Hey folks, Harry here -- just have to apologize for the corny headline - but it is so rare that you can turn multiple film titles into a quasi-coherent single sentence... that I just kind lost all self-control and went with it. I know I know... soon I'll start using those excruciatingly annoying Variety-speak phrases... I'll try to not do that. Anyway - Capone got to see some damn great films in Bermuda. Speaking of which - can you imagine marrying this guy? He goes all the way to Bermuda, do we get a single mention about how the water was, the beaches? How about one story of wanton debauchery? Instead - he acts like a guy that was there just to see movies. In Bermuda. He's just watching movies. Amazing.
Hey, everyone. Capone in Chicago here with the balance of my reviews from my trip to the Bermuda International Film Festival. A couple of these are opening soon (if they haven't already) in an art house near you.
3-IRON
Another one of my absolute favorites from this festival (and a film that's slowly making its way across the country right now) is 3-IRON from South Korea's KIM Ki-duk (BAD GUY; SPRING, SUMMER, FALL, WINTER....AND SPRING; THE ISLE). As in BAD GUY, the lead character (beautifully played by JAH Hee) never speaks, forcing us to actually pay attention to every single movement he makes. We see him canvassing well-to-do neighborhoods, breaking into certain homes, and...cleaning them. Sure, he eats a little food, takes a bath, takes a nap, uses a few toiletries, but he always finds ways to repay the home owners, who usually have no idea he's ever been there. He also uses his digital camera to photograph himself with an item in the home that is most unique (a.k.a. evidence he's been there).
During one of his excursions, he fails to realize that there is actually a woman (LEE Seung-yeon) in the house watching him go through his routine. She finally reveals herself, but rather than turn him in, this clearly abused woman (a married former model) allows him to stay. Eventually the woman's husband evil husband returns for a new round of abuse, but the silent non-thief stops the beating with the husband's own golf club and balls. The man and model leave the house and together continue his pattern of breaking into homes. 3-IRON is a fascinating study of human behavior. We have no idea what led this clearly clever and talented man to choose this lifestyle. And while we don't really know the model's history either, it doesn't take a genius to see why she would opt to go with a man who, at the very least, won't hurt her regularly. The film is deceptively simple, but we're almost forced to put ourselves in these characters' heads in an attempt to understand them a little better. They seem like good people, and our inclination is to figure them out, which the director makes difficult but not impossible. It may take you longer than you're used to to get used to this movie, but once you do, the pay off is worth the effort. The film opens in Chicago at the Landmark Century Center Theatre on May 6.
BRIDE OF SILENCE
From Vietnam comes this complicated but fascinating story about a man named Hien traveling the nation's villages searching for any information about the history and fate of his long-lost mother. Set 200 years ago, the film follows Hien as he collects bits and pieces of his mother's life story, which includes becoming pregnant out of wedlock, being sentenced to die, nearly having her baby set adrift in a stream, escaping captivity, and ending up living in a commune like setting with three men who acted as surrogate fathers to the young child. Ever-faithful emotions like jealousy rear their ugly head among the three men, and Hien's mother must make dire decisions about her life and the life of her son. Mixing religious storytelling with a Homer-esque approach to the journey, BRIDE OF SILENCE is an elegant film that sometimes gets a little confusing with the multitude of characters and timelines weaving through each other. Ultimately, however, this is a beautiful accomplishment.
CAMPFIRE
A stunning coming-of-age film from Israel, CAMPFIRE chronicles the turning points in two people's lives: mother Rachel (Michaela Eshet) and daughter Tami (Hani Furstenberg) in 1981 during the early Israeli settler movement. Rachel is a widow who wants stability for her family by being accepted into a group attempting to build a collective community where families look out for each other. She also wants stability in her personal life as she begins to accept friends' ideas for men to date. She and her matchmaking friends believe that she deserves someone fairly successful, but when she meets a local shuttle bus driver, the vibe is clearly strong. As Rachel stumbles and suffers attempting to straighten out her life, her youngest daughter Tami is growing up. While on an overnight youth group camping trip, the teenaged Tami goes through a sexual ordeal (which we only see the beginning of, but that almost makes it worse) with a few of the boys in the group that is clearly upsetting to her personally and results in her getting a reputation in the community that damages her family's social standing.
The dynamic in CAMPFIRE between the mother and her two daughters (the older daughter is the real rebel and defies her mother constantly) is utterly real. Rachel is an emotional wreck because all her plans for the family are collapsing for reasons she has no control over. And it takes a while for her to realize that maybe the needs of her daughters should outweigh her standing among her peers. CAMPIRE is nicely directed my American-born Orthodox director Joseph Cedar, but the real power behind the film is his script, while presents a painful but hopeful two-fold look at what it is to become a grownup. His perspective proves that it is a never-ending process.
LOOK AT ME
The latest intelligent French comedy from writing-acting team Jean-Pierre Bacri and Agnes Jaoui (who also takes a turn directing here) is a stinging examination (more like an indictment) of how truly awful celebrities can be, both to those that admire them and members of their own family. Bacri and Jaoui have given us such remarkable works as The Taste of Others and Family Resemblances in recent years, Look At Me (which won the best screenplay away at last year's Cannes Film Festival) is their most savage and unforgiving work.
Bacri plays the much-beloved author Etienne Cassard, who's on his second, much younger wife, Karine (Virginie Desarnauts) and is trying to relate to his overweight, suffering first-marriage daughter Lolita (Marilou Berry). An up-and-coming opera singer, Lolita obsesses over her weight and distrusts most of the men she meets because she assumes they only want to know her because of who her father is. In most cases, she is correct. Then she meets Sebastien (Keine Bouhiza), who seems to genuinely care for her even as Etienne practically forcing the young man to work with him. This bit of "kindness" on her father's part, drives a wedge between the young couple. Lolita seems hell bent on pleasing her father and finding ways to seek his love and approval, but when they are together he's a complete bastard to her about her weight, her opera studies, and her choice in men.
It turns out Lolita's opera teacher Sylvia (director Jaoui) is married to Pierre, a fledging writer (Laurent Grevill). When he and Etienne meet, Etienne wants to take Pierre on as a protégé, which introduces a whole new level of conflict into the overlapping. Look At Me is a true ensemble piece with absolutely no weak links. The film's comments on fame, art, ego, family, and intellectualism are totally accurate and wickedly funny. By the time the plot takes us to Lolita's operatic debut, tensions are high among all the characters, and what her father does during this scene is simply cruel and unforgivable. Look At Me is splendidly acting by a team that, in many cases, has worked with Jaoui and Bacri before and the chemistry among the players makes all the difference. I saw this film a few days after seeing Joan Allen tear up the screen in The Upside of Anger, a movie that covers a lot of the same territory as Look At Me. I enjoyed Anger quite a bit, but the French film puts it to shame and highlights the fact that American films--even independent productions--rarely tackle such raw-nerve subjects like this with any kind of authenticity. You can hate the French sometimes, but you've got to respect their movies. The film opens this Friday in Chicago, and probably shortly thereafter near vous.
Capone
Drop me an email - tell me what Geraldo found in my safe and I'll send you an upside down bi-plane stamp!
