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Dutch doors

It's official. Three festivals behind, reviews-wise, in the midst of grading finals, and the cinetrix doesn't know whether she's coming or going. Tex Avery's Little Rural Red Riding Hood will have to tide you over, I'm afraid. [Just check out the swinging Règle de Jeu door action in minute two!]

This clip goes out to the 'Fesser and his Global South, Dirty South students [with thanks to the TCM blog for reminding me of its jaw-dropping genius].

IFFB: The Brothers Bloom

Hello from the Hub, a Boston nickname that sits much better with the cinetrix than, say, "Beantown." After a day spent diligently grading papers offline at the Diesel Cafe in Davis Square, I thought I'd get down a few thoughts about Rian Johnson's sophomore effort, The Brothers Bloom, before the overwhelming offerings at this year's iteration of the Independent Film Festival of Boston wash them away.

Longtime readers may remember I was disappointed by Johnson's first feature, Brick, finding the concept outstripped the execution. So I was wary heading into the Somerville Theatre last night. Would Johnson take his place alongside Todd Solondz in my world as a filmmaker with a gift for premises I find alluring until I figure out who's behind the camera?

Yes and no. Points in the confidence men tragi-comedy's favor: the cast and narrators. Cuddly indie boy Mark Ruffalo plays overconfident elder brother Stephen to living Giacometti Adrien Brody's melancholy Bloom.* Longtime [March 1993 West End revival of Noel Coward's Design for Living] girl crush Rachel Weisz is their daffy rich-girl mark, Penelope, and scholar of scams Ricky Jay narrates the opening sequence, detailing the orphaned brothers' peripatetic childhood conning the "playground bourgeoise." Check, check, and check.

Then there's secret weapon [munitions grade] Rinko Kikuchi as Bang Bang. Penelope's madcap clothes are frequently covetable, but Bang Bang's wardrobe seemingly originates in a parallel universe, one I'd like to move to post haste. But even those threads take a distant second to the incredibly sly and almost entirely wordless performance Kikuchi delivers. She simultaneously anchors a frequently feather-weight plot and sends it into an absurdist stratosphere with a single eyeroll.

But about that plot. The brothers have risen to the top of their chosen profession, but Bloom, the front man for Stephen's elaborate long cons, yearns for what he calls "an unscripted life." He manages one for all of three drunken months on the coast of Montenegro before Stephen summons him to New Jersey for a final con that promises to give all parties what they want.

The mark is Penelope, another orphan and a heiress, who whiles away her lonely days wrecking banana yellow Lamborghinis and collecting "hobbies," which are rendered in a montage that smacks of Rushmore's Max Fischer and Edward Scissorhands. Did I mention she's epileptic?

Anyway, Penelope takes the bait and follows the "antique dealer" brothers to sea on a steamer named Fidele. On board she is approached by a mysterious Belgian named Melville and, rather than taking his warnings about Stephen and Bloom's past seriously, blithely remarks on the odd coincidence of meeting him on craft named after the ship in Melville's The Confidence Man. This after absent-mindedly doing card tricks while talking with Bloom that'd put Jean Harrington's card-sharping skills to shame. It's that kind of movie, kids.

In fact, The Brothers Bloom is drunk on its cinematic antecedents, which makes it mostly a charming affair as it bounces from Europe to Mexico to the United States to St. Petersburg. But for every pleasurable quotation -- thrill as the brothers battle in a shadowy sequence that swipes its canted angles, if not its femme fatale, from Out of the Past's cabin in the woods! -- there's a tin-earred echo of another film that pulled me right out of the story. Underscoring Bloom's first day with Penelope to Bob Dylan's froggy Nashville Skyline track "Tonight, I'll Be Staying Here With You" just made me wonder what the music rights must've cost this indie. Signaling Bloom and Penelope's growing affection for each other with Cat Stevens' "Miles From Nowhere" was far worse. Quirky romance. We get it.

Perhaps more distracting on a subliminal level was some awkward cutting during conversations. Continuity error or poorly executed intentional abandonment of the 180-degree rule? Got me, but it was particularly jarring during an early scene between Brody's Bloom and Brick femme fatale Nora Zehetner. And I'm still not sure about the tonal shift -- is this just another con or is it really happening? -- at the end.

Yet, with all my day-later critiques, I can't help feeling affection for this cock-eyed movie. All potential "sophomore slumps" should be this winning.

*What I'd really like to know is why Johnson opted to swipe his characters' names -- Stephen, Bloom, Penelope -- from Joyce's Ulysses. If I manage to buttonhole him [if he hasn't headed back to New York already], I'll be sure to ask.

A Time for Bahman Ghobadi and Roxana Saberi

  A brief explanatory note: Imprisoned Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi translated for her fiance, filmmaker Bahman Ghobadi, when we spoke with them via Skype at the Flaherty Seminar last June [after Ghobadi was denied a visa to come to the U.S. to participate]. Today he released the following open letter regarding Saberi's arrest, conviction, and imprisonment.

"To Roxana Saberi, Iranian with an American passport"

If I kept quiet until now, it was for her sake. If today I speak, it is for her sake.

She is my friend, my fiancée, and my companion. An intelligent and talented young woman, whom I have always admired.

It was the 31st of January. The day of my birthday. That morning, she called to say she would pick me up so we would go out together. She never came. I called on her mobile, but it was off, and for two-three days I had no idea what had happened to her. I went to her apartment, and since we had each other's keys, I went in, but she wasn't there. Two days later, she called and said: "Forgive me my dear; I had to go to Zahedan." I got angry: why hadn't she said anything to me? I told her I didn't believe her, and again she said: "Forgive me my dear, I had to go." And the line was cut. I waited for her to call back. But she didn't call back. She didn't call back.

I left for Zahedan. I looked for her in every hotel, but nobody had ever heard her name. For ten days, thousands of wild thoughts came to my mind. Until I learned, through her father, she had been arrested. I thought it was a joke.

I thought it was a misunderstanding and that she would be released after two or three days. But days went by and I had no news from her. I started to worry and knocked on every door for help, until I understood what had happened.

It is with tears in my eyes that I say she is innocent and guiltless. It is me, who has known her for years, and shared every moment with her, who declares it. She was always busy reading and doing her research. Nothing else. During all these years I've known her, she wouldn't go anywhere without letting me know, nor would do anything without asking my advice. To her friends, her family, everyone that surrounded her, she had given no signs of unreasonable behavior. How come someone who would spend days without going out of her apartment, except to see me; someone who, like a Japanese lady, would carefully spend her money, and had sometimes trouble making a living; someone who was looking for a sponsor to get in contact with a local publisher so her book would be printed here (in Iran); could now be charged with a spying accusation?! We all know – no, we have all seen in movies – that spies are malicious and sneaky, that they peep around for information, and that they are very well paid.

And now my heart is full of sorrow. Because it is me who incited her to stay here. And now I can't do anything for her. Roxana wanted to leave Iran. I kept her from it.

At the beginning of our relationship, she wanted to go back to the United States. She would have liked us to go together. But I insisted for her to stay until my new film was over. She really wanted to leave Iran. And I kept her from it. And now I am devastated, for it is because of me she has been subject to these events. These past years, I have been subject to a serious depression. Why? Because my movie had been banned, and released on the black market. My next movie was not given an authorization, and I was forced to stay at home. If I've been able to stand it until today, it is thanks to the presence and help that she provided me with.

Since I had no authorization for my last movie, I was nervous and ill-tempered. And she was always there to calm me down.

Roxana wanted to leave Iran. I kept her from it. She is the one who took care of me while I was depressed. Then I convinced her to stay, I wanted her to write the book she had started in her head. I accompanied her, and thanks to my friends and contacts, I knocked on every door and was able to set up meetings with film makers, artists, sociologists, politics, and others. I would go with her myself.
She was absorbed by her book, to the point that she could stay and bear it all, until my film would be finished, and we would leave together.

Roxana's book was a praise to Iran. The manuscripts exist, and it will certainly be published one day, and all will see it. But why have they said nothing? All those who have talked, worked and sat with her, and who know how guiltless she is.

I am writing this letter for I am worried about her. I am worried about her health. I heard she was depressed and cried all the time. She is very sensitive. To the point she refuses to touch her food.

My letter is a desperate call to all statesmen and politics, and to all those who can do something to help. From the other side of the ocean, the Americans have protested against her imprisonment, because she is an American citizen. But I say no, she is Iranian, and she loves Iran. I beg you, let her go! I beg you not to throw her in the midst of you political games! She is too weak and too pure to take part in your games. Let me be present at her trial, sit next to her wise father and gentle mother, and testify she is without guilt or reproach.

However, I am optimistic about her release, and I firmly hope the verdict will be cancelled in the next stage of the trial.

My Iranian girl with Japanese eyes and an American ID, is in jail. Shame on me! Shame on us!

Bahman Ghobadi

April 21st, 2009.

Indie Grits Film Festival 2009

Where have I gotten to? So glad you asked. I could launch into a litany of tax prep/end-of-the-semester woes, but instead let me direct your attention to the rockingest regional festival in the U.S. and A.: Indie Grits. And I'd say that even if they hadn't invited me to spend the greater part of last week in Columbia, S.C., serving on the jury.

Now in its third year, Indie Grits is the brainchild of the staff of the Nickelodeon [South Carolina's only indie theatre, I believe] and the wonderful Amy Shumaker of PBS doc program Southern Lens. Together, director Andy Smith, his codirector Tori Katherman, and their plucky interns pull off the most difficult of balancing acts, programming a festival that is not merely a local version of SXSW but instead draws work from regional makers and on regional subjects.

And they know how to show out-of-towners a good time -- I'm exhausted. For a blow-by-blow accounting of this year's fest by my alter alter ego, click here.

Rear projection

The cinetrix is head down with grading and taxes, so why not spend some time with John Waters? There's a dear.

"I'm convinced that people don't remember movies, they remember stills that they've seen over and over in books so I try to photograph things in movies that you are never supposed to see."

FFDFF 2009

Greetings from Durham, where the cinetrix has ducked out of the excitement downtown at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival for a moment to loll by the pool at the hotel and enjoy the night air.

I gotta say, this chaise lounge is a sight more comfortable than the seating in the temporary screening rooms dubbed Cinemas 3 and 4 in the Convention Center. Oh for the chair massages they offered in the press room at sxsw. In the years I've been coming to Full Frame, they've experimented with any number of ancillary venues in addition to the majestic Fletcher Hall in the Carolina Theatre--the Armory, the American Tobacco Campus--even briefly [and unsuccessfully] the Durham School for the Arts.

But the drawbacks of Convention Center have loomed large this year. Forget the uncomfortable generic hotel conference chairs. The rake of the risers and the relatively low-slung screen means God help you if the film is subtitled. For example, The Swindler, which is the movie I just saw. Having had good luck with similar scam artist flicks in years past--Lucio and Forbidden Lie$, most recently--I was looking forward to the story of a con artist who, among other things, passed himself off as a Catholic archbishop in Malmo, Sweden. Once the picture started, though, there was a great rustling and shifting in the house as viewers craned to read the titles or relocated to the floors at either side of the room. I was glad the filmmakers weren't there.

This post is coming across perhaps more negative than I mean to, and I have grand plans to write actual reviews of the wonderful films I've seen after I get some sleep. But! I've been both cognizant of and cautious about attributing any off notes at this year's festival to the regime change at the top. It's Peg Palmer's first full year in charge, yes, but am I more likely to assign fault to the new team because I know there is one? Who can say? All I do know is that I've never encountered such difficulties seeing films. You can pick up all your tickets for each day first thing in the morning, but by 10 a.m., and often earlier, the response is often that many films are already sold out. That's great for the festival. What's odd is that it doesn't feel like there are as many people here this year. This is a phenomenon worthy of further investigation, and I'll be sure to gather anecdotal evidence at tonight's rumored unofficial late-night dance party at the Pinhook. More anon.