Maria (Isabelle Huppert) oversees the aforementioned  plantation. Even before recent events,  it’s seen better days. Owned by her ex-husband who is cutting his own deals with a corrupt mayor and with her ill father-in-law living in the manor house, she ignores pleas from French soldiers to leave for her own safety and bullies and barters her way through each obstacle to pull in a last harvest that probably won’t save the estate anyway. Her grown son has become unmoored from his family, the rebel leader is mortally wounded and hiding on the plantation yet Maria remains fixated on her own rescue mission.  Hers is a ferocious love of this place, so much so that she’s deluded herself into thinking she can force rationality onto this situation–or at least with enough stalling, everything will float by or fall back into its appointed place. Towards the end of the film she says, “I couldn’t get used to anywhere else,” but then her world view is corrected by a character who’s playing all ends against the middle, “for you it’s not the same thing… you don’t want anyone taking what you have.” At this point the viewer wonders if anything Maria ever had was hers to begin with.

A visual director whose work is always striking and enigmatic, you could argue Denis’ films are too abstract. That they’re pretentious and thin, with with no true writerly craft apparent, the spare dialogue pointing up a laziness of plotting.

The counter argument is that she respects the story and her audience’s intelligence. No clumsy exposition or characters explaining motivation. Why is her son the way he is? “He was born here, but the country doesn’t like him.” A single line of dialogue, and if you’ve paid attention, insight is offered about so many things that have transpired.

Maria never seems frightened for herself, only that her home may not exist anymore. She’s a thing that’s been broken many times, knit again and thus stronger at the seams, but what’s stretched between is brittle and starched. We see her resilience under a dusty, sun faded veil of post-colonialism. She’s loves this terrible, beautiful place. She’s not the same as the “dirty whites”. She’s earned the right to be here. Her devotion will stand this test. Or so she keeps telling herself.

Denis hasn’t given us a romance on the moonlit veldt, this is trying to out dance a dust devil. – [DVD] [Blu-Ray]

Drama/War

Unrated

DVD Release Date: 4/12/11

A documentary is not the gospel, yet they’re treated most times as absolute truth. Sadly, most historical dramatizations committed to film are treated this way. Witness Oliver Stone’s JFK. We feel that “fact” is presented before us on the screen, that in no way is there an agenda from the filmmaker. We may feel a documentary by definition is supposed to be the flicking on of a camera for an unbiased observation of a subject, but there’s at least one if not many visions fashioning it; there’s a message the filmmaker intends to impart to you and to bandy around the term “objective opinion” doesn’t ever absolve it enough to be carved into even the softest sandstone.

With this perhaps harsh opening admonishment, but remembering what a joke the word ”embedded” became during the Iraq war, Restrepo is a film very much worth seeing.

Named for a comrade killed early in the 2007 deployment of Second Platoon Battle Company to the Korengal Valley in Afghanistan, and made by writer/journalist Sebastian Junger and photographer Tim Hetherington, Restrepo is also the name of the outpost set up by these soldiers to police some of the most dangerous real estate in this part of the world. As the film’s tag line says, “One Platoon, One Valley, One Year,” and Hetherington and Junger stick to that and stick to the platoon, eating dirt and damage alongside these men.

In its 93 minutes, Restrepo shows you much of what you may already know about America’s soldiers. There’s machismo, bone-headededness, goofing off, sexism, camaraderie, bravery, cynicism and sometimes even poetry. But in this film no “by-jingo” bells are rung and it’s not poetry of war’s glory. These are tough guys until they’re scared, just doing the job when a walkie talkie conversation ends in a cold joke. Not the adrenaline-junkie mercenaries of over-the-top action flicks, but admitting how crushing boredom makes them crave a firefight.

Through it all Hetherington and Junger show the right kind of journalistic restraint. The work of war is grim enough, and debate still goes on over how much of its bloody carnage should be shown on the nightly news. Anything here above and beyond the men telling their own stories would be voyeuristic and disrespectful at best. This film is sobering, not shocking. Politics? It’s the day-to-day five mile radius politics of being on the ground in Afghanistan. The socioeconomic reasons presented for why these men are here? They decided to do it.

If you watch the deleted scenes on the DVD, the first paragraph should make its point. Anything other than what’s on the screen makes it different in tone and intent. There’s nothing wrong with honing and editing and the filmmakers should be commended for the end result. When a documentary is treated as the most truthful grail and is really just strident posturing and manipulation, those films and that attitude do the story told in Restrepo a disservice.

To avoid that disservice and in light of the opening quote from a soldier in the film, anyone who’s never been a soldier always wonders, “Who would want this job? But would I be able to do it?” - [DVD] [Blu-Ray]

Documentary/War

Rated R

DVD Release Date: 12/7/10

Triage

Based on a book by war correspondent Scott Anderson, it’s set in 1988 and shows Irish photojournalist Farrell returning home far worse for wear from an assignment in Iraqi Kurdistan to the news that his best friend (Jamie Sives), who accompanied Farrell, has yet to return himself.

As directed by Danis Tanovic, who made 2001’s similarly-themed No Man’s Land, the film is more effective early on. We witness the horrors brought on by the Anfal Genocide instituted by Saddam Hussein’s regime–a Kurdish doctor (Branko Djuric) shoots wounded Kurdish rebels he can’t save–and watch as Farrell’s need to capture a meaningful shot leads to him nearly being killed.

The second half basically becomes Good Will Hunting for the war set, as Farrell suffers psychologically and his concerned girlfriend (the beautiful Vega) reluctantly asks her grandfather (Lee), a psychiatrist during Franco’s reign of Spain, to find out why. And we discover that, indeed, something major is gnawing away at Farrell.

Farrell’s much better in the first half, by the way, energetic and reckless, prodding his friend for them to stay just one more day so he can get that prize-worthy picture. He’s less successful at showing his character’s pain later on, but he also doesn’t embarrass himself. I still think his best work is in the excellent In Bruges and the decade-old Tigerland.

As the doctor, Djuric (who starred in No Man’s Land) overshadows Farrell, despite far less screen time. His character’s a compassionate, soft-spoken man doing the best he can medically with the pitifully few resources he has. His use of blue and yellow strips to determine who can be saved and who can’t makes for the tensest moment in the movie.

Lee’s the best thing about the film, though, and it’s great to see him in a non-genre role. He apparently had to learn more dialogue for his part here than for anything else he’s done, and the effort pays off. He’s absolutely amazing to watch, Spanish accent and all, be it defending his Franco-era work to Vega, or, in the film’s best shot, telling fellow survivor Farrell that he “must bury the dead.” – [DVD] [Blu-Ray]

Drama/War

Rated R

DVD Release Date: 8/10/10

It starts out in 2001 in South Carolina, where the too-virtuous-to-be-true Seyfried (Mamma Mia!) and Special Forces soldier Tatum meet, fall in love and endure any number of increasingly ridiculous plot devices designed to keep them apart.

Since those devices include autism, strokes, 9/11 and Sparks’ personal favorite, cancer, I assume we’re meant to take this thing seriously, but the script by Jamie Linden treats such life-altering issues with all the gravity of an after school special. They’re there not to be discussed or examined, but to yank tears from your eyes.

Such utter manipulation would actually be kind of tolerable with actors truly capable of showing us their pain. The muscle-bound Tatum (G.I. Joe) is not one of them. He mopes and mumbles his way through the emotional stuff and does a lot of pensive staring. Unsurprisingly, he looks more comfortable in the military scenes or whenever he’s surfing (hence his often being shirtless).

And while director Lasse Hallström is no stranger to tearjerkers, having made Chocolat, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape? and An Unfinished Life, those movies at least had some quirk in them. Here the guy is relegated to giving us postcard-pretty shots of South Carolina and its shoreline, and also trying to convince us that Seyfried is an actual adult, as she looks like she’s about 12 years old.

Lending some actual depth to it all are Richard Jenkins (The Visitor), as Tatum’s coin-collecting father, and a bearded Henry Thomas (Elliott in E.T.), whose character figures in the film’s only true surprise. Jenkins’ is an especially touching performance, and I truly felt for him, whereas the histrionics of Tatum and Seyfried merely made me feel ill. – [DVD] [Blu-Ray]

Drama/Romance/War

Rated PG-13

DVD Release Date: 5/25/10

The Messenger

I first saw Samantha Morton in Woody Allen’s Sweet and Lowdown, where she played Sean Penn’s mute girlfriend and got an Oscar nomination for her role. She is an awesome actress, and continued to shine in such films as In America, Longford, and Morvern Callar (this movie is a must–see for all you offbeat independent movie lovers). She has a supporting role in The Messenger, but for me, this film was made way more interesting by her contribution.

I was a little disappointed in the actors who played the survivors. They weren’t quite right-on, and this was readily apparent when viewing one of the special features showing interviews with actual survivors. The responses to the news of the deaths, as characterized on the screen, fell short with the exception, of course, of Samantha Morton’s character. I might also add that, although I would walk on hot coals for Steve Buscemi any day, here he was really over the top. Maybe he was still shaking off The Sopranos.

The Messenger is a good movie, overall. The interesting storyline with its emphasis on the survivors of war, together with some strong acting chops, helped create a very watchable film. – [DVD] [Blu-Ray]

Drama/Romance/War

Rated R

DVD Release Date: 5/18/10

The Men Who Stare at Goats

Based on a book by Jon Ronson, Goats tells the story of Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor), a field reporter in Kuwait who’s trying to get into Iraq. To meet that end, he partners with Lyn Cassady (George Clooney), a former, or possibly current military psychic who’s going into Iraq on a not-quite-straightforward mission. Throughout the course of their misadventures, McGregor narrates the back story of Clooney’s character and his place in the U.S. Government’s “New Earth Army.” In these flashbacks we meet Jeff Bridges and Kevin Spacey, who were also members of the New Earth Army, and are better actors than should have been in these parts.

Most of the movie plays out like a remake of Spies Like Us, which were the parts I liked; the rest is a sort of maudlin “stay true to yourself” hooey that makes my teeth hurt.

All things considered, it’s pretty good. Good casting of an interesting story. There’s kidnapping, vehicular assault, secret desert bases, and more than a few “long hairs” in army uniforms. I didn’t turn it off, nor did I think of doing it, but I probably won’t watch this one a second time. I would and probably will recommend it to people who want something lighter for a weekday night. – [DVD] [Blu-Ray]

Comedy/War

Rated R

DVD Release Date: 3/23/10

Brothers

I prefer the Danish version to the American remake. I felt like director Jim Sheridan missed a lot in his translation of the film. In Susanne Bier’s film the characters were more complex, and you could feel their pain as the Captain began to unravel. And you could see his beloved wife torn between the relationship she has built with his brother and the love she has for her husband.

This American version was flat, and a little Hollywood. Tobey Maguire was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actor for his role, but I was very unimpressed by it. His emotion was displayed by various outbursts, with little or no sedulity. The scene in the kitchen when he has completely come undone was a very important point in the movie and I felt completely unmoved by it.

Some people have found the ending to be a letdown, and in this version it is. In the Danish film it is what isn’t said that makes it much more believable.

I guess what I am trying to get at is that you should see the 2004 Danish film if you are at all interested in this story. You won’t be disappointed. – [DVD] [Blu-Ray]

Drama/Thriller/War

Rated R

DVD Release Date: 3/23/10

Francis Bacon

The film Séraphine, like the real life artist, is not instantly engaging. It opens just before the First World War in the French town of Senlis. Séraphine Louis, a cleaning woman, earns barely enough to survive. A hulking, eccentric but oddly competent presence, actress Yolande Moreau portrays Séraphine not as an untrained talent who will blossom under proper tutelage but as a person on a mission with instructions from her guardian angel. Her face is still, almost leaden at times but can break into a slight smile. Her eyes are bright and fierce, sometimes twinkling but also mask-like. She is a childlike cypher albeit with an occasional sharp tongue. She gathers materials when and where she can. Blood from the butcher shop, oil from devotional candles. She grinds and mixes her own colors with inexpensive white paint, sings hymns as she uses her fingers to spread pigment and creates Cezanne-like still lifes of fruit and flowers. As her skill grows, so do the sizes of her canvases and so too her subject matter. Tangles of foliage that are lush and dense, undulating and otherworldly but at the same time precise. Powerful and hypnotic, but devotional works in her eyes only.

She becomes the cleaning lady for Wilhelm Uhde (Ulrich Tukur), a German art collector staying in Senlis and a champion of Picasso and Rousseau who sees in Séraphine the same out-of-step, self-taught genius that probably won’t be appreciated until years later. Separated by WWI, then reunited years later, throughout the film Séraphine and Uhde carry on a pithy, intuitive relationship. “Do I look like the type to mock?” he asks. Her reply, “…a bit.” Uhde, a gay man living in another country whose artist lover dies, perhaps understands Séraphine’s deliberate separateness like no one else can. Séraphine’s past is never fully gone into, and the film is the better for it, but the vision from on high that fuels Séraphine’s art pulls her in two directions: towards the desire for more of the small financial success she’s found and to the fevered completion of this artistic mission given by the angels.

Not bravura cinema like Pollock or Lust for Life and leaving a good portion of clichés in that mixed bag, Séraphine has its own delicate holy fire. – [DVD]

Biography/Drama/War

Not Rated

DVD Release Date: 3/23/10

Lately I’ve been a bit vexed by the phrase “action movie.” Of all the genres into which films are categorized, it might be the most nebulous and perhaps most likely to disappoint those who seek it. What exactly defines an action flick? A cynic might say that an action picture is one that uses violence to entertain or exhilarate–but not disturb–its audience. The presence of gunplay, pithy one-liners and martial arts make the classification much easier, to be sure. But some of what I consider to be among the best action movies ever made–like Buster Keaton’s The General or Pixar’s The Incredibles–would rarely be found on an action shelf next to something like The Hunt for Red October, an exhilarating but deceptively dialogue-driven film which in fact has very little “action” in it.

When it comes to the Iraq War, there hasn’t been much appetite in this country for film dramatizations at all, much less action movies. There have been few attempts in Hollywood to thread the needle between proselytizing and exploitation to examine the war in a compelling but apolitical fashion. I would argue that the best war films throughout the decades have been those that eschew the grand scope and politics of a conflict and focus instead on a small group of characters and follow their story–or, more aptly, their mission. And finally we get a film set in the Iraq War (specifically post-invasion 2004) that has that focus. Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker is maybe the first great Iraq War film not because it condemns the conflict, but rather that it uses it as a backdrop for a premise that is self-evidently fascinating. And it respects the professionalism of American soldiers without holding them up as saints.

It’s an old story, in many ways–a bomb squad story. The bomb squad is Bravo Company, reeling from the loss of its leader (Guy Pearce) to a remote-detonated IED (improvised explosive device), witnessed in the film’s prologue. As his replacement, the team absorbs Staff Sergeant William James (Jeremy Renner), one of the best and most authentic characters ever to inhabit a war film. Sgt. James is a hotshot bomb-disposer, tasked with disarming IEDs and any unexploded ordnance that the U.S. Army comes across, communicating via a radio in his heavy bombsuit with his teammates, Sgt. J.T. Sanborn and Specialist Eldridge (Anthony Mackie and Brian Geraghty). Sanborn and Eldridge are alarmed when they discover that James is prone to ditch his suit and put himself (and them) at severe risk in order to tackle the explosives with a monomaniacal obsession. There’s a quote from Alfred Hitchcock, which I’ll paraphrase: “Put a bomb under a table where people are playing cards. If the bomb goes off, that’s action. If it doesn’t, that’s suspense.” The Hurt Locker has both.

Bigelow and her films have long been well-regarded, but this may be the film that makes her the first female director to win an Oscar. Her camera work here is appropriately documentary-style, with many handheld shots following the soldiers around suspicious corners. I’m happy to say that if you get nauseous during these scenes, it’s probably not from the bouncing of the frame–it’s more likely to be the knot in your stomach when you watch Sgt. James follow a wire from a dusty brass shell-casing to its ingenious detonator. Everything in Hurt Locker is tactile and atmospheric, and it rewards those like myself who love the taste of a film rich with texture and detail. The fact that I spotted several anachronisms (believe it or not, Youtube, black iPods and the Xbox 360 did not exist in 2004) is more a credit to the attention it drew from my eyes rather than a fatal blemish to break the spell. – [DVD] [Blu-Ray]

Action/Drama/Thriller/War

Rated R

DVD Release Date: 1/12/10

Adam Resurrected was an Israeli novel that director Paul Schrader loved and decided to film. The novel and film attempt to capture the Holocaust and it’s reverberations through a different, more dream-like lens than previous attempts at the subject. Goldblum plays Adam Stein, a Holocaust survivor living in an institute for mentally disturbed survivors, in Israel’s Negev desert. Stein is indeed disturbed, as we come to realize through a series of flashbacks, but he is also something of a magical charismatic – he’s able to cause himself injury simply by concentrating, the head nurse openly desires him, and the administrating doctor nearly idolizes him. All of this could easily have turned into farce, but as portrayed by Goldblum and directed by the criminally underrated Schrader, I found every moment fascinating and new.

I’ve always had a soft spot for Jeff Goldblum, and hoped he could someday find a part that would fit his eccentric brand of intellectual physicality, and this is it. The story demands a powerful, all-consuming presence in the center of the frame, and I really can’t imagine anyone else filling it – his is really bravura acting.

Paul Schrader is the most underrated director working today. The only work he ever gets credit for are his original script for Taxi Driver and his learned studies of auteurist theory. Some of his other wonderful films are The Comfort of Strangers, Mishima, Auto Focus, Affliction, and Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist. He has also written a vast number of scripts for other directors, including Raging Bull and The Last Temptation of Christ. Be sure to notice Schrader’s fluid, almost liquid camera movements throughout Adam Resurrected, especially one, at around the 25-minute mark, when he employs a swooping, gliding single take as Adam looks for the “dog.” – [DVD]

Drama/War

Rated R

DVD Release Date: 9/22/09