Hey, folks. Capone in Chicago here, with a couple of films that are making their way into art houses around America this week or at least expanding to more theaters (maybe even taking up one whole screen at a multiplex near you. In terms of new releases, the best stuff is on the smaller screens. Enjoy…
THE SEPTEMBER ISSUE
As someone who comes out of the publishing world (and no, I don't mean Ain't It Cool; I'm talking about actual magazine publishing), I find it fascinating that any monthly magazine on the face of the earth can publish an issue that is anywhere near 700 to 900 pages long (approximate weight: 4 pounds). But every year, Vogue magazine does that every September, which is months in the making under the ever-watchful eye of its longtime editor Anna Wintour, who may be the single most important and powerful person in the fashion industry. Even if you have zero interest in fashion, publishing or popular culture, THE SEPTEMBER ISSUE is one of the most fascinating behind-the-scenes documentaries that you're likely to see about a subject matter you may not feel invested in until you see this movie.
THE SEPTEMBER ISSUE isn't just about over-privileged fashionistas who talk, walk and breathe clothes and accessories. The film is about an industry in which artistry is both celebrated and dismissed depending on Wintour's whims and the needs of the magazine. The most fascinating aspect to the film is the weirdly antagonistic, 20-year relationship between Wintour and the magazine's creative director and head photographer Grace Coddington, a former model who has an eye for great composition and pairing clothes with themed photo shoots, the results of which could hang in art museums around the world. Wintour systematically rips apart Coddington's photo essays without a second thought, leaving Grace to bemoan the demise of the true artist on a monthly basis. She's also the most human element to this film and its comic relief.
Most of what I know about Wintour is from the fictional portrayal of her by Meryl Streep in THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA, which of course is simultaneously nothing like the real Wintour and very much like her. There's a coldness and abrupt quality to her that seems necessary for her to do her job, but she's not without her humorous (inadvertent at times) side, especially when we see her with Coddington or her own daughter, who has zero interest in fashion or the industry that surrounds it. But her very t-shirt and jeans offspring is the first person she goes to for an opinion on the magazine's cover shot or a lengthy photo layout.
One of Wintour's greatest milestones was to bring in celebrities to pose on the cover of a fashion magazine (a spot usually reserved for professional models). For the September 2007 issue, Sienna Miller was set to grace the cover, and every aspect of the shoot, airbrushing, and final photo selection and cover design is covered in the film. It's slightly sickening but never boring to watch the process of pulling this monster together. Director R.J. Cutler, who took us behind the scenes of Bill Clinton's first presidential campaign in THE WAR ROOM (which he produced), drags us along like one of Wintour's pieces of luggage across the globe to New York's Fashion Week, to Paris, to Rome, to botched photo shoots, staff meetings and sessions with designers previewing their lines to her in the hopes of knowing what to send down the runway and what to throw on the fire. It's a lifestyle I will never understand, but I will never think it's not work after seeing this wonderfully entertaining and slightly stressful movie. The access given to Cutler and crew is almost more than I could believe. Nothing seemed off limits, and no real effort is made to cast Wintour in a good light when she's acting like a brat.
I doubt this film will change the way you already view the world of fashion, but I can't imagine anyone not finding THE SEPTEMBER ISSUE a triumph in storytelling, suspense building and personality profiling. So few documentaries I see in a given year about far nobler subjects manage to capture even a portion of the detail and sense of time and place that this film does. That has to count for something, and have no shame in saying that I whole-heartedly loved this movie.
FIVE MINUTES OF HEAVEN
German-born director Oliver Hirschbiegel has had some spectacular successes as a filmmaker (DOWNFALL, DAS EXPERIMENT) and one or two colossal failures (THE INVASION). Thankfully, his latest fairly small-scale endeavor falls into the former category as he essentially has assembled a two-man piece in which the two men share almost no screen time. FIVE MINUTES OF HEAVEN opens 25 years ago when a young man and UVF (the Northern Ireland paramilitary group Ulster Volunteer Force) member named Alistair Little killed the older brother of a young boy named Joe Griffen. Joe not only witnessed the murder, but he also stood mere feet from Little when it occurred and has been tearing himself up from the inside for freezing when he should have been saving his brother's life.
Just forward to modern times, a television crew has arranged for the two men to meet as part of an organized (and highly staged) act of reconciliation. Although Little went to jail for many years for the crime, he emerged and has become a successful businessman (played by Liam Neeson). Griffen (the great James Nesbit from BLOODY SUNDAY and WAKING NED DEVINE) has a wife, two children, and enough guilt to crush him. We follow the two men during their long drive to the meeting place, we see the far-too-elaborate set up the TV crew has set up for them for their face-to-face, and we watch as each prepares in separate rooms for this event, Griffen clearly far more nervous than Little, who has long since dismissed his actions as a product of the times and his rebellious youth.
In many ways, FIVE MINUTES OF HEAVEN feel a lot like a play that's been expanded somewhat to give us a bit of the local flavor of Ireland. Writer Guy Hibbert, who mostly writes for British television, has done a worthy job of giving this subject the gravity it requires, without making either man overly noble. Hibbert has also laced his work with just the right amount of dark humor (particularly from Griffen, whose anxiety about meeting his brother's killer seems both appropriate and amusing somehow). I'd be remiss if I didn't mention a great performance from Anamaria Marinca as Vika, a production assistant who is put in charge of babysitting Griffen until the actual meeting takes place. The two form an almost doctor-patient relationship in their short time together, as Griffen repeatedly double checks with her that this, in fact, an absurd set of circumstances.
Even when the story takes turns that seem a bit forced and ridiculous, it's still a joy to see these great actors really get the chance to dig their claws into such well-written characters. Neeson's polished Little is a well-oiled corporate slickster whose suit is as perfect and pressed as his supposedly off-the-cuff remarks during his pre-meeting interview with the TV crew where he lays out his past behavior. Nesbitt's Griffen is a bundle of nerves and raw emotion. Even though he was only a child, that didn't stop his mother and later himself from placing all of the blame for his brother's death squarely on his shoulders. Nesbit is such a great force as an actor, and I can't remember a time not enjoying one of his performances. He's asked to engage in some behavior in FIVE MINUTES OF HEAVEN that might have been played as melodrama by another actor, but Nesbit's version of Griffen is so grounded in reality that there's never any danger of that from him.
FIVE MINUTES OF HEAVEN never tries to be anything but what it is--a small movie about a singular incident that changed the lives of at least two people. It never feels like the filmmakers were trying to make this story representative of the bigger problems in Ireland, although one could certainly look at it that way. This film is about getting personal and intimate, by getting into the heads of these two men and making some sense of what they went through. It's also a fantastic acting exercise for the two leads. However you choose to look at it, I'm sure this very good movie will penetrate your mind on some level.
THE BADDER MEINHOF COMPLEX
This film is a classic case of "You Either Find This Subject Fascinating Beyond Words" or "You Just Couldn't Give a Fuck" before you even leave your house to check it out. But when I hear that there's a drama about the origins of modern terrorism perpetrated by the sons and daughters of the Nazi generation in Germany who were fighting against the very nationalistic elements that the Nazis held dear, yeah, you can count me in. THE BADDER MEINHOF COMPLEX is a complicated, beautifully crafted depiction of the organized chaos that led to the formation of the Red Army Faction, who used kidnapping, bombing and paranoia to keep much of Europe in fear, while the group waxed poetic about keeping the American imperialism out of their country so as to create a more human society.
Directed by Uli Edel (LAST EXIT TO BROOKLYN, BODY OF EVIDENCE), the film shows us the sparks that lit the fuse in the late '60s that was the RAF--Andreas Baader (Moritz Bleibtreu of RUN LOLA RUN and MUNICH), former journalist Ulrike Meinhof (Martina Gedeck of THE LIVES OF OTHERS and THE GOOD SHEPHERD), along with Baader's main squeeze, Gudrun Ensslin (Johanna Wokalek). With proper training in the Middle East and enough fire in their hearts, this group of self-proclaimed freedom fighters waged a war on the establishment that carried over into the United States and other first-world nations. What I found so surprising about this film is how it more often than not portrays these young students as heroic in some way; and I'm sure some people in the world view them exactly that way. There are even times where we are most definitely supposed to be rooting for their bloody missions to go off without a hitch. We are meant to mourn when one of them gets caught or killed, and that might be asking too much of some audience members.
But this is what Edel does. As desperately as we might like him to, he doesn't pick sides or show favoritism. He wants us to care as much about these criminals as we do the law enforcement officials who pursue (embodied in a stellar performance by Bruno Ganz as the head of the German police force Horst Herold. The screenplay for THE BADDER MEINHOF COMPLEX is from Bernd Eichinger (based on the book by Stefan Aust), who wrote the exquisitely made DOWNFALL. His attention to detail is impeccable, and that alone would be enough to recommend the film. But Edel is in top form as well, as is the large and fiery cast. In the end, the film asks the audience to define "terrorism" and "oppressor." It's not all that different than what Steven Spielberg and writer Tony Kushner did with MUNICH a few years back. These words have some of the loosest and vaguest definitions of any in the English language, and very often it is history that will make or unmake the call. THE BADDER MEINHOF COMPLEX is certain to add fuel to this raging fire.
-- Capone
capone@aintitcoolmail.com
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