October 22, 2015 by butlerscinemascene

** and Gong Li

Daoming Chen and Gong Li

” COMING HOME” My rating: B+

109 minutes | MPAA rating: PG-13

In the wrong hands “Coming Home” could have been an insufferable soap opera, like something out of the Nicholas Sparks School of Bathos, China Division.

But the man behind the camera is director Yimou Zhang; in front is his perennial leading lady, the amazing Gong Li; and the subject matter places the yarn’s personal tragedy against a backdrop of political and societal upheaval.

The results are heartbreaking.

The story begins in the early 1970s when Mao’s Cultural Revolution is in full swing.  Feng Wanyu (Li) is a schoolteacher sharing an apartment with her 14-year-old daughter, Dan Dan (Huiwen Zhang).

Dan Dan is an ambitious dancer with a company specializing in proletarian ballets. You know, the kind where the young ladies of the chorus learn to pirouette while waving flags, thrusting bayonets and tossing hand grenades.

Feng’s husband Lu (Daoming Chen) is a former professor who has been imprisoned for more than a decade. His crimes were intellectual and Feng insists on defending her man even though Dan Dan, who has grown up fatherless, has swallowed the party Kool Aid and fears that her chances at big roles are reduced because of her father’s sins.

When word arrives that Lu has escaped, an eager Feng looks forward to being reunited with her long lost love. Dan Dan, though, has a Hitler Youth mentality and isn’t above betraying Daddy to curry favor with the bigwigs at her ballet studio.

The film’s first half hour follows the fugitive Lu as he lives on the streets and tries to contact his wife without alerting the cops who are hovering outside the apartment building. Eventually he is caught and returned to prison without even having held his wife in his arms.

Several years later the Cultural Revolution has run out of steam and hundreds of thousands of “counterrevolutionaries” like Lu are declared rehabilitated and returned to their homes. But the grand welcome the former prisoner has long dreamed of isn’t happening.  Feng now suffers from dementia. She doesn’t recognize Lu…in fact she mistakes him for a party official who once persecuted her.

Lu moves into an abandoned storefront across the street. From there he can watch Feng coming and going and hopefully work his way back into her life.

Gelding Yan’s screenplay is a tragedy of near misses.

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