private-90505 Reviews

Margrete: Queen of the North (2021)

Something's rotten in Denmark and smells of ludfisk

[2/10 · 23 February 2023]

Oh, wait. It's this movie -- a dreary mix of revisionist history that degrades a powerful and socially progressive queen who unified Norway, Sweden and Denmark under her reign.

But here, this exceptional monarch is portrayed as a powerless victim, treated with indifference or hostility by staff, nobles, the church and an ungrateful adopted son in a shoddy script riddled with potholes, poorly played by dinner theater-quality actors. The whole mess is wrapped in a lame attempt at English-language dubbing and unusually steep streaming fees.

This waste of time could have been avoided had we seen Queen Margrete tell an alleged second son, presumed dead yet attempting to usurp her, to display a birthmark or mole that a mother would surely recognize. That conveniently missing scene actually happened in 1402, but including it here would have crushed this cinematic Danish pastry.

Young Hunter (2020)

A portrait of sexual exploitation victims

[9/10 · 14 September 2022]

A closeted gay teen, unwittingly blackmailed with a secretly-recorded sex tape, is pressured into making child pornography as a participant and a recruiter of young boys. "For each kid you bring you'll get around a month of your dad's salary," the blackmailer tells his victim, "It's just a job, you see."

It's an important topic given the enormity of the multi-billion dollar child sex video industry and the lifelong trauma experienced by exploited kids.

"El Cazador," aka "Young Hunter" is not an exposé. Director Marco Berger focuses on one iconic story, that of 15-year-old Ezequiel, caught in a pornographer's trap, and 13-year-old Juan, the target victim who sees in Ezequiel a surrogate for the father he's lost. It's further complicated by Ezequiel's falling for Mono - his first boyfriend, he thinks - but also the dude who set him up.

Ezequiel, played beautifully by Juan Pablo Cestaro, wrestles with his dilemma in silence to a great degree - a confused kid, in over his head, with no one to turn or talk to. Free of explicit sex, the script is heavy with talk of shoot planning, gaming, texting, skating, and parental subterfuge. Meanwhile, Berger's shots are quietly coaxing the audience to identify with Ezequiel's angst, even while he grooms Juan as the filming date nears. The film's open-ended resolution is reminiscent of Japanese cinema, a moment in time for the audience to ponder, no Hollywood ending here.

Berger explores this challenging story with humanity and compassion for its innocent young victims, a cautionary tale for anyone unaware of child porn's workings. With fine direction and smart cinematography, "Young Hunter" is a courageous effort which won the support of Argentina's National Institute of Cinema and Audiovisual Arts. Some say the final cut needs a trim. Still, it's well worth watching.

Play (I) (2011)

Agent provocateur author-director spins a worst-case scenario

[5/10 · 29 August 2022]

I wonder how this film went over at investor pitch meetings. Imagine a posse of hostile Black kids shaking down much younger and smaller white and Asian-looking children for their phones? What if they do it with extreme psychological cruelty, relishing the extended emotional pain they inflict when a quick smash-and-grab would suffice?

What if all the adults shrug it off, won't help? What if there isn't a cop to be found in Gothenburg? Surely the "based on a true story" gambit will justify the nastiness of a way-too-long movie that also tortures its viewers.

So what if Afro-Swedish youngsters are villainized? Moral dilemmas over immigration fears and racism are hot topics - just check out the news. Bet on controversy to boost reviews and ticket sales while further polarizing a multiracial audience. Could it be that the film's oddball coda, laced with a dollop of extralegal citizen justice, was added to cinch its financing?

Ruben Ostlun delivers without redemption or enlightenment in an otherwise beautifully filmed movie notable for surprisingly solid, improvised performances by its non-pro cast. Not good enough. I would have passed.

Stolen (2020)

The fight of his life

[8/10 · 27 August 2022]

This fine film is as tight and taut as a boxer's body, weighing in at a lean 58 minutes to reveal young man Yuichi (Yuki Kawashima) coming to terms with the apparent kidnapping of his star-quality younger brother by North Korea. Yuichi's mom (Miwako Izumi) seems ready to settle into an identity of a mother of a kidnapped child, while her journalist husband (Takahiro Ono) rails against Japanese and American governments for brushing off such cruel, real-life abductions. Yuichi's sister wilts when the incident's aftermath costs her ad agency job. This, while his girlfriend struggles to fathom Yuichi's silence and uncharacteristic behavior as a fledgling fighter. Can Yuichi evolve in a stifling environment charged with the tragic and unresolved loss of a child, his kid bro.

These well-crafted but walking wounded people populate a story packed with solid, intersecting themes ranging from the brutality of press, posts, and public opinion to the sacrifice of self in a quest for enlightenment. Yuichi's pitfall-ridden progress is tested in stages as his first amateur fight nears in a nearly empty gym.

Writer-director Taka Tsubota keeps the plot moving, avoiding the gratuitous to keep his story thoughtfully on track - subtle, yet rich in emotions and implications, sticking to essentials and trusting in his audience. Makes me wonder how much of his spirit is invested in Yuichi's persona. Doesn't matter - I found myself cheering on both the director and his boxer,

Teorema (1968)

The nature of Art, an unsung interpretation

[8/10 · 3 June 2022]

Many critics have dissected Teorema's many themes but few, if any, delve into Pietro's (Andrés José Cruz Soublette) manifesto on art and artists, late in the film.

Pasolini began painting as a teenager. In Teorema he uses alter-ego Pietro to voice his lifelong quest to produce unconventional breakthrough works through the use of brutal self-criticism.

"No one realizes that the artist is worthless," says Pietro, "that he is an abnormal, inferior being squirming and slithering like a worm to survive. No one must ever witness his lapses into clumsy artlessness... No one must ever know that the artist is a poor, trembling idiot, a second-rate hack who lives by taking chances and risks."

Surely, Pietro's monologue goes a long way to informing Teorema's themes on the nature of art and the passion of artists, especially the man who made this film.

A Land Imagined (2018)

Exceptional, realist neo-noir drama

[9/10 · 19 December 2021]

"A Land Imagined" may shatter the expectations of traditional film noir fans, much to their detriment. First, it's a courageous profile of Singapore's dismal human rights record in its treatment of fiscally-captive migrant workers by unscrupulous land reclamation firms. Secondly, it takes viewers deep into the surrealist existence of these unfortunates, one of whom has gone missing, the target of Lok (Peter Yu), a troubled but highly-competent insomniac cop. Don't expect a standard police procedural. This one's brilliantly unique.

The story belongs to the also-sleepless worker Wang Bi Cheng (Liu Xiaoyi) trapped in a nightmare world of heavy machinery, starvation pay and miserable worker dorms. Seeking relief, Wang discovers an all-night gaming parlor only to be pounced on by a fierce Internet troll.

Kudos to director Yeo Siew Hua for setting a compelling crime drama among the anonymous men wasting their lives in the service of brutal capitalism. It's a story rich in humanity, a passport to a real-world existence captured perhaps for the first time in cinema.

Kontora (2019)

Japanese cinema is alive and well

[10/10 · 13 December 2021]

A director born India has breathed new life into Japanese cinema with "Kontora," is a deeply-engrossing and magical work. This, despite pushback from Japan's movie overlords and at least one festival unwilling to surrender turf to a gaijin director sparsely fluent in the language. Their loss. This film is a winner, both in awards and artistic merit.

Writer-director Anshul Chauhan's first outing was the more traditional "Bad Poetry Tokyo." But in "Kontore", his second, he broke more rules by delivering a 2½-hour film, and in monochrome (more industry no-no's). It's about a mysterious mute stranger who only walks backwards and into a disjointed father-daughter relationship. His presence helps suss out a buried treasure and mystery message left behind by the daughter's recently deceased, beloved grandfather.

This is an eloquent treatise on personal growth, the human condition, and the cruel treatment of World War 2 student soldiers at the war's inglorious end. It's played very well by relative newcomer leads including actress Wan Marui, and a tour de force in body language by the barefooted backwards waking man (first-timer Hidemasa Mase) whose moves echo those of Theravada Buddhist monks. Amazingly, it was filmed in 10 days, relying heavily on improvisational techniques.

I wonder what the giants of 20th century Japanese filmdom would make of "Kontora." I suspect many would be pleased by this fresh take on their classics, For art house movie audiences, and well beyond.

Yajikita son'nô no maki (1927)

Homage to benshi silent film narration

[8/10 · 17 November 2021]

Few today, beyond fans of Japanese cinema, are familiar with the long, uniquely-Japanese tradition of the benshi -- a live film narrator who interprets the story for the audience, even speaking dialog lines in character, as the movie played. "Yajikita son'nô no maki" is a great example,

Benshi were highly-skilled professional, performing around live orchestral scores, if one existed, while taking intertitles into consideration. At some point, a benshi voiceover was added to the print foundon YouTube, giving it great historical value. Sadly, only fragments of the film survive.

Benshi has deep roots in kabuki and other Japanese theatrical traditions long before films came along, so audiences were well accustomed to off-screen narration which began in films of the 1890s and lasted well into the talking picture era of the 1930s.

Enjoy the experience of watching and listening to this silent comedy just as moviegoers did in 1927.

Rom (2019)

A brilliant cinematic gem from Vietnam

[10/10 · 24 October 2021]

Tran Thanh Huy's fresh and exceptional film is a testament to the blossoming of Vietnamese cinema. His off-kilter shots, handheld moves, and guerrilla camera sequences shot on Saigon's busy streets underscore the fragility of street kid existence and the tragedy of physically and emotionally-challenged "lost" youth.

In this case, 14-year old Rom -- a middleman for illegal lottery ticket sales to impoverished gamblers willing to mortgage their rickety tenement homes for a long shot at riches. It all goes down in a corrugated sheeting world of back alleys, gangsters, superstition and Rom's quest to find his parents who abandoned him as a boy.

It's a brutally competitive life for Rom (Tran Anh) and Phuk (Anh Tu) who egg on customers with claims of winning numbers. A correct guess results in big tips. A wrong one earns a pummeling. Both actors deserve kudos for their portrayals of streetwise adolescents in physically-demanding roles. Thien Kim is perfect as Mrs. Ba, a grandmotherly senior addicted to betting.

Vietnamese censors' slashing of "Rom" to 79 minutes in an act of cinematic vandalism adds to the film's mystique and earns its producers a badge of courage for having bypassed bureaucratic permission to screen it at the 24th Busan International Film Festival where it took top honors, a first for Vietnam. Hopefully, a director's cut will surface someday.

Tana Schembori and Juan Carlos Maneglia touched nicely on similar tropes in 2017's Paraguayan caper film "26 Boxes," but "Rom" now owns the genre.

Eight Hours of Terror (1957)

Don't Miss this Bus!

[9/10 · 10 May 2021]

Some critics of Seijun Suzuki tend to bifurcate his career into two largely disparate chapters, downplaying his mid-1950s Nikkatsu assignments in favor of his later transcendental visions. Still, "Eight Hours of Fear" is an exceptional work inspired by John Ford's "Stagecoach" with a Hitchcockian flavor, especially the dazzling opening sequence in a train station where a crowd of hapless travelers are stranded. Some opt for a harrowing detour in a sketchy bus through treacherous backroads that would make a unit production manager blanche. Given the movie's relatively short running time and some coverage holes, I suspect filming must have been a challenge. Suzuki and cinematographer Kazue Nagatsuka capture the ruggedness of mountain exteriors, decrepit bridges, and crumbling dirt roads, casting geography as an uncredited villain.

There are other bad guys aboard; a convicted double-murderer, and a pair of fleeing bank robbers with seriously venomous traits, though seemingly immune from random police. Here, Suzuki foretells the more extreme criminal nastiness and violence that would bloom across a decade of his later gangster classics. The rest of the cast is a ragbag of road trip characters, some with cheeky comedic overtones, others revealing a wealth of empathy and compelling backstories. Suzuki brings out the best in each. Millions in stolen loot, an assortment of ladies lingerie, and an ailing baby on board are among their carry-on luggage. His bumpy ride is never complacent, won't stop shifting gears, shot after shot. Takio Niki scores with fresh incidental and main title music, some featuring a well-orchestrated theremin. Enjoy the ride!

The Ceremony (1971)

The category is dyfunctional families. And the winner is...

[6/10 · 2 May 2021]

Nagisa Oshima, Japanese cinema's enfant terrible, introduces us to a dangerously nuclear family of alleged war criminals, communists, sex offenders and radical right-wingers, plus a former baseball pitcher and a katana-wielding cop thrown in apparently just for the sheer hell of it. Together, they comprise a mutual aberration society that milks dry the psychic stress and anguish of weddings and funerals. Is their shock-horror behavior offer convincing criticism of postwar Japanese society? Oshima leans into exploitation to score his points, but the net result sometimes smacks of "Mondo Cane" shockumentaries.

Thankfully, there are built-in safety valves when incest, loathing and degradation turn from dark to jet black. That's when some characters break out in honest laughter over their extended family's antics. In any case, it's a fine and foreboding warmup for Oshima's legendary topper, "In the Realm of the Senses."

Atlantic Crossing (2020)

World War II retold as a tabloid romance novel

[2/10 · 19 April 2021]

What are the limits to the catchphrase, "Based on true events"? Cardboard characters with historically-inaccurate personae (Eleanor Roosevelt, to name but one) render "Atlantic Crossing" as a pulp romance that fails to honestly document Norway's royal family during the war years.

King Hakkon VII, Crown Price Olaf and wife Martha are largely portrayed as ineffectual, all too easily overwhelmed by parliamentary government and storybook emotions. In reality, their strengths leading up to, and following Norway's declaration of war against Germany, including the monarch's heroic preservation of Norwegian democracy, are far more decisive and admirable than the treatments given here. "Atlantic Crossing" simplifies its characters into good or evil, carelessly shaped by innuendo and gossip of their day. Screen 2017's feature film "The King's Choice" for a far more truthful telling.

Kagero-za (1981)

A mad romp through Japanese cinema

[10/10 · 21 March 2021]

Yomota Inuhik's seminal book, "What Is Japanese Cinema?" takes readers through the Taisho-era's gut-wrenching quest to define the essence of truly Japanese film, those elements that capture the culture's soul and distinguish its movies from those made anywhere else. "Kagero-za" captures that struggle in a period piece set in those times, using the classic ghost enchantress theme as its storyline, and embellished with all the bells and whistles that 1980s filmmaking had to offer. But on display are off-camera actors and yukio-e framing alongside Japanese cinema's roots in kabuki and puppet theater. Director Seijun Suzuki, who frequently abandoned logic in favor of sheer entertainment, tracks a writer's descent into metaphysical madness and takes viewers along for the ride. It's Suzuki unleashed from studio assignments and raw exploitation films, somehow churning out five or six pictures a year, a contract director turned independent auteur who delivers an exceptional work packed with astonishing imagery. It's compelling cinema that could only have been made in Japan.