MCDRLx Reviews

Laila's Birthday (2008)

A balance of grim pensiveness and dry humor that reveals as much as it enlightens

[8/10 · 9 December 2009]

At first glance, steely-eyed, well-dressed Abu Laila (Mohamed Bakri) hardly looks or talks like a taxi driver. Later, it turns out that the occupation only slightly befits him; a former judge who resorts to driving cabs for a living after the government failed to pay his judicial wages, the protagonist of Rashid Masharawi's "Laila's Birthday" cuts a figure of world-weary austerity. He dismisses a young couple who plan to dally in the back seat, reprimands passengers who neglect to fasten their seat belts and refuses to drive anywhere near a military checkpoint. Abu Laila's harrowing journey begins in the early hours of the morning and continues until the evening, as does the film itself.

Set in Ramallah, the Palestinian city on the West Bank and de facto capital of the Palestinian National Authority, "Laila's Birthday" follows its protagonist as he navigates through a regular day on the job, encountering a myriad of different people and situations—except the day in question actually marks a special occasion. His daughter Laila (Nour Zoubi) is celebrating her seventh birthday, and Abu Laila promises to return home in a timely fashion with candles and cake, heeding the words of his wife (Areen Omari): "Listen to me. Interior problems, exterior problems, problems from the occupation…it's your daughter's birthday tonight, okay?" Acknowledging her with a half-smile, Abu Laila drives away, ostensibly unaware of the absurd day that lies ahead of him.

The film chronicles a series of well-timed incidents between the driver and his passengers, many in comical fashion. Teenagers with weapons are refused service; a young man, fresh out of an 11-year term in prison, accidentally leaves his cell phone behind; Abu Laila takes the item to the police station, where he is subjected to excessive questioning. En route to returning the phone to its owner, Abu Laila's taxi breaks down and a missile detonates somewhere nearby. By the time chaos has ensued on the streets of Ramallah (though its residents do not seem to bat an eye), the protagonist has run out of patience both at the city's sociopolitical problems and the routine disorder that results from it. Only a much- needed return to the comforts of home and an intimate celebration of his daughter's birthday can restore some peace to Abu Laila, who realizes that the rules he adheres to seem to mean little to the people in the world around him.

Both a fascinating character study and trenchant social commentary, "Laila's Birthday" creates a remarkably nuanced portrait of a city in turmoil through small but significant vignettes. Gaza-born writer-director Rashid Masharawi, whose previous credits include Cannes hits "Curfew" (1994) and "Haifa" (1996), orchestrates the ordeal with admirable sensitivity. Lead actor Mohamed Bakri plays the role of Abu Laila with impressive gravitas, instilling the plot with a balance of grim pensiveness and dry humor that reveals as much as it enlightens.

Let the Right One In (2008)

Band of Outsiders

[9/10 · 23 July 2009]

Parting the veil on a brooding, translucent realm of wintry isolation, "Let the Right One In" is nothing if not the vampire film of the new millennium. Not since Werner Herzog's 1979 "Nosferatu" has a film of this genre gazed so deeply and darkly into the human psyche, juxtaposing the allure of mortality with the existential plight of melancholy outcasts. In adapting Swedish novelist John Ajvide Lindqvist's work to the screen, director Tomas Alfredson has crafted a film that leaps beyond the confines of its medium with astonishing power and subtlety.

Set in the snowy apartment complexes of suburban Stockholm, the film begins with fragile 12-year-old Oskar (Kare Hedebrant) poised ethereally against the window, looking outside. His reserved demeanor at school makes him a regular target of bullies, to whom he never retaliates but are the cause of bottled-up frustration. Enter Eli (Lina Leandersson), the new girl next door: pale, wide-eyed and somewhat enigmatic, she frequents the courtyard only at night and appears to be unaffected by the freezing temperatures. After a series of short conversations, the two become curiously drawn to each other.

As the town begins to witness mysterious deaths, the relationship between Oskar and Eli blossoms in equally strange fashion: Both discover a tenderness in each other that transcends mere words and actions. For him, her presence becomes his strength and solace; she, a vampire masquerading as a 12-year-old girl, takes a liking to him despite the irrevocable nature of her identity. Yet for all their poignant commonalities, Oskar and Eli remain worlds apart, victims of marginalization as well as eternal condition. When Eli is finally compelled to leave, her note is tellingly brief: "I must be gone and live, or stay and die." Chaos ensues, quietly but forcefully. Oskar summons the courage to turn the table on his tormentors; bodies resurface, trapped in ice. Blood is drawn on a gruesome whim; a swimming pool becomes a murderous set piece for retaliation. Manipulating tensions admirably throughout, Alfredson renders each scenario with a beautiful, almost otherworldly naturalism. The haunting sense of the quotidian is surpassed only by the ferocity of Eli's acts of vampirism, which both fascinate and truly frighten.

There's so much more to admire about "Let the Right One In," from the splendidly complex performances of the child actors to the unforgettable, jaw-dropping moments of beauty that is pure cinema. The last of these, in particular, fittingly evokes both the visual and aural: that of Oskar and Eli, communicating their affection for each other through Morse code (K-I-S-S) as they ride away on an empty train. Call it pre-pubescent infatuation, if you will; as for the film itself, it's something of a masterpiece.

Wendy and Lucy (2008)

Haunting and timely

[8/10 · 23 July 2009]

Is there any other American film that captures the inner cries of our times with greater eloquence than Kelly Reichardt's "Wendy and Lucy"? In the wake of economic doldrums and fractured working-class psyches, this impassive story of a woman stranded in the graveyard of middle class America evokes the struggle between hope and ennui with uncanny timeliness. Call it a snapshot of life on the fringes of desolation row, or better yet, a metaphysical odyssey into a not-so-mythical American wasteland.

The film's protagonist is Wendy, played with quiet intensity by Michelle Williams ("The Station Agent," "Brokeback Mountain"), a young woman journeying towards Alaska in search of a new life. Her road trip is impeded by declining funds and a broken-down car, leaving her temporarily stranded on the outskirts of Portland with her beloved dog Lucy. After a botched attempt at petty thievery, a young grocery clerk refuses to grant her clemency; as a result, Wendy is briefly taken in and Lucy disappears. An aging security guard plays the Good Samaritan, offering to help Wendy search for her lost companion and serving as an unlikely source of moral support amidst the town's sea of indifference.

As its melancholy story progresses, "Wendy and Lucy" seems to have less in common with its American brethren than with the films of Vittorio De Sica and Roberto Rossellini, masters of Italian neo-realism who channeled their passion for cinema through tales of the poor and working class. Walking the streets in search of catharsis, Wendy's plight is not unlike that of Antonio Vitti's in "Bicycle Thieves": Both are deprived of the right to pursue happiness in a world where lost opportunities often call for desperate measures.

But no matter. Like sojourners of ages past, the resilient heroine ultimately gains the inner strength to start off again–albeit alone. Reichardt's approach to cinema as life-affirming art reaches a level of transcendence in the film's richly ambiguous conclusion. Jumping onto a boxcar, Wendy gazes out at the lush beauty of forests flying past, pondering her one-way ticket to an uncertain Promised Land–as are we.

Shinjuku Incident (2009)

Flawed yet affecting mob saga

[7/10 · 23 July 2009]

Derek Yee's "Shinjuku Incident" begins with a flock of illegal Chinese immigrants riding waves of opportunity to the shores of Japan in the early 1990s and ends with its most illustrious member floating away on an irreversible current of ruin; call it a reversal of karmic proportions. A search for a lost love becomes a dream for glory, and with it arrives unwelcome guests: demons of greed and complacency, tucked away under fleeting disguises of brotherhood and honor.

Much has been said about the film being Jackie Chan's first attempt at serious drama. For all its quiet nobility, his performance here is neither revelatory nor disastrous. The venerated action icon plays the role of Steelhead, a tractor mechanic from Northeastern China who enters Japan illegally in search of his girlfriend Xiu Xiu (Xu Jinglei). Working a variety of meager jobs in the bustling Shinjuku district of Tokyo, Steelhead befriends Jie (Daniel Wu), a headstrong young opportunist with unspoken inner fears. Together, Steelhead and Jie form their own gang in an attempt to preserve national identity and provide a haven for other fellow Chinese immigrants.

Their idealistic ventures hardly last long, as a rise to prominence means having to deal with every other entity struggling for control of the district: city police, organized Yakuza, factions of other established Chinese and Taiwanese gangs. As he and his companions become embroiled in disputes that veer straight into perilous territory, Steelhead finally stumbles upon his former girlfriend - only to discover that she has married the local influential Yakuza boss (Masaya Kato). Through a dizzying chain of events, Steelhead makes an unlikely rise to power within the Tokyo underworld, unaware of the growing chaos that threatens to split his former posse apart. A strange friendship with a tough police inspector (Naoto Takenaka) begins to play a major role as the film careens toward an improbably Shakespearean denouement.

The underlying moral of Derek Yee's "Shinjuku Incident" is hardly new: Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Brutal sequences of gangland retribution are juxtaposed with touching depictions of harmony and humanity. The film's most major pitfall lies in its uneven pacing, which certainly takes away some of the narrative's staying power and results in a somewhat unsatisfying final movement. Yet even during its weaker moments, this flawed commercial noir manages to paint a compelling portrait of fallen heroes, oddly serene in the face of certain death.

Hunger (2008)

A Stirring Exploration of Martyrdom

[9/10 · 18 June 2009]

The effect of martyrdom on human civilization is indisputable, and few films portray this on screen with as much stunning panache as "Hunger." Both audacious and chastening, British video artist Steve McQueen's feature debut succeeds in building sympathy for its tortured heroes even as it exposes the consequences of their sacrifice with uncompromising brutality.

Set in Northern Ireland during the period of ethno-political conflict known as the Troubles, "Hunger" follows several Irish Republican prisoners as they push their bodies to the limit in an effort to regain political status. Their agenda is clear: Vehemently opposed to being treated like regular inmates, they retaliate by creating hellish living conditions for themselves. Human excrement dries on walls, maggots writhe among rotten food, and security guards employ brutal tactics as the prisoners engage in a "blanket and no wash" protest against authority.

The film allows little room for sympathy for these hairy convicts, even as it recreates their agony. McQueen is an artist with a penchant for minimalism; his unique aesthetic approach works brilliantly here, as defiant men strip themselves both literally and figuratively to fight for their cause. The labyrinthine corridors of Belfast's H-Block maze prison are juxtaposed with images of fleeting beauty-a fly dancing on a finger, snow falling through wisps of cigarette smoke-to create a film that moves and breathes with expressionistic vitality.

It's a testament to the director's command of his medium that "Hunger" sustains itself despite the fact that its protagonist, Bobby Sands, does not appear until the film's halfway point. Wiry and brash, Michael Fassbender fills the shoes of his character with tremendous panache. The Irish actor's interpretation is not so much performance as a rigorous exercise in personification: as wholly masculine as his star-making turn in "300" (playing the spirited Stelios) but with an extra dimension of world-weary dignity. Conversing with fellow inmates at Sunday Mass, Sands strikes an imposing figure almost immediately, a natural leader blessed with charisma and resilience.

With Sands at the forefront, prison life quickly transforms into an invigorating experience-as does "Hunger" itself. The art of insubordination is redefined with an emphasis on both mind and body. Every physical action becomes a catalyst for fighting words; the concept of sacrifice transpires like a swift blow to the gut. Determined to realize his dream of a hunger strike, Sands debates the ideology of martyrdom with his priest (Liam Cunningham) in a fiery dialogue that becomes the crux of the film. Shot in one unbroken take lasting over 17 minutes, the sequence is as surreal as it is unbearably intense. As a titanic feat of screen acting, it's nothing short of staggering.

By the time the conversation ends, the tragic humanity of "Hunger" has manifested itself. "Freedom means everything to me," Sands explains calmly. "Taking my life is not just the only thing I can do, it is the right thing." For Bobby Sands, there is no turning back; it is either suffer for glory or wallow in disgrace. We are moved not only by his ideals but also by the sincerity of his sacrifice.

The film's hard-to-stomach final act unravels like a somber requiem. Lying on a hospital bed in the form of a barely breathing corpse, Bobby Sands becomes an unprecedented victim of history. A mother's touch stirs. Childhood dreams recur. "Hunger" concludes on a tragic note, but no matter: In illuminating the last hours of one man's glorious anguish, McQueen has created a passion play for the ages.

Tokyo Sonata (2008)

A Remarkable Expose of Domestic Dysfunction

[8/10 · 18 June 2009]

Parting the veil on a Japanese household teetering on the verge of collapse, "Tokyo Sonata" may be director Kiyoshi Kurosawa's most conventional work-if conventional is the right word for a film that explores the contemporary family dynamic with such brooding fortitude. The renowned Japanese horror filmmaker has created a startlingly candid portrait of domestic life in "Tokyo Sonata," a film that, by evoking the waking nightmares of repressed souls, brims with a terror of its own accord.

Businessman Ryuhei Sasaki, victimized by economic downsizing after his company terminates his job, chooses to hide his predicament from his family by roaming the streets of Tokyo during daytime. His wife Megumi juggles housewife duties and a tenuous relationship with her oldest son Takashi, whose desire to break away from tradition echoes the detachment of Japanese youth in a society wreathed in materialism. The youngest member of the family, Kenji, rebels against authority yet displays sensitivity beyond his age when he discovers an innate passion for piano.

Juxtaposing tight interior shots of living rooms with panoramic compositions of urban sprawl, Kurosawa imbues the film with something of an otherworldly presence-a haunting, dreamlike aura that pervades "Tokyo Sonata" as its dysfunctional family continues to crumble inwardly. Conversations dissipate; lies build on previous lies; a mother's love is torn between duty and empathy. Humiliated by his jobless situation yet determined to maintain his patriarchal status, Ryuhei physically abuses Kenji for secretly taking piano lessons after browbeating Megumi for allowing Takashi to join the military. Recession-plagued Tokyo, already a landscape of existential lament, gradually takes a backseat to familial destruction.

The film's blend of domestic drama and social commentary is both poignant and timely. Office workers like Ryuhei and his colleagues are portrayed as ironic victims of the Japanese male dynamic, driven by their obligations to home and work yet completely unwilling to compromise after hitting rock bottom. In displaying the failure of authority in a culture that revolves around it, Kurosawa draws poignant contrasts. "We're like a slowly sinking ship," grieves an unemployed friend of Ryuhei. "The lifeboats are gone, the water's up to our mouths." Like a vessel slowly sliding into oblivion, ideals built around workplaces and households slowly disintegrate, replaced by coldness and bitter angst.

Tellingly, "Tokyo Sonata" eventually mirrors these systematic collapses by venturing into surreal territory. In one of the film's most affecting sequences, an afternoon nap turns into a chilling seance when Takashi returns home from the war, saying to his mother, "I killed so many people." Megumi's troubled psyche finally begins to eat away at her maternal strength. When a wayward burglar abducts her, and Ryuhei and Kenji encounter catastrophic situations, the film's quiet buildup escalates into irreversible mayhem.

When does it end, and where does it begin? The mother's catharsis, manifested in a sequence of lasting power, injects rays of hope into an otherwise miserable flurry of dead ends. The final movement of "Tokyo Sonata," uneven as it is compared to its predecessors, completes the cycle of fall and salvation with admirable finality. Powerfully acted and impeccably orchestrated, Kiyoshi Kurosawa's "Tokyo Sonata" is a masterful exercise in paradoxes: at one and the same time comical and melancholy, despairing and exultant, nihilistic and regenerative.

Lola Montès (1955)

A Lost Gem, Gloriously Remastered

[9/10 · 18 June 2009]

Restored to its original form for the first time since 1955, "Lola Montes" made an immediate impression on critics' circles nationwide after its screening at this year's New York Film Festival and for good reason: Max Ophuls' largely forgotten swan song is a work of art rooted in old-fashioned Romanticism, yet at the same time crafted with such cinematic power that its content and characterizations have barely aged.

Directed by Ophuls and starring French actress Martine Carol in the leading role, "Lola Montes" is equal parts classical melodrama and groundbreaking cinematic exercise. Ophuls' camera glides effortlessly through the air, introducing us to the film's setting in grandiose fashion. As the circus sets the tone of artifice, flashbacks begin to act as the primary storytelling device: As the ringmaster (Peter Ustinov) promises "the most sensational act of the century," costumed performers take the stage to reenact the life of Lola Montes, the Irish-born dancer who set out to conquer the hearts of men.

The film's depiction of Lola's brief tryst with renowned composer Franz Liszt is more or less true to history. So is her well-documented seduction of King Ludwig I of Bavaria, a relationship that eventually led to the latter's fall from grace and abdication in the midst of revolution. A telling conversation between the two affirms "Lola Montes" as a tragic character study: "You like my dancing?" Lola asks eagerly, her eyes lighting up. The King's blunt answer all but encapsulates Ophuls' flawed-heroine subtext: "Not at all," he says. "But you know how to trigger a scandal, excite an audience. And that is the most important thing." Though the film feels significantly slow-paced for its two-hour running time, it is no short on content. Breaking away from conventional narrative structure is nothing new to Ophuls, and it is seen here in "Lola Montes" to an astonishing degree. Between the elegance of the flashback sequences and the squalidness of the circus, the film hints at the transient nature of time, blurring the distinction between memory and reality. The cyclical nature of the film reveals itself as Lola's relationships blossom as quickly as they deteriorate. In "Lola Montes", Ophuls presents the heroine as a woman to be reckoned with, a persona that in the end brings her both pleasure and despair.

Yet there is still more about "Lola Montes" than what meets the eye. It is a director's film in the truest sense, and any evaluation of it should be taken in the light of the history of the medium itself. Ophuls himself alternated between a celebrated career and relative obscurity; though his cinematic contemporaries held "Lola Montes" in high regard, filmgoers at the time shunned it for what they perceived as a hollow and artificial attempt at commercial movie-making. Tellingly, both Ophuls and his subject are now more remembered for the dizzying heights they once reached than for the missteps that led to their intermittent downfalls.

But no matter: scaling heights means next to nothing for femme fatales like Lola. In a key sequence near the end of the film, our heroine stands breathless at the top of the circus beams, her eyes vacant, devoid of seduction, starving for attention. As part of the final aerial act, Lola prepares to take a dangerous leap of faith. Will she accept the protective net underneath or risk her own safety by falling freely into a void of uncertainty, where life and death are equated by chance? The audience holds its breath for her response, but she leaves them hanging. What other choice, besides the riskier alternative, would one expect from Lola Montes?