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When Magic Happens

Dom Lombardi — Thu, 18 Apr 2024 02:16:48 +0000

When Magic Happens Dom Lombardi April 17, 2024 - 22:16

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Art Review

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painter

RODNEY DICKSON AT HIS EXHIBITION, NUNU FINE ART, 2024

Rodney Dickson

Nunu FIne Art

Born in Northern Ireland in 1956, the young Rodney Dickson would one day learn first hand about violence, destruction and sacrifice. "The Troubles" (1968-98) was a very dangerous time in Northern Ireland, an indelible experience for Dickson that will often tinge his art in some palpable way. Over the past several years I have come to know him as a passionate and caring individual who is always digging deeper to find meaning through his art, often expressing those findings as acute emotion through color, or the capturing of individual souls through his stirring approaches to portraiture.

His current exhibition Rodney Dickson: Paintings at Nunu Fine Art, features those two distinctly different series. On the main, street level of the gallery are thickly painted, abstract works that attempt to defy gravity with their massive amounts of paint, as opposed to the lower level space that features numerous, overlapping, life-sized portraits of individuals that he has come to know during his times mostly in Asia, Great Britain and his home since 1997, Brooklyn, NY.

Upon first entering the gallery I was struck by the frenzy of paint applications in 17 (2023), an eight foot tall painting filled with a patchwork of colors and textures that are suggestive of rivers, rivulets, mountains and no-man’s land. Like an earth mover, Dickson pushes, scrapes, applies and piles up paint in obsessive and reactive ways churning up medium in such a frenzy that the paintings become energized and somehow personified. With this powerful physical presence and something of an implied nervous system, the residual energy in the paint twitches, ripples, and coagulates in voluminous swathes and layers that conspire for our attention. This raucousness of color and texture is balanced by the absolute boldness of technique, while the great variance in the thickness of the paint reminds us of the dynamism and focus of the artist.

Rodney Dickson, 18 (2022), 96 x 60 inches

Down a hallway toward the back of the gallery hang smaller, more intimate, but no less tactile paintings that present a chorus of challenging visual crescendos. If there is one common thread throughout these smaller works, it is their general tendency of vertical movement, while some have much more disrupted, scraped areas that wrangle the downward action. In one, 17 (2020), the entire surface of heavily applied oil paint has been disturbed, giving it a more dystopian, scorched earth effect. Perhaps this in one dark memory of the aftermath of an IRA bombing close to home.

Considering all the above, I do not mean to imply there is no hope here. There is, and it is clear in some of the larger works in the big room in the rear of the gallery, where the paintings tend to give the impression of something akin to weightlessness despite the thickness of the paint. In 8 (2020), the predominantly yellow composition set horizontally suggests a landscape, a combination that may remind some of Van Gogh’s Wheat Field with Crows (1890) sans the foreboding flying silhouettes. With Dickson’s 8, it’s more about flow and how we perceive wind, how we receive visual cues and information both directly and indirectly that are right in front of us, without the addition of the minutiae that seeps in from the periphery. Dickson appears to be saying here; find a focal point depending on your immediate needs, take in the extremes and avoid the in-betweens, go back to your easels, your blank pages, your instruments or your computers and filter the flow down to something malleable and promising.

We see this awareness again in 18 (2022) where Dickson primarily pairs the color opposites of red and green, which are largely moderated by black, white and yellow, as they float atop a white ground. Some may also note here that the artist sometimes cleans his paint scraping tool on the edges of the panels, which in turn subtly defines the borders while unconsciously redirecting our attention back into the center of action. In addition to the two main combating colors, Dickson adds small dollops of white and yellow right from the business end of the paint tubes, carefully punching up certain points in the composition that tacitly draw our eye to certain points of color confrontation.

Lower level installation view

Moving down a flight of stairs to the lower level, there hangs countless mystifying representations of individuals Dickson has come to know over the years, each staring right back at us with their soulful eyes. Some portraits are buried almost entirely beneath other paintings, while a few can be seen in full view, all painted on the sheerest of fabrics. The delicacy of the material, the watered down paint, the representational subjects and the way they are installed could not be more different from the paintings on wood panel upstairs. Yet there is that same depth of meaning, the same unique sort of passion that Dickson’s work always emanates. It is a truth, an unrelenting drive to project the intensity, the fleetness and the frailty of living everyday in a world that is so rapidly changing and all too often disappointing. But the artist must find their own sort of understanding, of finding and releasing the thoughts that are the hardest to keep unspoken. This is when the magic happens and Dickson attracts and amazes us with tantalizing directness.

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Labor of Love

Chet Kozlowski — Thu, 18 Apr 2024 01:29:37 +0000

Labor of Love Chet Kozlowski April 17, 2024 - 21:29

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Film Review

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documentary

The Outside Circle: a Movie of the Modern West is director Craig Rullman's dusty Valentine to the Cowboy Life. It's a documentary, his first film, and may be his only one. But he cares so deeply about his subject that it’s hard to imagine any other one quite measuring up.

Originally conceived as a profile of Len Babb, a painter who emulates the style of turn-of-the-century artist Charlie Russell, Mr. Rullman expanded it to include folks like the Murphy family, fifth generation Oregon ranchers, and Victoria Jackson, a Paiute-Shoshone rodeo champion whose family legacy reaches back 14,000 years.

The word "romantic" is bandied about quite a bit. Also said often: "pride," "ornate," and "where I’m meant to be."

In the 1940s and 50s, the Cowboy Myth thrived: American popular culture was all Stetsons, six-shooters, and spurs. When cinema was born, cowboys came off the prairie, went to Hollywood and exploited their adventures. They gave us heroic figures real and invented, from Hopalong Cassidy and Roy Rogers to Gene Autry and Wyatt Earp. In the early days of TV, cowboys were ubiquitous. Their presence was so strong, it felt as if they would never ride off into the sunset. These days, of course, Westerns in any form are few and far between.

Mr. Rullman, with the able assistance of cinematographer Samuel Pyke, fills The Outside Circle with languorous, quasi-ghostly images: vague silhouettes glimpsed through the haze kicked up by horses, indistinct as in a dream. To be a cowboy is grimier and harder than those fancy Hollywood types would suggest—one talking head reminds us that they were "common laborers," members of the working class. Troublemakers. One wag even refers to them as "Hell's Angels on horseback."

Mr. Rullman and the subjects of his interviews mourn the passing of this "honest, humble" period, but as a film The Outside Circle is lightweight. It’s redundant and superficial. Images and voices say it, then say it again, going in circles, like a ranch hand guiding his herd. With all the public domain material out there, it relies on a few old photos and grainy home movies to take us into the past. We're left with vestiges, and a sense of the "obligation to represent an American ideal" these folks feel.

But The Outside Circle is genuine. Give him that. Mr. Rullman's sincerity is his strength. We care because he does.

The Outside Circle is big skies, sun dappled dreams, and cherished bygones. It's a noble project, heartfelt and worth seeing.

___________________________________________

The Outside Circle, a Movie of the Modern West. Written and directed by Craig Rullman. 2023. On digital platforms. 77 minutes.

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Missing Parts

Chet Kozlowski — Tue, 16 Apr 2024 15:02:51 +0000

Missing Parts Chet Kozlowski April 16, 2024 - 11:02

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Film Review

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drama

How do I review The Coffee Table?

Straightforwardly, like any other film? Doesn't do it justice.

Meta, not mentioning the movie at all, but inviting associations? Too cute.

With a trigger warning? I don't believe in them.

Should you see it? Yes.

What happens in it? Jesus and Maria argue about buying a gaudy coffee table. Maria hates it. Jesus claims quid pro quo: she wanted a baby at her advanced age, so he should get what he wants, too. Their newborn son squirms in Maria's arms. They argue about his name. Jesus buys the table and brings it home to assemble it. He can't put on the glass top because he's missing a screw.

To tell more would spoil it.

What's the upside to seeing it? The Coffee Table intelligently confronts issues of maturity, desire, guilt, fidelity, legacy, and the devastating consequences of careless actions.

What's the downside? You can't unsee it.

_______________________________________________________

The Coffee Table (La mesita del comedor). Directed by Caye Casas. Screenplay by Caye Casas and Cristina Borobia. With Estefania De Los Santos and David Pareja. 2022. In Spanish with English subtitles. 90 minutes.

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Believe It Or Not

Gary Lucas — Sun, 14 Apr 2024 18:28:52 +0000

Believe It Or Not Gary Lucas April 14, 2024 - 14:28

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TV series

RE-MAKE / RE-MODEL: Ripley--well, uh, um, you're, gee, Steven Zaillian's noir-ish 8-part black and white TV adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's 1955 novel The Talented Mr. Ripley novel was pretty much tolerable in certain aspects (cinematography mainly), but honestly, imho, not a patch dramatically overall on either previous big-screen versions Plein Soleil (1960, d. Rene Clement) and/or the eponymous 1999 version directed by Anthony Minghella. "Somnolent" was the word used by the NY Times reviewer in describing this chilly, muted exercise in existential monochrome stretched over eight chapters, which succeeded in bleeding all the color and jeu d'esprit out of the original book and the two cinematic versions—the word "lugubrious" also comes to mind also and would not be far afield in describe the cumulative effect of the series also. It's like being bludgeoned in slow motion by a hammer made of soggy marshmallows.

Both the original music and the selected needle drops on the soundtrack were effective in parts, especially the recurring usage of songs by legendary Italian jazz vocalist Mina Mazzini (in fact, the cover of one of Mina's 50 albums was used as a period prop and flashed onscreen a few times)—but Episode 7 ended inexplicably with Tom Ripley's triumphant entrance into the Venetian Lagoon accompanied by THIS iconic piece of music by Shostakovich, inextricably bound up with the credits fore and aft of Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut:

So why use it again? I mean, what was the logic in that?? What were Zaillian and his music tipsters thinking by recycling it—what memory, if any, were they trying to jog here? All it triggered in me was astonishment and a feeling of disgust at the chutzpah of re-contextualizing this beautiful composition (already attached to an iconic film) to no discernible end. As this Johnny One-Note of a series—as bloated throughout all eight episodes as the water-logged corpse of Dickie Greenleaf—bore about as much relation to Eyes Wide Shut (or any other Kubrick film) as the Man in the Moon.

(There were also some musical bits on the soundtrack played on celeste towards the end of the series designed—I guess—as a kind of throwback/homage to the creepy celeste-driven music that accompanied Matt Damon's predations in the 1999 film. It was designed, no doubt, to make one think back on the—unfortunately—superior cinematic version in the process of trying to bolster the cred of this mini-series. "Hey folks, recall this music from the Matt Damon version?" When in doubt, recycle!).

Wouldn't you know that the Minghella version was being programmed on another streaming cable channel almost immediately after Caroline Sinclair and I finished watching this series on Netflix? The contrast between the two radically different takes on basically the same story was breathtaking.

The Italian landscape is the real star of both versions.

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I Came for Copland. I Will Remember Ray Chen

C. Jefferson Thom — Thu, 11 Apr 2024 23:51:19 +0000

I Came for Copland. I Will Remember Ray Chen C. Jefferson Thom April 11, 2024 - 19:51

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Music Review

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classical music

Appalachian Spring

Seattle Symphony

Benaroya Hall, Seattle

There's a decent chance I just witnessed the most incredible live performance by a violinist I will be privileged to experience in my lifetime. Ray Chen has a reputation for the intense passion that precedes him, but any hype was dimmed by the supernova burst of hearing him live.

This was my favorite of many memorable evenings spent with the Seattle Symphony at Benaroya Hall. Beginning with a dynamic modern composition by Dorothy Chang titled "Northern Star," the fuse was lit for a night of explosive energy. Chang masterfully wields the loud-quiet-loud with a contrast that offers a more extraordinary richness to both ends of that spectrum. This fuse beautifully burned its way to the readied dynamite of Erich Korngold's "Violin Concerto in D major" and Ray Chen's waiting violin.

Chen breathes intensity through the bridge, strings, and bow. He speaks directly through his violin as an extension of himself. If there is a division between the two, it is difficult to see and nearly impossible to hear. He reads the language of Korngold's music, knows it, and shares it as his own with the deepest feeling due to each note. His vibrato resonates through his arm, wrist, and fingers. His double stops sing with a choral unison. His bowing seems endlessly seamless, stretching onward into a continued infinity. His joy and love are ever present, and we in the audience were graciously lavished with wave after wave of passion, playfulness, and pure celebration. If there is something exceptional about being human, moments like these best make a better argument.

Also exceptional was the work of conductor Xian Zhang. Of the many conductors I have seen lead the Seattle Symphony, Zhang coaxes a new level of intensity, bringing this body of musicians closest to dancing on the razor's edge. Aside from having the mastery to answer Zhang's call, the members of the Seattle Symphony should be credited for the adaptability of maintaining their consistent level of play while rotating through so many conductors. Since I began attending their performance in December of last year, I don't believe I've seen the same hand lift the baton twice, but these musicians make that flexibility look effortless.

Closing out the program were the soothing sounds of Aaron Copland. If America were ever to live up to the purity of its professed ideals and intentions, it might sound something like Copland's Appalachian Spring. This is a piece that has brought me to joyful tears many times, and it was this offering that drew me to Benaroya Hall last Saturday night. What a perfect way to wrap up a program of forceful fireworks. The calm after the storm… and how wonderful it was. My heart is cradled in these bars—the quiet which gently builds. The strings work double-time, and the brass supports with sustained notes from below. There is such hope. Such yearning. Such a desire for better. Maybe, like the films of Frank Capra, it's an idealism that stretches too far and sees not so clearly. Still, I have fallen for Copland ever since I first heard what he had to say and getting to listen to his Appalachian Spring played so wonderfully live was a gift, the warmth of which still gives me a little smile.

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Sibling Reveries

Chet Kozlowski — Wed, 10 Apr 2024 14:35:47 +0000

Sibling Reveries Chet Kozlowski April 10, 2024 - 10:35

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drama

In this age of hyphenates, the traditional writer (hyphen) director (hyphen) editor (hyphen) actor is more likely to identify simply as a "content creator." That's the way with Jennifer Levinson, whose content has amassed over 300 million views on BuzzFeed Video, VR Scout, and CryptTV. Trust is her first film.

Yet despite Ms. Levinson's Gen Z credentials, Trust is a surprisingly traditional film.

Three siblings assemble on the occasion of the suicide of their mother, an attorney who had gone quietly crazy. Dutiful sister Kate drives in from college full of resentment toward their estranged, cheating father. Flamboyant sister Trini, fresh off a bout of partying, arrives from who knows where with her latest temporary flame. Responsible son Josh, who lives at home and works at his mother's law firm, makes it his mission to keep the lid on the proceedings. Emotional wreckage ensues.

Trust opens at their stately suburban home, packed with mourning family and friends. They are a quirky bunch, mixing grief with eccentricity. Then to the funeral made bittersweet because, against Kate's knowledge and/or wishes, their mother has been cremated. Then, it's off to the lawyer to divvy up the estate. The word "trust" has a double meaning, referring to the sibs' precarious faith in each other and the trust fund to which they are entitled upon their mother's death.

Ms. Levinson's script is smart and solidly constructed, setting up tossed-off situational cues that become laugh or gasp lines later. Her dialogue is witty. Characters are introduced memorably in accordance with their personalities, and scene transitions are fluid. Director Almog Avidan Antonir handles the ensemble well, with an eye for small, telling gestures and reactions. Sten Olson provides crisp cinematography.

Trust is sad and hilarious, a tough combination to pull off. Some scenes stand out: Trini loudly crashes the funeral, Kate eyes the urn, and she wonders aloud if her mother's teeth are in there. "What about the screw?" she asks Josh, "When she tore her ACL?" Later at the house, born-again Trini leads a prayer praising "our dearest lord savior Jesus," prompting Kate to announce, "My mom is Jewish!" Smarmy Dad comes out of the woodwork to appear at the reading of the will. Kate's poignant choice of venue to read her mother's eulogy is well-staged.

Trust's characters have unexpected depth. They defy their initial stereotypes, show different facets, and earn our sympathy. Each of them gets good bits and opportunities to shine. Beleaguered Josh (Heston Horwin) holds it together until he doesn't, about the time when the wheels come off his mother's legacy. Trini (Kate Spare) pretends unity while suppressing an aching vulnerability and daddy issues (asked by Kate why she's sucking up to their father, Trini replies, "Because it's just what I have to do.”) Dad Damien (Linden Ashby) is a dashing philanderer who at crucial moments persuasively insists on his children's respect. Mr. Ashby (from TV's Teen Wolf ) and Wayne Wilderson (from HBO's Veep) as Travis, the family lawyer, are the most recognizable faces in this young and promising cast. (Drugstore Cowboy fans: see if you can spot Max Perlich.)

Kate is the heart of the film, facing an array of emotions while hindered by the drinking problem she hides. We are constantly drawn to her; she has some of the best business in the movie. Jennifer Levinson plays this pivotal role herself.

Joe Santos's score propels the action, but some needle drops are superfluous, like the Beach Boys' "Wouldn't it Be Nice" to underscore Dad's arrival. Wouldn't what be nice? It's just a way to use the opening drum beat to comic effect.

However, as entertaining as Trust is, it doesn't expand much on its opening conceit. Characters remain pretty much as they are introduced. If a "protagonist" is defined by the self-knowledge they achieve—how they change by way of the story—then no one here quite lives up to that title. Despite all the tumult, nobody seems to learn anything. They remain true to form.

Speaking of needle drops: Kate escapes to the tune of Etta James' version of "At Last." Really? Trust me, Kate will be back. This family saga is destined to go on and on.

_____________________________________________________

Trust. Written by Jennifer Levinson. Directed by Almog Avidan Antonir. From Menemsha Films. 2022. On digital platforms. 99 minutes.

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Phantasmagoria Under the Sign of Wojciech Has

Gary Lucas — Mon, 08 Apr 2024 00:23:22 +0000

Phantasmagoria Under the Sign of Wojciech Has Gary Lucas April 7, 2024 - 20:23

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foreign

All that we see or seem

Is but a dream within a dream

—from Edgar Allan Poe's Dream Within a Dream (1850)

Old rope, maybe (Poe was a laudanum devotee)—or one of the oldest tropes in surrealist film and literature.

Episodic stories told through a framing device, stories that refer to and fold in on themselves in defiance of both logic and the space-time continuum—mythological dreams within dreams, in other words—can most likely be traced back in literature to the Epic of Gilgamesh (2150 B.C.E.).

To that, we might add Homer's The Iliad and The Odyssey (*00 B.C.E.), Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, Boccaccio's The Decameron, Petronius's Satyricon, the Arabian Nights, Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude, and its sundry magic-realism spinoffs—and especially for our purposes here, two towering works by Polish authors: Count Jan Potocki's 1815 The Manuscript Found in Saragossa…and Polish-Jewish author Bruno Schulz's limited but profoundly impressive body of interlocking stories published in 1934 as Cinnamon Shops a/k/a Street of Crocodiles, and also his 1937 novel Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass.

In film, Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali's radical dream opus, 1928's Un Chien Andalou, set the pace. Bunuel carried on this dream within a dream tradition in much of his work, culminating in his late '60s and early '70s cinematic trifecta comprising 1969's The Milky Way, 1972's The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, and 1974's The Phantom of Liberty.

Other films in the tradition include Carl Dreyer's 1932 wispy-through-a gauze, darkly ectoplasmic fever dream Vampyr, the multipartite U.K. ghost story anthology 1945's Dead of Night, John Parker's and Bruno VeSota's 1955 Dementia (a/k/a Daughter of Horror), any of the Hammer and Amicus horror anthologies beginning with Tales From the Crypt through Asylum, most of David Lynch's films (especially Mulholland Drive)—and of course, Federico Fellini's full-on retinal assault 1969's Fellini Satyricon, and for me, his most magical confection, 1976's Fellini Casanova.

Special mention should be made to Alain Resnais's 1961 Last Year at Marienbad, Louis Malle's zany, discontinuous 1960 Zazie Dans le Metro, Vera Chytilova's 1966 Daisies, and Patrick McGoohan's 1967 Kafka-goes-Mod television anthology The Prisoner, which set the bar high for sheer wtf-ness that contemporary shows like Lost can only hint at.

For me, though, the ne plus ultra of dream cinema was always master Polish filmmaker Wojciech Has's 1965 The Saragossa Manuscript, a black and white adaptation of the aforementioned Count Potocki's literary magnum opus, a hodgepodge of cabalistic magic, military derring-do, esoteric lore, European folk tales, and occult conspiracies. Rich in madcap visual invention, with startling time-shifts and numerous stories within stories within stories, it is no accident that this was one of Jerry Garcia's favorite films, along with directors Luis Bunuel, Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, and Lars Von Trier.

I say "was always"…that is until I finally bore witness to what I can only describe as Has's 1973 magnum opus, The Hourglass Sanatorium, a/k/a Sandglass, which doubles down on the dream logic throughout in a two-and-a-half hour cinematic phantasmagoria containing multitudes within.

Ostensibly a film about Josef, a 19th-century traveler played by well-known Polish actor Jan Nowicki, who takes a long train journey through the Polish night to a creepy, dilapidated sanatorium surrounded by a graveyard in order to visit his dying father, the film erupts after Josef is put to sleep by a sinister Doctor and his nubile nurse into a riot of dream fugues which so scramble the space-time dialectic that the audience at Lincoln Center's Walter Reade Theater the other night was cowed into silence—not a word was spoken during its unspooling, not a single soul got up to use the facilities—all focus was on this film.

In fact, the only response during the entire 2 1/2 hours was one collective audience guffaw at a deliberate play on the words "new Mexico" in contrast to "old Mexico" by a child philatelist playing a younger version of Josef interacting with his grown-up self.

Reminiscent in parts of an American International vintage '60s Poe film (Daniel Haller-like sets, Floyd Crosby-esque ultra-fluid cinematography), Peter Brook's infernal 1967 Marat/Sade, a late Fellini film gone mad, and any number of Marc Chagall paintings, with a heavy "Golden Age of Czech animation" influence (the fantastic assemblages of Jan Sjvankmajer and Karel Zeman come to mind), Has's film is a relentless mind-blowing assault on the senses. It deserves to be seen—in fact, begs to be seen again—multiple times if only to even partially unlock his rich and strange mise-en-scene and scenario.

Setting the stories of Bruno Schulz to the big screen should have been an impossible task. Schulz's writing is so singular and imaginative one basks in his overall way with words; his multi-dimensional surrealist imagery glows on the page in glittering jewels of thought. His prose style is so luxurious and fabulistic, like the Kabbalah itself, that it should be proscribed reading, not engaged with by rabbinical diktat until the reader hits the ripe old age of 40 (just kidding). This is to say that there has never been a writer quite like Bruno Schulz.

But Has was more than up to the task of translating Schulz to the wide-screen canvas. Here, he cherry-picked some of the best tales from Cinnamon Shops and Hourglass and added his emphasis on overtly Jewish themes that are absent (or, more appositely, well-hidden) in Schulz's original tales. Has also introduced a pronounced erotic component only hinted at in the original stories, which he would undoubtedly be chastised for today—if not canceled outright.

This fate nearly befell this film in general, which the Polish government tried to suppress, partially because of the overtly Jewish content throughout but also because of the film's depiction of the run-down sanatorium and surrounding grounds, which might be taken as a commentary on Poland's at the time semi-ruined infrastructure. Had it not been for a single print smuggled out of the country and shipped to the Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Jury Prize in 1973, this film might never have been exhibited anywhere.

This extra-Jewish quality apparently was Has's reaction to Bruno Schulz's Jewish identity (although Schulz spent most of his life in a small town in Poland on the Ukrainian border as a non-observant Jew who also loved Catholic rituals. He was murdered by a Nazi officer for wandering out of the Dohobrych Ghetto into the "Aryan Area" in 1942)—and also his reaction to the ensuing Polish clampdown on Jews and Jewish culture in 1968, itself a kind of reactionary fallout from the Prague Spring flourishing next door in Czechoslovakia. This world-historical episode terrified Poland's then-Russian overlords, who blamed the revolutionary fervor on the International Jewish Conspiracy from Hell and accordingly clamped down on the Polish Jewish community, many members of which emigrated en masse to Israel, Europe, and the U.S.

From the opening sequence on the train, with its eerie foreshadowing of the trains to Polish-based concentration camps, to a heart-stopping scene near the end in which a tumultuous herd of panic-stricken Jews hurtle past the camera in a mad dash, dragging their meager possessions behind them while trying to escape an off-screen angry mob with a deadly pogrom on their agenda, Has repeatedly ramps up the Jewish quotient in the service of near Proustian poetic themes: the inevitable passing of time, glimpses of a lost era in Polish Jewish history, fragmented memories of happier days, and endless nights.

Some of the panoramic scenes here displaying crowds of dancing Chasidim in colorful but dark, very dark shtetl settings (reminiscent of contemporary Krakow's Kazimierz district, a kind of Potemkin Village recreation of old Jewish Poland) resemble nothing so much as a Bizarro World version of Norman Jewison's 1971 Fiddler on the Roof mega-hit, with traces of Abraham Polonsky's 1971 Romance of a Horsethief. Mention should be made of the influence of Michal Wasynski's spectral 1937 supernatural fairytale The Dybbuk, particularly the weird Wedding Dance sequence, which Has, one of the icons of the 1960s New Polish Cinema alongside such directorial giants as Jerzy Skolimowski, Roman Polanski, and Andrej Wajda would have known very well—an essential work in the history of Polish filmmaking.

Special thanks to Prof. Annette Insdorf's exceptionally informative pre-screening talk, which contextualized the film. Her excellent book Intimations: The Cinema of Wojciech Has contains valuable information on Has's impressive career.

There is so much more to unpack about this particular film. I really cannot wait to see it again: https://vinegarsyndrome.com/products/the-hourglass-sanatorium

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Rendez-Vous-ing with the Best of Current French Cinema

Brandon Judell — Fri, 05 Apr 2024 12:35:22 +0000

Rendez-Vous-ing with the Best of Current French Cinema Brandon Judell April 5, 2024 - 08:35

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Film Festival

I could never fathom why some folks in the past didn't take to the French. I, for one, was already a Francophile by my late teens. Locale: the Bronx in the '60s.

Since then, Cocteau, Sartre, Collette, and de Beauvoir in battered paperback formats found permanent residence on my shelves that have since shuffled along to another borough. (If you look hard enough, you'll also find a Céline or two. I know. I know. He moved in before the Cancel Culture arrived.)

All of which reminds me of being 20 and finding myself meandering without direction through the arrondissements de Paris, stopping only to imbibe a bit of caffeine at Les Deux Magots, as I awoke to all of the possibilities of l'amour that might one day greet me.

Sadly, one-night-stands aside, l'amour has mostly sidestepped me, but that is not France's fault so I will not forgive D.H. Lawrence for saying of the country that gave us Camembert: "I would have loved it —without the French."

Nor Billy Wilder:" France is the only country where the money falls apart, and you can't tear the toilet paper."

Nor Fran Lebowitz arguing the French are "Germans with good food."

Philistines all.

Which brings us the 29th Rendez-Vous with French Cinema presented by Unifrance and Film at Lincoln Center. Twenty-one features that until now were unseen upon our shores. "Is there a theme that unites these descendants of Breathless, 400 Blows, and The Mother and the Whore?" you ask. Why not turn again to Jean Cocteau, who remarked, "Between the life we live and the unlived life is the love we have never formed."

These features often do showcase an assemblage of characters fighting to keep their "form" of love alive as the powers-that-be seek to break up their families, beat them into submission, tempt them into a selfish immorality, or go bonkers with their genetic makeup.

Take Auction/Le livre des solutions. Pascal Bonitzer, who co-wrote the screenplays for Paul Verhoeven's tongue-in-cheek Sapphic nun-fest Benedetta (2021) and Catherine Breillat's steamy May/December romancer, Last Summer (2023), here delves into a modern art-world dilemma: who is the rightful owner of a work of art when the rightful owner is long deceased?

As director here, Bonitzer fashions a caustic look at a highly regarded auction house's underpinnings, creating a landscape where virtue is not a ready resident.

The tale begins with André Masson (Alex Lutz), a seasoned auctioneer, being made aware an Egon Schiele painting, one missing since 1939, is supposedly hanging in the home of an innocent working-class chap (Arcadi Radeff). Masson's first reaction is disbelief. When the work's authenticity is established, he knows what the sale of an such a work can mean to his prestige and his company's bottom line, but can he sign up the owner? Of course, but what happens when it's discovered the work was looted by the Nazis from a Jewish family whose heirs might still be alive in the good ol' U.S. of A?

Engrossing, timely, and with a lead character whose motto is "being hated is good for the job," Auction doesn't exactly argue there's more to life than just cash flow. Nor does the film insist for quite a while that leading a well-balanced life with more than a dollop of romance is ideal. But by the end, Auction does make a rather strong case that there are moral ways of winning, ways that just might take a little more effort on everyone's part.

If you're in the mood for more light-hearted fare, Nathan Ambrosioni's Toni takes a fatherless family of five and reveals how les enfants terribles' growing pains affect their fortyish mom, who's experiencing quite few aches of her own. What might seem overly familiar plot-wise is really quite entertaining, thanks to the scintillating Camille Cottin as the fretful maternal figure. You'll recognize Ms. Cottin from Netflix's Call My Agent!, the witty cult series that gained extreme popularity on our shores during the Covid era.

Some background: Toni, who became a pop star as a teen due to her manipulative stage parent, happily gave up fame for motherhood. But now, with a dead husband, little cash on hand, two teens readying for university, a Christmas tree dropping all its needles, a coming-out or two, plus the never-ending laundering, dusting, and cooking, Toni realizes she wants more. Maybe the time has come to carve out some me-time. But without any skills, will the workforce welcome her? Maybe she can attend a university herself. How about becoming a teacher? But what can she teach?

Her own mother laughs heartily at the notion. Toni's brood looks dismayed. "What about us?" they question. Oh, no! Has life really bypassed her? Has she paid too high a price for caring too much about everyone else for too long?

With solid comic timing sprinkled with momentary angsts and cosmic tribulations, you wouldn't be surprised if Michelle Obama was an inspiration here. After all, the former First Lady is the one who instructed, "I want [children] to see a mother who loves them dearly, who invests in them, but who also invests in herself. It's just as much about letting them know . . . that it is okay to put yourself a little higher on your priority list." That's Toni in a nutshell.

There's no nutshell, however, that can contain one of France's most highly awarded sci-fi, epidemic-inspired offerings. Boasting more than a twinge of Cocteau's whimsey within its carryings-on, Thomas Cailley's The Animal Kingdom has already garnered 25 nominations and awards, including Best Motion Picture, Best Director, and Best Visual Effects from various festivals. Here is, at heart, a love story between father and son that begins and ends in a car with the eating of potato chips.

While stuck in traffic on the way to visit his wife in a hospital, François Marindaze (Romain Duris) berates his son Émile (Paul Kircher) for feasting on the aforementioned salty snack.

François, while lighting a cigarette: "Eating is like talking. It defines you as a human being. Even better it defines how you exist in the world."

Émile: "And eating chips means I don't exist?"

This chat then melds into the difference between disobedience towards a parent and committing transgressions against a system, but before this philosophical combat can rise to another level, there's an attention-grabbing incident on the road ahead of them. A "man" with giant wings has burst through the back doors of an ambulance and is trying to escape "its" guards.

(Pronouns play an important part here because you must decide whether a human who is turning into a creature loses the humanity engrained in his cis-pronoun.)

For father and son, this event isn't all that shocking because Émile's mom, Lana, has already started transitioning into something rather ursine.

What follows is a rather awe-inspiring adventure that continues in a small French town, where folks who are "infected" are being transferred. Yes, some rather nice souls who have mutated into octopi, praying mantises, lizards, and so forth are suddenly finding themselves the victims of extreme bigotry. Hate speech first, guns next?

And if that isn't enough, what if you are a teen lad ready for romance and discover you are growing claws and fangs? There are matters that breath mints can't resolve.

Beautifully shot while perfectly cast and helmed, Animal Kingdom is an exuberant example of humane cinema at its best. At Cannes, Cailley explained that the idea of the film "spoke to me because it allowed me to touch on subjects that interest me, namely the body, our relationship to difference, the issue of passing on the worlds we want to pass on, but also the relationship we have with everything that's alive including things other than our fellow humans."

Moving on to Michel Gondry's The Book of Solutions, this wackadoodle tale of the world's least-talented director can't help but remind you of the trans-Atlantic furor over the Gallic fondness for a certain comedian. The New York Times' Agnès C. Poirier stated this lack of cultural agreement best in her 2017 article, "Why France Understood Jerry Lewis as America Never Did." She writes: "While some Americans felt embarrassed by this contortionist comic, the French embraced Mr. Lewis's humor as both an abstract art and social satire of American life."

In Solutions, director Marc Becker (Pierre Niney) pilfers his unfinished film from its producers after they decide to cast him off the project. He scuttles to the remote countryside, along with his harried editor and assistants, to create a frighteningly incomprehensible masterwork that spurs on mass slumbering.

The archetypal Jerry-Lewis moment here is when Becker, whose knowledge of music is minimal, tries to record his film's score with a ragtag bunch of musicians without a rehearsal, let alone a score. Physical, reverberant goofiness conquers the moment with low-comedy stylings. Not surprisingly, Mr. Becker might just become a town's mayor before the end credits roll. (Surprise cameos: Sting, and if my notes are correct, George Clooney.)

Other fest highlights spotlight French star Virginie Efira in three roles in two offerings. Is she France's Meryl Streep? She certainly has enough award nominations and winnings to be in the running. Add to them her memorable crucifix manipulations as a nun shocking the crowds during the Black Plague, and you have enough reasons to tack her poster on your bedroom wall.

In Delphine Deloget's emotional wringer of a tale, All to Play For/Rien à perdre, Efira is Sylvie, a late-night bartender with two sons, the youngest of whom burns himself cooking up a batch of fries while she's off maneuvering drunks about. That a no-no for the Child Welfare folks. So, for the rest of this engaging, no-holds-barred look at the working class and their battles with the State and with themselves, Sylvie tries to regain custody of her child, who has a fondness for a live chicken.

Valérie Donzelli's Just the Two of Us has Efira playing twins Rose and Blanche. Rose, rather strong-willed, doesn't have much of a story arc, but Blanche is a whole other story. This school teacher falls for the attractive, intense Grègoire (Melvil Poupaud), who isolates the naïve gal, slowly trying to control her every move. Extremely jealous, he calls her up every hour to discover her whereabouts. He stalks her, impregnates her, use the child as leverage, screams, and eventually gets physically abusive. No wonder Britannicus is quoted: "I even loved the teardrops I made her shed."

By the end of the Two of Us, I checked myself for black-and-blue marks. But have no fear; by the end of every Efira feature, the heroine is able to walk down the hall or up the road with her head held high . . and no neck brace on.

Also of note is Robin Campillo's latest feature. You might be familiar with his takes on France's ACT UP movement (BPM: Beats Per Minute (2017)) and the problems that arise with loving a male hustler (Eastern Boys (2013)). With Red Island, he recalls his childhood in Madagascar in 1971 as the French were packing up their final colonial base on the island to the glee of the native inhabitants. As one notes: "Have you noticed whenever a white guy sleeps, we breathe more easily."

Campillo employs a French child's gaze to observe his parents' petty jealousies, the community's racist reactions to an interracial coupling, and the anger of the Madagascans: "For twelve years, we have been independent but under France's thumb."

Most memorable scenes: prostitutes in rebellion, a household battles a wasp in its bathroom, and the final shot of a white family's attempt to take a photograph of themselves in a land where they were so "happy."

(The 29th Rendez-Vous with French Cinema was produced by Unifrance and Film at Lincoln Center. This is an annual event. To check up on all the offerings of Film at Lincoln Center, check out the organization's website: https://www.filmlinc.org/)

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More Than Skin Deep

Jay Reisberg — Sun, 31 Mar 2024 14:23:20 +0000

More Than Skin Deep Jay Reisberg March 31, 2024 - 10:23

Topics

Theater Review

Tags

puppets

Epidermis Circus

Soho Playhouse, New York City

March 20 through 24, 2024

In the days when vaudeville audiences were eager for "odd" entertainment, performers--traveling the USA's various "circuits," both high and low--competed in coming up with new, different, or totally unique acts. Notoriously, Robert John Wildhack gained cachet by demonstrating a hilarious variety of sneezes (which you can still enjoy in the movie "Broadway Melody of 1938"). There was "Painless Parker's Dental Circus," whose act was pulling teeth with the help of "hydrocaine" (a cocaine solution). Let's not leave out women like Ethel Purtle, who played the Motordrome Circuit, performing the "Wall of Fire" stunt with a live lion seated in a sidecar. Today, we think we are more sophisticated, as we have "performance artists" -- and some indeed are artists, like Canadian puppeteer Ingrid Hansen, who wowed sold-out audiences at the Soho Playhouse last week with her Epidermis Circus.

The title of this zany, bawdy, and hilarious performance piece reminds me of a jest children play upon one another: dolefully warning an unsophisticated playmate that "Your epidermis is showing!". (I suppose it's the very first time kids learn that the epidermis is another term for their skin.) Ms. Hansen is called a puppeteer, with the implication that one is primarily manipulating figurines -- but her epidermis is unabashedly doing most of the work in her enormously entertaining, one-hour madcap vaudeville show. It is chock full of riotous, naughty, and mystifying vignettes using her bare hands, face, mouth, tiny toys, and a doll's head.

Ms. Hansen comes closest to conventional modern puppetry when transforming her socks and panties into a romantic couple, whose intensive interaction incorporated the outstretched arms of two audience members, whose limbs provided the platform for a tragically moving romance. Ms. Hansen's "stage," upon which all but that one sequence is performed, is a table positioned in front of a petite video camera, which magnifies and projects her manual and facial artistry onto a large screen -- with her voice providing clever chatter and sound effects.

Ingrid Hansen has performed puppeteering on television for both Sesame and Henson productions. She plays the character "Heart," a lovable orange monster, on Helpsters, Sesame Workshop's Emmy-Award-Winning series for AppleTV+. She also puppeteers and voices characters on Henson's new Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock series. For the TreehouseTV/Amazon show Miss Persona, she puppeteers "Melissa the Dog." She has choreographed and directed several music videos, including choreographing a ballet for stand-up comedian K. Trevor Wilson, which appears in the Canadian sitcom Letterkenny.

I recall as a child using my hands as imaginary animals, and Ms. Hansen propels such kid stuff to a high adult level. Her hands-only sequence of two dog-like creatures playing and probing one another was captivating, earning the audience's intense focus, only to be punctuated by gales of spontaneous laughter. My favorite vignette featured the head of a kewpie doll fastened to Ms. Hansen's hand, forming an athletically flexible human-like figure taking a sensual bath in an oversized coffee cup.

Ms. Hansen's hands-in-motion have the kind of presence that is often attributed to the greatest stage performers. Their movement, combined with her skill for vocalization, establishes colorful characters playing out their scenarios, transfixing the audience and creating pin-drop silence interspersed with spontaneous bursts of laughter.

The closing sequence was a tour de force: creating a farm scene with tiny toy animals, vehicles, and structures, each emerging from Ms. Hansen's elastically flexing mouth. This "farm" endures some intensely inclement weather -- finally being washed away, and a "The End" flag was then precipitated from Ms. Hansen's mouth to signal that the show had concluded.

In addition to this bawdy "adult" version of the show, the week's run also provided child-friendly performances.

Epidermis Circus was produced by SNAFU Society of Unexpected Spectacles and was co-created and directed by Britt Small. Ingrid Hansen is credited as co-creator and performer. Costumes were designed by JIMBO, The Drag Clown (James Insell). Epidermis Circus was also co-produced by and with creative contributions from Kathleen Greenfield. Puppetry coaching is credited to Mike Peterson and Rod Peter Jr.

For information regarding future performances of Epidermis Circus and other works produced by SNAFU, visit the SNAFU website: www.snafudance.com.

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Heartland Roundelay

Chet Kozlowski — Sat, 30 Mar 2024 17:37:36 +0000

Heartland Roundelay Chet Kozlowski March 30, 2024 - 13:37

Topics

Film Review

Tags

western

Where the hell is Laroy, Texas?

Well, you turn right at Coenville, follow down till you get to Better Call Saul, and take a hard left at Elmore Leonard. Laroy’s there on the right. You can’t miss it.

Laroy, Texas is a new entry in the sturdy genre of tongue-in-cheek “crime thrillers”; call it Heartland Roundelay. The form came into its own with the Coen Brothers’ Blood Simple in 1984 and was refined in their 1996 Fargo and countless other movies: black comedies of the common person, dialogue-driven with sudden bursts of violence.

Most of these films are set in Texas or the Midwest and focus on low-rent strivers who want it all and are willing to do anything to get it. Everybody’s implicated in a merry-go-round of wrongdoing. Set the schmoes into motion in their natural setting—ranch houses, diners, strip malls, and strip clubs—and just wait for the next shoe to fall.

Laroy, Texas starts with a typical-looking guy named Harry picking up a big, bearded hitchhiker whose truck has broken down on a lonely stretch of highway. They banter: the hitchhiker jokes you can’t be too careful who you pick up, might be a crazy maniac. But the joke’s on him. As Harry digs a roadside grave, he gets a call: go to Laroy. There’s money in it if you kill somebody.

Of course, it helps that Harry, the hitman, is played by Dylan Baker, the man with a long face, tight squint, and toothsome smile.

Meanwhile, in the town of Laroy, a guy named Ray meets a guy in a diner who says he’s a detective, Skip Roche. Skip gives Ray a photo of his (Ray’s) wife entering a cheap motel, clearly for a sordid rendezvous. Ray is stung and refuses to believe it. Skip will prove it if Ray hires him.

Here, it helps that Ray is played by John Magaro and Skip by the ever-reliable actor Steve Zahn.

Ray’s a pushover, in business with his more outgoing brother and in love with his wife, a former beauty queen named Stacey-Lynn, the one captured on film at the cheap motel. Ray’s reduced to waiting in a car idling outside the motel room where the tryst is going on, intending to off himself. When suddenly, the passenger side door opens, and a stranger lurches into his car; he asks him, “Are you the guy?” Before Ray can answer, he shoves a bag of money into his hands.

What follows is a cat-and-mouse game of bad intentions, offbeat characters, and narrative twists. These folks lie, cheat, and double-cross in the best Pulp tradition.

And that cast. You’ll know John Magaro from Netflix’s Orange is the New Black and his poignant turn as the husband in Oscar-contender Past Lives. His slight frame and nebbishy ethos make him suitable for a particular kind of sad sack. (Also, Mr. Magaro is having a moment: he also produces the movie.)

Meagan Stevenson, as Stacy-Lynn, acts with wild eyes and a face that goes from giddy to harpy in a heartbeat. As Harry, the hired gun, Dylan Baker (where’s he been?) brings just the right amount of menace. Has there ever been a more ominous villain?

Steve Zahn (of HBO’s Treme and The Righteous Gemstones) brings his big grin to the role of detective Skip Roche. He’s the perpetual frat boy, all smiles and assumptions. Skip dresses Texas chic: big hat, bola tie, and studs (Stacey-Lynn tells him, “You look like you’re going to a cowboy prom.”)

And to complete the cast, who shows up but Brad Leland, Friday Night Lights’ Buddy Garrity himself, as a philandering car salesman?

Other notables include Matthew Del Negro as Ray’s smarmy brother Junior, Galadriel Stineman as a hapless stripper Angie, and Darcy Shean in a small but canny part as the car salesman’s wife.

First-time auteur Shane Atkinson’s script is witty and sharp. No doubt you’re in Texas, and no doubt guns will be fired (Ray even auditions one for suicide in a gun shop (“Have you got anything shorter?”). Mr. Atkinson directs as well, his wit extending to his way with actors and his framing and editing, collaborating with cinematographer Mingjue Hu and editor Sebastian Mialik.

Laroy, Texas (the producers say they’re shortening the title to just Laroy, a mistake. Is that a place or a person?) is modest in ambition but heavy on dark humor and a pokey kind of suspense. When done right, it’s a marvel to watch. Laroy, Texas is lively and unpredictable, but it is well worth the time spent.

(Postscript: As I write this, news comes that M. Emmett Walsh has died at the age of 88. He was in Blood Simple—mentioned in this review—and was as reliable a character actor who ever lived, appearing in over 200 films. Look him up. You’ll recognize him for sure. Rest in peace, Mr. Walsh.)

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Laroy, Texas (a.k.a Laroy). Directed by Shane Atkinson. From Orogen Entertainment. Distributed by Brainstorm Media. 2024. In theaters. 112 minutes.