These Movies Matter
DVDS Worth Watching, Feb 21, 2007
How to Get the Films We Recommend:
Sources for the movie titles we recommend can be found by clicking the "read full review" link at the end of each critique below.
Featured Title(s)
A PECK ON THE CHEEK, 2002, 123 min., Subtitles, Color
Genre: Drama
Release Data: February, 2007 (Canada Only)
Director(s): Mani Rathnam (or Ratnam)
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What It's About: The story of Amudha, an adored and precocious little girl who lives a happy life with her middle-class Indian parents. Her father is a famous author and her mother is a well-known Indian newscaster. Amudha may be the bright star of her family but she is also a bit of a troublesome prankster and a know-it-all at school. The film opens on the dawn of her ninth birday when she dreams of presents and being the center of attention – even more than usual. However, her parents seem troubled and indeed it turns out they have had a longstanding pact to inform her that she was adopted on the day she turns nine. Amudha is at the age when her natural curiosity about life is at its peak and this throws her world into turmoil. Shocked and disbelieving, she wants to find her real parents. It turns out that her adopted family rescued her with the blessings of her biological family who were Tamils seeking to escape the civil war in Sri Lanka. The circumstances of the search unfold so that the whole family ends up travelling to that war-torn country and the personal, intimate focus of the first part of the film is transformed into the much larger canvas of civil war.
What to Look For: Director Mani Ratnam is known for his intricate studies of the human condition that unfold from personal intimate stories into vast panoramic epics and this film is not exception. It’s a story at once poignant and explosive that showcases for Tamil director’s ability to bridge the gap between serious "art" and popular "commercial" entertainment, between small, personal stories and issues of great social and political importance. Amudha's situation is quite common around the world and the universality of the themes of adoption and war should strike a chord for many viewers. It may not be a genre of cinema with which you are family but we highly recommended it both as a musical entertainment and as an exploration of what civil war does to a people and a country. And it's not often you can see both in one film!
Why It Matters: Indian films are meant to entertain a vast public and they do this by employing the genre conventions a traditional audience expects. This film is no exception using the magic of song and dance to tell us things about the characters impossible to reveal with dialogue. The exuberant musical interludes are used to indicate desires that might otherwise be censored, and to provide a third-party commentary on what's happening. In this case, they are the best that a big budget can buy and provide a feast of colour and rhythm for the senses to rest in while the story unfolds. Lush cinematography and panoramic camerawork compliment the work of Keerthana, the spirited child actress who plays Amudha.
Available on all-region dvd from USA Indian film specialists www.nehaflix.com or from UK distributors Ayngaran (original Tamil films from original copyright holders): e-sales.ac/ayngaran (Tip: Pick "films on dvd" at left and then search alphabetically by the Indian name of the film: Kannathil Muthamittal)
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AFTER INNOCENCE, 2005, 95 min., Color
Genre: Documentary
Release Data: February 2007 (US Only)
Director(s): Jessica SandersBuy Now
What It's About: A devastating documentary that examines the cases of seven men wrongly convicted of murder and rape, but exonerated many years later by the admission of DNA evidence into the courts. The filmmaker follows the men through the difficulties they encounter in overturning their convictions, their release and their ensuing struggles to transition back into society.
What to Look For: This film confirms many of our worst fears about the American criminal-justice system. Imagine how you would feel if the best years – possibly even decades – of your life had been lost to a wrongful conviction. Especially when research now points to mistaken identity as the most common factor leading to a wrongful conviction – even the most positive of eye-witnesses can be wrong. The physical and psychological toll on a person unjustly imprisoned for decades is staggering. But here, the bitterness, despair and even rage that you might expect is tempered by a sense of gratitude resulting from the seemingly miraculous. This is a film you should not miss.
Why It Matters: The individual stories and circumstances and the roadblocks put up in their way by justice officials, who are at pains to maintain the original convictions -- the state, after all, does not want to admit that it was wrong. In fact, the pursuit of justice in many of these cases often seems secondary to the drama of competing lawyers and the desire of prosecutors to win at all costs, not to mention protecting their reputations. In perhaps the most moving case, the state opposed release because the man’s DNA tests were taken five years before the law provided for such testing. The state opposed his motions on procedural grounds for three years and let him know that they would be against his release from prison even if he were found innocent!
Another aspect to watch for is the difficulties the men have when they try to re-enter society. One man served 10 1/2 years for a rape he did not commit. After eight years of freedom he has still not been able to find full-time employment and his criminal record has not been expunged. I the case of Scott Hornoff, a former Rhode Island police officer who served six and a half years of a life sentence for first-degree murder, the court upheld his appeal to win back his job and his back pay – but the police department immediately appealed the decision. He is now a staunch advocate for the innocent. The film also addresses the question of compensation after wrongful imprisonment. Unlike paroled prisoners, who have a network of social services to help them re-enter society, the exonerated have little guidance or support.
Notes: This film was made in collaboration with the Innocence Project, a non-profit legal clinic founded by two lawyers at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in Manhattan. Since its founding in 1992, the Project has expanded into the Innocence Network, a growing nationwide group of law schools, journalism schools and public defender's offices.
For more information, go to the Innocence Project website at: www.innocenceproject.org.
Available on DVD through our listed on-line sources
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Recommended Titles
RIDING ALONE FOR THOUSANDS OF MILES, 2005, 107 min., Subtitles, Color
Genre: Drama
Release Data: February 2007
Director(s): Zhang Yimou (House of Flying Daggers, Hero, Raise the Red Lantern)Buy Now
What It's About: Gou-ichi Takata, a taciturn fisherman from a remote Japanese fishing village, has always had trouble communicating emotions and has been estranged from his son, Ken-ichi for many years. When his daughter-in-law, Rie, calls from Tokyo to say that Ken has been diagnosed with terminal cancer, Takata immediately hastens to his son’s bedside – but Ken refuses to see him. Rie, hoping to give the older man a glimpse into his son’s life and work, gives him a rough-cut of a documentary about rural Chinese folk opera that Ken was working on. Feeling that he cannot repair their relationship karma in person, Takata decides on an alternative: he will go to Yunnan and complete his son's film.Once in China a series of obstacles and relationships bring him unexpectedly closer to both an understanding of himself and of his son.
The film reveals Ken’s passion for rural Chinese folk opera, and particularly the elusive Li Jiamin, a famous Chinese Opera star who plays himself in the film, and who is the star of the masked opera that gives this movie its name – the story of a person who journeys a great distance on behalf of a friend. Ken was not able to catch Li on camera and the star turns out to now be in jail for assault resulting from drink. Despite his own difficulties with the language and the always-amusing short-comings of his interpreter, Takata manages to convince the local bureaucrats of the sincerity of his wish to film Li as a tribute to his dying son. He gains access to the prisoner, but when he explains his story to Li the singer breaks down and is unable to perform. It turns out that he himself has a son whom he has not seen for eight years. Takata decides to visit the village where the boy lives and re-unite this father and son. But this project too reveals unexpected twists of fate. Nonetheless, Takata has found the gateway to the appreciation of goodness in both himself and others – which seems to be the main point of the film.
What to Look For: This is the perfect story of a taciturn, unforgiving father whose last minute realization of just what his estrangement from his son really means sets him on an odyssey of discovery in which the goodness of others becomes his own path to awakening. The idea of healing one’s own emotional shortcomings through contact with a foreign culture’s folk art is a delightful concept that allows for some wonderfully comic moments and helps to make this a warm and affecting film on the theme that it is never too late to open your heart. And indeed, by the end of the story, our hero is
full of appreciation for all those who have helped him along the “thousands of miles” of his journey.
Why It Matters: Pay attention to the variety of challenges, both emotional and physical, that face Takata on his adventure in China. Note the way the director reveals the emotions of the characters. And enjoy the juxtaposition of reality and appearance in such scenes as the one where one of the bureaucrats suggests that Takata find a substitute to sing for Li since the role is traditionally performed wearing a mask and – well, who will know…. Beyond the story of a sort of idealized China, you will enjoy the spectacular scenery which is captured with particularly gorgeous cinematography.
Available on DVD through our listed on-line sources
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THE SCIENCE OF SLEEP, 2006, 106 min., Subtitles, Color
Genre: Drama
Release Data: February 2007
Director(s): Michel GondryBuy Now
What It's About: A perfectly realistic fantasy that explores the relationship of the dream world to our everyday logical existence. The starting point is the inner world of Stephane, a young man who arrives in Paris from Mexico to stay with his recently widowed mother. Adrift between the worlds of waking and sleeping, he is already confusing dream and reality when he is, literally, hit on the head by the neighbour’s piano. And so he meets Stephanie and falls in love. Stephanie has a charming strangeness that is at once seductive and a catalyst for the arising of doubt, jealousy and confusion. Their awkward flirtation produces no logical story-line, but rather a narrative that moves sideways as well as forward, revising and contradicting itself as it goes along. An approach that may be the only way in which to tell a love story, a narrative made up of memories, fantasies, projections and misperceptions whose cohesion does not conform to any conventional structure.
What to Look For: This is a movie that uses dreams to explore how our minds work in relationships. Stephane believes he has found a kindred spirit who shares the same world he does, but is this a love story of two people or of one? This young man is in love with love and so obsessed with his own world that details of the other are redundant. And yet, the divide of logical reality remains: he can’t see her in his dreams, and she seems to show little interest in forming the deep bond of a significant other. The fugitive, ephemeral quality of the dream-world is hard to remember, and so the story that seemed so clear in sleep, now seems labyrinthine in the clear light of day. In exploring how these two worlds might mingle this film defies the logic of a conventional plot-line. It is beautiful, complex and often humorous, but like others of this genre (Terry Gilliam’s Brazil, for example) you may want to see it more than once.
Why It Matters: Note the director’s astonishing creation of a world in which time moves in moebius loops allowing both the obverse and the inverse of an occurrence to both be true at the same time. And, wonder of wonders, despite the disregard for linear logic, traditional film grammar and narrative coherence, his creation comes across as a perfectly realistic slice of life. Here, the real world and the dream world are brought to life with the same visual flare that the director employs in his Bjork and Beck music videos. And the playful yet magical effect is all achieved without reference to CGI and other high-tech sleight-of-hand.
Available on DVD through our listed on-line sources
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Classics
LAND OF LOOK BEHIND, 1982, 90 min., Color
Genre: Documentary
Release Data: February 2007
Director(s): Alan GreenbergBuy Now
This realistic and moving documentary has become a classic of the Rastafarian movement and the way it sought to change the political landscape of Jamaica. At the time of its release, it passed almost unnoticed due to poor distribution and unimaginative reviews that considered the whole thing as a creation seen through a potent haze of pot. Despite its unique mix of epic vision, quasi-dramatic elements and cinematographic wizardry, the main reason to see this film remains the music – a fabulous sound-track by Bob Marley & The Wailers, Gregory Isaacs and many other reggae greats. Included are the only official documentation of Marley's funeral, plus exclusive footage of his family, friends and fellow musicians. The story is book-ended by sequences shot in Trelawney Parish’s Look Behind forest – the place where rastas smoke overlooking the Caribbean horizon that separates them from Africa, and which gives the film its name. Thus what began as an exploration of Bob Marley's contributions to Jamaican music and life becomes a meditation on the island's music and religion, its traditions and its pride, and some of the inhabitants’ hopes for the future.
Notes: The DVD includes a commentary by Werner Herzog (Fitzcarraldo, Grizzly Man) – who is said to consider it his favourite film – and director Alan Greenberg (author of Heart of Glass).
Available on DVD through our listed on-line sources
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KING LEAR (Korol Lear), 1969, 139 min., Subtitles, BW
Genre: Drama
Release Data: February 2007 (US Only)
Director(s): Grigori Kosintsev and Iosif ShapiroBuy Now
A generalized picture of a civilization heading towards doom
Director, Grigori Kozintsev
Considered one of the best adaptations of Shakespeare’s tragedy King Lear, this is an assured and deeply moving treatment of the tale of an aging monarch transported into madness following the division of his kingdom. Here the story is transposed to a sparse landscape of moors and marshes, which provides an eerie backdrop to barely limned castles and roaming bands of ragged, destitute wanderers. Filtered through a Communist perspective, which emphasises the catastrophic impact of feudal misrule upon the country's starving masses, the film achieves an epic grandeur that is highlighted by the stark monochromatic landscape.
Tall and thin, Russian actor Yuri Yarvet gives a consummate performance as the medieval king who, in the frailty of his declining years, is forced to confront the suffering of his people and later, in the chaos of military defeat, his own descent into the ranks of the dispossessed. The unfolding of the story provides the director – a peer of the great Russian cinéast, Sergei Eisenstein (Ten Days That Shook the World, Battleship Potemkin) – with an opportunity to show his mastery of cinematic technique, while the score by the great Russian classical composer, Dmitri Shostakovich, provides the perfect accompaniment to the stunning visuals.
Notes: For other adaptations of the same subject see:
King of Texas, On a Clear Day, Ran
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KING OF TEXAS (King Lear), 2002, 95 min., Color
Director(s): Uli EdelBuy Now
Transplanting King Lear to a Texas cattle ranch may seem like a risky proposition, but in this case the result is a satisfying interpretation with a good cast and a plot that closely follows the original. An aging cattle baron, John Lear, divides his vast spread among his three daughters igniting a a sibling blood feud and divided loyalties in this volatile Wild West retelling - Shakespeare with six guns….
DVD available through larger specialty video stores and the bigger on-line sources
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ON A CLEAR DAY, 2005, 98 min., Color
Genre: Drama
Release Data: June 2006 (Canada Only)
Director(s): Gaby DellalBuy Now
Frank Redmond (the wonderful Peter Mullan), is declared redundant and laid off his job after half a lifetime spent working as a ship builder in the Glasgow Clyde-side shipyards. Now, with time on his hands, he has to face his inner torments. Meanwhile, he can’t find a job and his embarrassment is only heightened when he applies for unemployment benefits, and discovers that it’s his sister-in-law behind the counter. The moment of crisis comes when he is hospitalized with a panic attack that seems to move his whole world out of a long-time rut. Frank’s wife, Joan (Brenda Blethyn), secretly decides the time has come to take the test and become a bus driver, while his male buddies bond into a kind of Greek chorus whose leader, the local takeaway shop owner Chan (Benedict Wong), states: "A gem cannot be polished without friction, or a man perfected without trials." On the road to recovery, Frank starts to swim. One day, impulsively, he swims the River Clyde and a plan to reclaim his dignity begins to take shape in his mind: he will swim the English Channel. He trains in secret, supported by the “chorus” – but as the big day draws near, there is a sea change as he re-discovers the depth of his love and compassion and makes friends again with his wife and son. This is The Full Monty as “the big swim” with Frank swimming from one part of his life to another. Excellent acting and a quirky wit provide an enjoyable evening’s viewing.
Available on DVD in Canada only through our listed on-line sources
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Worth a Mention
THE FESTIVAL - THE COMPLETE FIRST SEASON, 2005-6, 132 min., Color
Genre: TV mini-series
Release Data: February 2007
Director(s): Phil PriceBuy Now
Just as the general populace used to be obsessed with the hidden lives of kings, queens and the nobility, so we have become enthralled by the world of movie-making – and festivals are the place where we can buy a ticket and mingle a little with this current manifestation of a royal court. Most of the year it’s a sealed world whose machinations are a mystery but at a festival the red carpet rolls out and we can enter into the magic. At least this is the way it used to be. However, today the magic is giving place to buzz, bucks and making it big – and the festival scene is ripe for the satire provided in this self-described “mockumentary” TV series from the Independent Film Channel (IFC). And so we find ourselves accompanying fictional documentarian Cookie Armstrong as she follows the progress of budding filmmaker Rufus Marquez. Rufus is shepherding his directorial debut The Unreasonable Truth of Butterflies through M.U.F.F. – the Mountain United Film Festival – with the goal of emerging with a firm distribution deal. His main problem is that no one has seen his film – a detail which turns out not to matter as the more no one sees it, the hotter the buzz becomes; until, somehow, his “masterpiece” goes missing…. A hilarious and all-too-realistic spoof of today’s festival phenomenon, which is by turns witty and obnoxious…and always entertaining.
Available on DVD through our listed on-line sources
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ICI NAJAC A VOUS LA TERRE (Najac Calling Over to You Earth), 2006, 97 min., Subtitles, Color
Genre: Documentary
Release Data: February 2007 (Canada Only)
Director(s): Jean-Henri MeunierBuy Now
This film is a message in a bottle thrown into the world ocean in an effort to reach around the globe to all those who seek to encourage peace and respect for our planet. The place is Najac, a small town in the Aveyron region of France where the director and his family have made their home for the past ten years. An unofficial “slow” village this is a place where quirky inhabitants and delightful animals are open to displaying their varied personalities as they move through their lives. However, Najac is not isolated from the contemporary world and its problems: many of the villagers are deeply engaged in issues of sustainable development and environmental health; they are protesting the proposed dumping of nuclear waste in the area; and they are becoming aware of how weed killer is decimating the wildflowers that used to flourish on the roadside. Quirky, playful and filled with poetry and good humour, this is a film that offers us some hope and the possibility of actually living our deeper dreams.
Notes: This film takes us deeper into the life of Najac which was begun in the director’s acclaimed 2004 documentary As Life Goes By
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Better Mainstream
Mentioned but not reviewed – these popular titles don’t really need us to publicize them, but we want you to know they’re now available on DVD.
CATCH A FIRE, 2006, 102 min., Color
Genre: Drama
Release Data: February 2007
Director(s): Philip NoyceBuy Now
Available on DVD through our listed on-line sources
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FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS, 2006, 132 min., Color
Genre: Drama
Release Data: February 2007
Director(s): Clint EastwoodBuy Now
Available on DVD through our listed on-line sources
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MISTRESS OF SPICES, 2006, 96 min., Color
Genre: Drama
Release Data: February 2007 (Canada Only)
Director(s): Paul Mayeda BergesBuy Now
Available on DVD through our listed on-line sources
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