Filmfest Hamburg: Club Sándwich

Mexican writer/director Fernando Eimbcke's mother-son relationship dramedy "Club Sándwich" feels like a short film not only because it barely squeezes past the 80-minute mark, but also because of the singularity of its focus and the intimacy of its setting. The logistical limitations notwithstanding, it's hard not to be charmed by something which stokes such genuine emotions with empathy, humor and sweetness to spare.

Smartly choosing a holiday resort in off-season as location, there's a strong sense of place to the movie. Whether tanning by the pool or having room service in their beds, you're keenly aware of the isolation of these two vacationers, stranded in a paradise of brilliant boredom with only the company of the other. And while the mom is having the time of her life spending day and night with her favorite guy, you get the idea the milky, chubby son just hitting puberty is getting restless underneath his still babyishly perfect skin. Everything changes, of course, when the girl enters the picture.

Like a coming-of-age story told from dual perspectives, this film is as much about the boy's discovery of sexuality and independence as about his mother's devastating realization that they'll soon be two instead of one. Written with an observant eye and great sympathy at heart, the screenplay is peppered with authentic, adorable details first establishing the well-oiled, self-sustaining partnership of this single-parent-only-child duo, then cracking that exclusive bond ever wider open with the arrival of the pretty young thing. A game of punishment late in the film where the older woman tries with infantile desperation to yank the attention of her son away from this other, suddenly infinitely more interesting person is so endearingly pathetic you can hardly bear to watch.

Lucio Giménez Cacho plays the teenager on the cusp of adulthood with appropriate impassivity. It's the occasional little gestures of curiosity or rapture that betray the hormones at work behind that mask of cool nonchalance. María Renée Prudencio is very affecting as the jealous-turned-despairing mother unprepared to watch her most prized possession drift away. A scene near the end where she goes to buy chips by herself will probably break the heart of every mom in the world.

Altogether the movie still gives the impression of being slight and unfinished, but as a yearnful, melancholic mood piece it is really quite lovely.

Filmfest Hamburg: Ξενία (Xenia)

Greek writer/director Panos H. Koutras' tragicomic road movie "Ξενία (Xenia)" is disorganized in conception and even clunkier in execution. Throwing one too many themes into the mix without a consolidated plot where everything has its place turns it into a hodgepodge of sorts lacking any real bite.

The journey of the two teenage boys to find their biological father in Athens is eventful all right, but whether the participation of one brother in a talent contest, the mobbing and gun-shooting incident, or the interlude with the hospitable uncle who may or may not be more than just a good friend of their mother, the numerous intervals are not embedded in a meaningful story arc nor presented with enough subtlety to be dramatically effective. The odyssey is further paved with plenty of camp elements, from a dreamy, moonlit cruise liner carrying a diva singing her heart out to several impromptu karaoke numbers or dance routines, but none of them has the sophistication or really goes over the top to milk noteworthy guilty pleasure. There are a few aesthetic highlights in the film, where fantastical creature or atmosphere are featured to take the focus temporarily out of the ugly reality, but overall this is not a particularly good-looking picture. Acting-wise, Kostas Nikouli plays a convincing part flaunting the tight pants and the lollipops, but this character is written with too little coherence to be much more than a colorful caricature.

On the one hand being unapologetically shrill and blunt, on the other attempting a nuanced attack on the geopolitical, sexual and identity politics of modern-day Greece, the movie most likely has its heart in the right place, but what ends up on screen is so middling in every way it fails even being a hot mess.

Gone Girl

David Fincher's "Gone Girl" starts off rather rockily but recovers in a significantly better second half to deliver a more than worthy adaptation of Gillian Flynn's manipulative, coarsely satisfying bestseller. By no means among Fincher's finest work, it's nevertheless a fast-paced, sleekly-executed marital thriller that earns extra points for daring to go to some pretty ugly places.

Staying perhaps detrimentally faithful to the book, the movie is immediately hampered by having to cover too much ground using a more print-friendly parallel narrative structure. The result is something very talky, densely edited and constantly jumping back and forth in time/perspective. While it never gets confusing or less than intriguing as the stage is set for a suspicious missing person's case, there's no room left for the scenes to breathe and brew, so a thicker atmosphere of mystery that memorably shrouded such gems as "Se7en" or "Zodiac" never comes to be. In fact, some rapid-fire exchanges here are so sped up they leave the realm of believability and seem like a parody of themselves. The efficient but unexciting practicality of the approach further extends to the sunny, sober photography unusual for a Fincher film. Coupled with the bland beauty of the two leads Rosamund Pike and Ben Affleck, kept rightfully impenetrable but still very much insipid, and you've got a first half that feels stuffed, even less convincing than its imperfect source material.

If the set-up isn't quite the knock-out, the pay-off, essentially the entire last 75 minutes of the film, aces it. In swift, smoothly practiced motions the evil scheme is revealed right away. But instead of losing steam from the extraction of suspense, you get the sense the movie only now comes alive with the air suddenly spiked with diabolism. The pressing tempo also starts to make sense as the stakes become clear and every passing second a lost opportunity to turn the mind game around. Both Pike and Affleck benefit from acting off other players and the strong suporting cast finally gets something to do here. Neil Patrick Harris plays successfully against type and stands out as the creepily affectionate ex-lover. Sela Ward has but one scene but shows how effective she can be portraying the robotically, viciously pretty. Even Tyler Perry turns out to be a decent casting choice, tuning down his hysterical on-screen persona to bring a mild voice of reason to the mess.

The editing and scoring of the film both come from frequent Fincher collaborators but, as solid as they are, seem comparatively uninspired. Even without feeling as rhythmically immaculate or sounding as fiercely magnetic as "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" or "The Social Network", though, this movie flies by in a heartbeat. And especially in that ending, where the characters each harbor their own calculations and are mutually protected/trapped by the lies and false intentions of the other, it improves tremendously on the book's affectedness through vivid visualization.

Dracula Untold

(Originally appeared in EXBERLINER on Oct. 3, 2014)

Irish director Gary Shore's feature debut "Dracula Untold", about how Transylvanian prince Vlad became the most famour vampire in history, is a serviceable Medieval war movie on its own terms but, in its misguided efforts to nobilize such an iconic figure of evil, also a hopelessly self-defeating cause.

The screenplay follows a very conventional trajectory, seeing the protagonist first confronted with the dilemma of keeping peace or offering his people up as soldiers, then tempted by the dark powers of the undead, and finally swiping out his enemies in full force, but not without making some sacrifices of his own. It's a straightforward stroll with a couple of icky if still passable turns that might be better enjoyed at half cerebral capacity. The biggest selling point of the movie is its often fetching visual design. Beginning with a nifty opening sequence where the camera dashes between warriors frozen in action, the production shows scale and aesthetic appeal. While the look of the movie is definitely not as bleakly gothic as one would hope given the subject matter, it also smartly avoids the garishness characteristic of many mainstream studio pictures in this genre, even if a lot of the exterior or aerial shots still seem overly CG'ed.

The biggest problem of the movie lies in this inexplicable need to sanitize a known and widely adored villain, which could also be observed in Disney's "Maleficent" released earlier this year. The enduring popularity of these characters is largely attributable to their being ruthless and scary. Making them a jilted lover or a doting father only compromises that seductive charm. When Dracula the brave leader and pained family man finally takes that bite near the end and all heroic music breaks loose, Bram Stoker might well be turning in his grave.

Lead actor Luke Evans channels a more mature and likewise expressively challenged Orlando Bloom, looking deadly serious throughout. Sarah Gadon is solid, even if her natural creepiness is wastefully concealed. Veteran actor Charles Dance has it worst appearing as the ancient being from the caves, not only poorly made up and hardly menacing but having to deliver the senseless, embarrassingly derivative film-ending line.      

71st Venice Film Festival report

(Originally appeared in Film International on Sep. 28, 2014)

The Venice Film Festival, the worldwide oldest festival celebrating cinema, ended its 71st run earlier this month (August 27- September 6). Traditionally ranked alongside Cannes and Berlin as one of the most important stops on the cinematic calendar, Venice has seen its profile in the festival world rise and fall in recent times. In the wake of Oscar's time change in 2004, one could observe an upgrade of the glamour factor and corresponding media attention on the Lido, as more and more supposed Oscar contenders with major Hollywood actors chose to launch here, the new designated start of the fall award season. With competing festivals from Toronto and Telluride (or even New York) gaining clout and slowly establishing themselves as worthy alternatives to the prestigious but costly European platform, however, Venice has had a hard time securing those big, glitzy titles of late. For its 70th anniversary last year the fest managed to put together a properly impressive line-up including such high-profile Oscar contenders/ box office dynamite as "Gravity" and "Philomena" as well as arthouse gold from both English-language ("Under the Skin") and international ("Tom à la ferme (Tom at the Farm)", "郊遊 (Stray Dogs)") auteurs that enjoyed a healthy subsequent run. This year, the program looked much lighter in buzz from the outset and proved even less exciting after the cat's out of the bag.

Sure enough there's the highly anticipated title that also turned out to be the homerun everyone had suspected. In this case, it's the opening night film (incidentally also the best of all 28 films this author has seen at the fest this year) "Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)". Wild, hypnotic, metaphysical, it tells the story of a washed-up actor who used to be a household name playing a superhero now trying to wage a comeback on Broadway by writing, directing and starring in his own play. The script, as fussily wordy as it sometimes is, weaves together a myriad of fascinating subjects like celebrity, authenticity, perception versus reality and delivers an incisive, ruthlessly funny look inside show business, inside the essence of performance. Edited in a way as to invoke the impression that (almost) the whole movie is one single take (there are clearly separate, unrelated shots in the very beginning and near the end), it has a freewheeling, unpredictable rhythm to it that's instantly irresistible. Swaying constantly between both sides of the curtain, the illusion of an unbroken narrative not just dazzles on an optical level but also reinforces a sense of unreliability, until the line between what's real and what's staged it dances on becomes almost too vague to tell.

Essential to the success of the film is the unsurprisingly astounding cinematography by Emmanuel Lubezki. Racing down narrow corridors and staircases, zooming with soundless fluidity in and out of the characters' faces, there's an unstoppable energy to the camera. After witnessing his Oscar-winning work on last year's opening night film "Gravity", we get to experience his unquestionable mastery again, albeit within strictly earth-bound parameters here. And it's no less breathtaking. The cast is also tremendous, led by a volcanic, wonderfully loose Michael Keaton, whose years as Batman no doubt feeds into the whole meta-aspect of the movie. But the performance is also strong on its own terms, fiery and always tinged with a hint of insanity, culminating in a scene later in the film that's thunderous, inevitable, almost scary to watch. Edward Norton is every bit as good as Keaton, bringing a pompous vanity and showmanship to the table that pushes his counterpart ever further towards the edge. Even those other actors in limited roles are mighty fine, starting with Andrea Riseborough and Amy Ryan, who, shining a respective sexy / maternal glow, pull the picture back to the ground when it threatens to float away on its own zaniness. Ultimately this film is the vision of Mexican director Alejandro González Iñárritu. And what a vision this man has. By turns incredibly intimate- like the many discussions between fellow actors, between a performer and a critic, between the different selves of one person- and outlandishly loud- like the handful of lavish effects shots featuring dragons and explosions- it's a rich, varied dissection of a man's psyche that's not entirely plausible but fiercely riveting all the same.  

Outside the high-flying opening night film, there's scarcely another movie in the official competition that's as all-around compelling. The eventual winner of the Golden Lion, "En duva satt på en gren och funderade på tillvaron (A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence)", which is not nearly as unanimously embraced by the critics as "Birdman" but certainly loved by some, also presents a unique vision, if a less substantiated one and one that, with its bloated eccentricity, feels much slighter than it thinks it is. Composed of vignettes short and long that are sometimes connected, the movie doesn't have a plot as much as an overarching idea. And one would be hard pressed even to explain what this idea is. Sure, it's about the absurdity and transience of life, about how things never make sense and have never made sense, about this comical, sad, frustrating, strange thing called existence. But even as a story of pointlessness, this one is not as spectacularly realized as Swedish director Roy Andersson's own previous two entries in the "trilogy about being a human being" ("Sånger från andra våningen (Songs from the Second Floor)" (2000) & "Du levande (You, the Living)" (2007)).

The numerous painstakingly designed and crafted sets do provide a visual feast and Andersson's trademark taxidermic aesthetics are intact, but this time around, they feel more limited in scope and imaginative reach. One could probably argue it symbolizes a more internalized continuation of his work, but without the grandeur, whether in style or narrative stroke, all that quirkiness does get old. Which is not to say this is not a pathologically pretty movie with acidly funny bits. A dying woman clinging on to her purse or a dance instructor openly caressing her student, for example, are simply conceived, carefully choreographed scenes that shout such inappropriateness they're a riot to watch. When all is said and done, this is a more than justifiable festival entry that should see a robust run in arthouse cinemas everywhere. It is just not as complete, as dynamic a whole as one would have hoped.

On the other side of the scale there are the bombs in the competition line-up, the percentage of which seems unusually high this year. Leading that list are, for this viewer at least, Italian director Saverio Costanzo's "Hungry Hearts" and American helmer Andrew Niccol's "Good Kill". The former is a marital-drama-turned-thriller about a young couple who fights to fatal consequences over how to feed their new born son (not kidding). An inexplicable but absolute mistrust of the medical profession on the mother's part is the central, and only conflict that drives the plot. The utter improbability of her extreme behavior, especially after being portrayed as a mild and personable character in the beginning, prevents you from ever relating or even caring. Add to that the loud, 80's-Cinemaxx style direction that gives the movie its ludicrously over-the-top third act, and you have this stinker that's not just dramatically tone-deaf but actively repellent. It's a head-scratcher then, that the competition jury chaired by Alexandre Desplat ends up bestowing two awards, namely the two acting prizes, upon this film. Even if a performance could be judged purely on its technical soundness independent of the quality of the written character, it's a stretch to think those by Alba Rohrwacher and Adam Driver are the two worthiest choices. And that's from someone who's otherwise a major admirer of Rohrwacher's work.

Equally poorly written and directed is the war drama "Good Kill", set against the background of military drones being increasingly employed to replace pilot jets in America's anti-terrorist attacks. The lead character, played by a permanently zombie-faced Ethan Hawke, is on the one hand disillusioned that he doesn't get to fly and kill anymore, but seems at the same time ever more eaten by the deaths he causes at the drone control. The script is fraught with not just such contradictions but also clichés of every sort and is basically just hammering on the one age-old mantra of all anti-war movies: killing people is bad for you. It brings nothing new to the table except exchange the conventional scenes of soldiers in battle with those of them sitting around pressing buttons, over and over again. Clunky in dialogue, rigid in direction and just breathtakingly dull, this movie has no business being at a film festival.

And then there are the other misfires that are not as all-out terrible but do nothing to raise the bar or rock the boat either, like David Gordon Green's "Manglehorn" and Xavier Beauvois' "La rançon de la gloire (The Price of Fame)". Both Green and Beauvois arrive after great critical success with their previous films ("Prince Avalanche" won Best Director at the Berlinale, "Des hommes et des dieux (Of Gods and Men)" won the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes) so, on paper, their creds would be solid enough for a placement in competition. But "Manglehorn", a drama about a socially inept locksmith, turned out to be quite sappily written and, in its attempt at a meditative note, airless and uninteresting. Al Pacino mumbles and rants through the movie, overdoing the awkwardness of someone not used to intimacy and communication while poor Holly Hunter is stuck in the thankless role of a lovesick bank teller, with her usual piercing alertness all but wasted.

The French comedy "La rançon de la gloire (The Price of Fame)" is adored by some, but doesn't register with this viewer. Depicting the theft of Charlie Chaplin's coffin for ransom by two amateur criminals in 70's Switzerland, it's uninspired in writing and broad in execution. The various mishaps never sound believable and the whole third-act addition of a circus subplot feels unnecessary if not downright desperate. The selection of these average-to-awful movies, none of which seems promising either in commercial prospects or critical reception, suggests an autopilot name-recognition on the part of the festival programmers that's worrisome.

Falling somewhere in between the good and the bad are films like French relationship drama "3 coeurs (Three Hearts)", Russian semi-documentary "Белые ночи почтальона Алексея Тряпицына (The Postman's White Nights)", Japanese WWII gore-fest "野火 (Fires on the Plain)", Italian biopic "Il giovane favoloso (Leopardi)", German/Turkish historical odyssey "The Cut", and possibly the token queer cinema entry "Pasolini" from American provocateur Abel Ferrara. None of them sent the people on Lido wild but they got positive reaction to varying degrees.

Despised by some with vehemence, Benoît Jacquot's "3 coeurs (Three Hearts)" is an imperfectly conceived love triangle with a man inadvertently caught between two sisters. With a central conceit that doesn't ring true and an overzealous, darkly droning score that tries to dictate the tone every step of the way, the movie is doomed from the start. But there's plenty to like in the forceful direction that pushes the story forward with a muscular arm while always mindful of the subtlest emotional fluctuations in the group dynamics. Shot and edited with a rhythmic precision that's almost erotic, the film has a palpable beat to match its adult, near-thriller sensibilities. And all three actors in the principal cast are outstanding, with Benoît Poelvoorde and Chiara Mastroianni holding up their end of the dance expertly against the dependably wonderful Charlotte Gainsbourg. Looking at any given moment both rebellious and vulnerable, hers is a face so splendidly unreadable you don't ever want to move your eyes away from. Playing a woman trapped by pride, desire and guilt, it's another effortlessly involving performance that mesmerizes and devastates.

Also dismissed by many is German auteur Fatih Akin's "The Cut", which follows an Armenian man persecuted under the Ottoman Empire on his journey out of enslavement in search of his daughters. Flatly descriptive and maddeningly linear, it's definitely not an exciting or surprising narrative. But the technical achievements of this film are undeniable. Textured production and costume design evoke the flair of a bygone era and the sprawling vista strikingly photographed completes a visually sumptuous picture. The distinctly aggressive original score with a main theme largely based on electric guitar and bass is fantastic, pinning you to your seat with its sad, angry, dangerous melody.

The complaint of style over substance applies to "Pasolini" as well, a biopic chronicling the last days of famed Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini's life. The film's certainly a slight exercise, feeling with its 86-min running time limited in every way. And to have Willem Dafoe play the titular character delivering his lines predominantly in English is plainly ill-considered. That said, Ferrara is clearly having a blast sculpting this sleek, shiny plaything, and the somber but seductive campiness, facilitated through breezy camera work and silky smooth art direction, is infectious. How he jumps between reality and fiction in his storytelling is, if not the most original, an effective way in adding a formal complexity to this tricky little film.

The other biopic "Il giovane favoloso (Leopardi)" is anything but slight, in fact it just might be a little too bulky for its own good. Densely written with lengthy quotes from the works of its title character at regular intervals, this movie about gifted, tormented 19th century Italian poet/philosopher Giacomo Leopardi is by virtue of its literariness probably much more accessible to an Italian-speaking audience. The words are doubtlessly beautiful, though, and with a dedicated, appropriately dreamy lead performance by Elio Germano, the beauty really spills over in a couple of memorable, quietly profound scenes.

Definitely not quiet is Japanese director Shinya Tsukamoto's horror flick "野火 (Fires on the Plain)", a movie more suited for a Midnight Madness slot. Set around a group of abandoned soldiers fighting for survival towards the end of the second World War, it's slaughter and bloodshed from the get-go that only escalate and escalate. Evidenced by the mass walk-outs at the screening this author attended, the degree of violence portrayed here goes beyond what many would deem acceptable. Innards, brain matters, limbs splash across the screen in extreme close-ups, often to be followed by cannibalistic acts. It's truly a movie too sickening to defend. However, the feverish, hyper-lush cinematography and the perturbing, nightmarish hymn of an original score do pack that cinematic intensity that should mark the work to be shown at a film festival.

In the end, the festival jury seems to find that intensity in Russian director Andrei Konchalovsky's "Белые ночи почтальона Алексея Тряпицына (The Postman's White Nights)", as it's awarded the Silver Lion for Best Director. Shot almost like a documentary, the movie records more than portrays the life of villagers in a small lakeside settlement in rural Russia. There's no plot to speak of, scenes are only very loosely connected through their shared players. Even the dialogue, mostly just chatter and complaints, sounds too relaxed to be scripted. Were it not for the arresting visuals, either the dazzling serenity of nature or the cozy storybook interiors, this film would be too inconspicuous to even register. But the worthy prizewinner does show touches of genius with the insertion of symbolic icons like the mysterious grey cat or an enigmatic rocket launch. While seeming paradoxical to the über-realistic approach he applies to the rest of the film, these cryptic sidenotes add a definitive, lyrical layer of mysticism that elevates the appeal of the picture exponentially.

Flawed each in its own way, the five movies cited above have merits that outweigh their faults, but none of them is really of a quality that would grab you by the throat or make your pulse quicken.

In this regard, some entries in the less prominent sidebar sections at this year’s fest might actually be superior to what the competition slate has to offer. Orizzonti stunner “Ich seh ich seh (Goodnight Mommy)” by Austrian directors Veronika Franz und Severin Fiala, about two twin boys who grow convinced that the woman returning home after a facial surgery isn’t their mother, is at first glance standard genre fare. Employing scares of the most inelaborate kind and unsparing in all their gory details, it’s not for the faint of heart and would strike many as trashy. The austere, compulsively tidy, subliminally repressive visual style, as part of the stern, relentless direction, however, does afford the film with a brute cinematic force that sends the blood pumping. Equally arresting is the Chinese noir “殯棺 (The Coffin in the Mountain)”, screened as part of the International Critics Week. Making his narrative feature debut here, writer/director Xin Yukun’s multi-perspective mystery about how greed, infidelity and simple survival instincts lead to the abandoned remains of an unknown person is pedestrian in look but expertly written, ensnaring you in a plot of calculations, accidents and unfortunate coincidences. At once darkly suspenseful and morbidly funny, it’s a script that’s so packed with surprises it hardly gives a break to catch your breath.

While the Berlinale is often seen as the fest of discoveries and Cannes the undisputed temple worshipping the Gods of cinema today, a sample of the official selection described above shows the Venice Film Festival caught in a somewhat awkward position in between- not big enough to net an abundance of masterworks from top auteurs, nor quite ready yet to put its name behind relatively unknown up-and-comers wowing with raw talent. With its supply of red-carpet moments noticeably exceeding that of quality films this year, it might be time for the festival at the dreamiest location possible to rethink its place.    

Phoenix

(Originally appeared in Film International on Sep. 24, 2014)

Marking the sixth collaboration of what’s shaping up to be the most compelling and fruitful auteur-actor duo in modern German cinema, writer/director Christian Petzold’s “Phoenix” starring Nina Hoss is a dashingly realized drama with a singular concept soaring in its intellectual reach and emotional resonance.

Set in a ruinous post-war Berlin, the film tells the story of a disfigured Holocaust survivor Nelly (Hoss) who returns home after receiving facial reconstruction surgery on the assistance of a friend Lene (Nina Kunzendorf), only to find that the love of her life, Johnny (Ronald Zehrfeld), doesn’t recognize her anymore. What happens next, a scheme proposed by a supposedly unknowing Johnny and entered into by a devastated Nelly which builds the central conceit of the plot, would strike many as implausible. But to those willing to bear with the initial rawness of the premise, the payoff is bountiful. Namely, you find out the film is really tapping into the behavior/performance divide to probe a very fundamental part of our being and, in the process, examine the idea of identity against the backdrop of the most traumatized and confused time in human memory. By having one protagonist who’s either habitually deceitful or in serious denial and another whose entire history has just been wiped out, the script confronts you to with questions like: What makes a self a self? How do you re-establish individuality where collectives have been labeled and destroyed? Questions no less chilling and profound to consider, even if the way they’re asked is, in contrast to conventional WWII movies that often hit on similar subjects through angry depictions of Nazi-atrocities, much quieter in tone.

Contributing vitally to the success of this somewhat fanciful storytelling is the tremendous principal cast of three. Unhindered by his hulky frame, Zehrfeld is quickly establishing himself to be a chameleonic presence in recent years. After playing the goofy and vulnerable in the delightful “Finsterworld” (2013), the righteous and indignant in the rousing “Wir waren Könige (The Kings Surrender)” (2014), he pulls off the charming sleaze who may or may not have committed the ultimate betrayal. Kunzendorf, who German viewers know as a sassy police officer from the popular TV show Tatort, plays against type and gives us a woman steely in appearance, certain in judgment but who is secretly caught between a past she can’t return to and a future she doesn’t know how to face. It’s a beautifully unaffected performance that does justice to a character whom we only realize we know so little about after its exit. And then there’s Nina Hoss. Like other brilliant, instinctive European actresses of her generation, Hoss doesn’t let her statuesque looks get in the way of disappearing into a role and, as evidenced by “Yella” (2007) and “Barbara” (2012), her last two collaborations with Petzold, she does so by even less acting and more plain inhabiting than say, Cotillard or Winslet. Which is possibly why Nelly would not go down as her best on-screen creation, because it demands so much ostensible “acting” on her part. That said, it’s never less than riveting to watch her regal stature and here skeletal face at work. With a mixture of humiliation, exhaustion and suspicion, she nails the slight muscle twitch of someone no longer sure of how they look as well as that almost apologetic air of someone repeatedly corrected on how to convincingly behave as themselves.        

Direction-wise, “Phoenix” proves a significant departure from Petzold’s filmography, not in terms of the intense intimacy his films are known for, which this movie still very much possesses, but the aesthetic richness his minimalistic approach hitherto largely avoided. The interior design of both the living spaces and the Phoenix Club is unexpectedly striking and the classy coiffures, retro glasses and pantaloons provide eye-candy galore. All that is shot with a sumptuous texture and depth that one also wouldn’t necessarily associate with Petzold’s work. The movie’s also a lesson on lighting, which is often dim but never insufficient, always purposeful in its use of shades and shadows. And although the abundant use of silhouettes, darkened shapes, partially obscured faces and back views in a story about identities might be a bit too literal to be called masterful, in many cases these shots do actually say more about a character or their circumstances than anything explicit could.

Seldom a year would pass without the German cinema producing a handful of new NS-themed films. As decent as this self-reflective gesture is, it does get tiring. “Phoenix”, refreshingly, tackles the inhuman regime and its consequences from a strictly personal angle and dazzles. Embodied by that perfect ending jazzy and blurry in every sense, this is a delicate, incisive, spellbinding movie from a filmmaking team with no reason to stop anytime soon.

Filmkunstmesse Leipzig: Trash

British director Stephen Daldry's Rio-set dramatic action-thriller "Trash" is a carefully engineered crowdpleaser liberally channeling his countryman Danny Boyle's Oscar-sweeper "Slumdog Millionaire". The fatigue brought on by the déjà-vu's weighs heavily on the film, even if it's a perfectly serviceable, sometimes rousing piece of popular entertainment in its own right.

Centered around three 14-year-olds living off a dumping ground whose lives are changed upon the discovery of a wallet, the movie is firmly plot-driven and sprints forward at a brisk pace all through its 2-hour running time. The script, adapted by Richard Curtis, is nicely structured to always be teasing with the next clue to the mystery. Aided by some able editing work, its parallel narrative shows diversity but remains readily digestible. Even though the story itself can't really be called original, it has an effective hook and shines a light on the problems of social unjust, political corruption and police brutality in Brazil, which are easy targets of course, but nonetheless pack with them a pressing sense of gravitas. A fundamental weakness of the screenplay, however, lies in its inability to render the motives of the young protagonists believable. Unlike "Slumdog", which smartly reduces its heroes' travails to such commonly relatable pursuit of romance within an instantly recognizable environment of a quiz show, the justification offered here for three impoverished teenage boys' selfless, life-threatening quest for truth- the repeatedly uttered "It's the right thing to do"- just doesn't fly as well.

And while both movies feature young characters constantly fleeing, dodging, leaping across rooftops and off windowsills, "Trash" doesn't spark the same level of immediacy or urgency. There's a chase sequence involving the transport of a Bible later in the film that's well orchestrated, famously shot and cut, leading in a tight, pulse-quickening last half hour, but before then the cinematography is agile in a more latent, unspectacular way. The flawed sound mix, including the less-than-precise dialogue dubbing, also contributes to a perceptible distance to the action depicted. That said, Daldry doesn't make ugly movies. Whether marine blue or mud-colored, every frame of the film is delicately shaded, thoughtfully lit and taking full advantage of the expansive Latin American cityscape or coastline. It's a lot of grimy prettiness to look at.

The three previous non-actors taking on the lead roles here are understandably not consistent in their acting. Failings show especially in scenes with extended verbal exchanges. The very unpracticed quality of their body language, however, enables the capture of brilliantly guileless expressions that would be otherwise hard to get. Except for some over-acting on the part of Martin Sheen, the supporting cast that also includes Rooney Mara and Wagner Moura is fine, if none of them has been given any heavy-lifting to do. Veteran Brazilian actor Nelson Xavier makes a very memorable appearance in one single scene set in a prison, selling with his forceful presence the fierce but merciful, alert but unagitated temperament of someone long given up hope of seeing the light of day again.

Hard to dislike for its general soundness and uplifting spirit, this movie has a little something for everyone. In its attempt to broaden its appeal as much as possible, however, it might have stayed a bit too close to the middle of the road to dazzle, to rock, to wow.