September 2008

Michael Jacobs, who directed the unique story of Pentecostal pastor Richard Gazowsky in Audience of One (review), has a new web series that looks very promising. American Dreamers focuses on a different individual each week, telling stories about eccentric or unusual pursuits. I’ve embedded the first episode below, about Jim Bishop, who’s been building a castle single-handedly in Beulah, Colorado for almost 40 years. I think you’ll agree that Jacobs has a gift for finding interesting stories and telling them well. The series runs for ten episodes, with new episodes released each Wednesday.

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Tears for Sale (Carlston za Ognjenku) (2008, Director: Uroš Stojanovic): Reportedly the most expensive Serbian film ever made, Tears for Sale is a visual spectacle combining Balkan folklore with modern CGI to create a hugely enjoyable experience. Toronto critic Norman Wilner called it “batshit crazy,” and he’s not wrong, but I saw that as a positive going in, and I was not disappointed at all.

The film is set in a Serbian village in 1918, at the end of the Great War, and the women of the village are mourning the deaths of all their men in battle. We meet a pair of sisters, Little Boginja and Ognjenka, who work as professional mourners at the many funerals held in the village. They’re kept even busier due to the fact that the village’s sole source of income, its vineyard, is a minefield. The sisters are desperate to lose their virginity but when the women of the village bring Ognjenka to the town’s only remaining man, a repulsive old creature named Grandpa Bisa, her scream kills him. To avoid being burned at the stake for this crime, the sisters promise to bring back a virile young man within three days. They’re bound by the village witch’s curse on the spirit of their beloved grandmother.

They set out on this adventure and encounter other villages in their situation, bringing home the gravity of the region’s history of interminable warfare. Though much of the film is played for laughs, there is a very real Balkan sadness just under the surface. Finally, in a larger town, they meet a pair of traveling performers: Arsa is a suave entertainer who can dance the Charleston, and Dragoljub calls himself the Man of Steel and goes around shooting himself out of a cannon. The two sisters pair off and separate, each hoping to escape to the big city of Belgrade with their new love. Each hopes the other will bring the man back to their village, but in the end, both return, with tragic results.

The plot is really more of a fairytale, and the visual effects are fantastic, very much like something from Jean-Pierre Jeunet (Delicatessen, Amelie, A Very Long Engagement). Additionally, the art direction and costumes are sumptuous and over-the-top, and it doesn’t hurt that the whole film is also incredibly sexy. Though I’m doubtful this will get any sort of North American theatrical release, I’m already waiting for the DVD.

P.S. The Serbian title translates to “Charleston and Vendetta” (Vendetta apparently being the translation of the older sister Ognjenka’s name).

Official site of the film (Serbian)
 Trailer

(8/10)

Tagged as: serbia

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Patrik 1,5 (2008, Director: Ella Lemhagen): Goran and Sven are a gay married couple who’ve just moved to the suburbs. They’re in the process of adopting and when they get the news that Patrik (“aged 1.5”) will be arriving soon, they’re ecstatic. But when the Patrik who shows up is a 15-year-old homophobic delinquent, things quickly go off the rails. Though their neighbours seem tolerant, it’s obvous they’re not completely comfortable with this unusual family. To make things worse, Patrik’s arrival throws a wrench into the couple’s relationship, too. Sven had previously been married to a woman and fathered a child and seems uncomfortable that his life seems to be resuming a similar shape. Will Goran’s dream of being a husband and father and having a house in the suburbs survive the arrival of this sullen teenager? Well, of course it will.

Though I found this romantic comedy quite touching, it was just a bit too sentimental to make it really great. Patrik’s delinquency never seems to become apparent, and I could see the happy ending coming from a mile away. Still, it was refreshing to see a film about a gay couple struggling with some of the same issues as me and my wife do.

Official site of the film
 Trailer

(6/10)

Tagged as: adoption, homosexuality, sweden

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Adam Resurrected (2008, Director: Paul Schrader): Let me begin by saying I have a lot of respect for the work of Paul Schrader. Anyone who has been both a screenwriter and a critic before becoming a director is bound to have my respect. Which is why I felt so miserable leaving the screening last night. Adam Resurrected is an out-and-out stinker, and I’m sorry to say it.

To be completely honest, I was a bit nervous going in. Films that try to see the comedy (black or otherwise) in the Holocaust have rarely fared well. Jerry Lewis shelved his film The Day The Clown Cried (1972) after critical outrage, and Roberto Benigni’s Life is Beautiful (1997), despite a rapturous reception here at TIFF (one I witnessed in person) fell out of favour pretty quickly as well. Schrader’s film differs in that he presents the “clown” character, Adam Stein (Jeff Goldblum) as insane. When we meet him, it’s 1961 and he’s being escorted back (after an unsuccessful discharge) to a “progressive” asylum in the Israeli desert specifically for survivors of the camps. He’s clearly the star patient, entertaining the other patients and even the staff with his quick wit, and carrying on a love affair with a gorgeous nurse. The head doctor (Derek Jacobi) indulges him endlessly.

Through flashbacks, we discover that he lost his wife and daughters in a concentration camp while he himself was spared. The camp commandant (Willem Defoe) recognizes him from his nightclub act and decides to keep him as his pet. And I mean this quite literally. He forces Adam to act as his dog, barking and walking around on all fours. Since he’s also a talented musician, he’s also used to soothe the inmates with violin music on their way to the gas chambers.

The plot becomes even more bizarre when a boy shows up at the asylum thinking he’s a dog. Adam gradually reaches out to him, based on his own memories, and brings both the boy and himself back to life (hence the portentous title). That’s the psychological resurrection, anyway. Physically, Adam appears to be invulnerable. He seems to be able to bleed at will, and to heal himself of tumours. It’s no wonder that one of the inmates considers him the Messiah.

The film is based on a famous and rather controversial Israeli novel by Yoram Kaniuk, published in 1971. Significantly, Schrader said the book came out in the same general era as Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 (1961) and Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five (1969), two other challenges to the typical depiction of wartime experiences. Famously, both of those novels were called unfilmable, and the films made from them have never really been considered successful.

Goldblum, as always, jumps in with both feet, but his strange accent and tendency to mutter left much of his dialogue indecipherable. Defoe and Jacobi are just wasted in paper-thin roles, and the film is further marred by an abundance of shaky handheld camerawork. In the end, I just didn’t care about this strange character, and I found myself rolling my eyes more than once at the hamfisted metaphors.

Here is the Q&A with director Paul Schrader, actor Jeff Goldblum, screenwriter Noah Stollman and producer Ehud Bleiberg from after the screening:

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Duration: 15:56

(4/10)

Tagged as: holocaust, israel, worldwar2

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