Eden

When All is Lost                                
by Mark Dispenza

Eden, based on the true life story of Chong Kim, captures the terror and loss of hope faced by victims of human trafficking.

Kim, who escaped captivity against the odds after two horrifying years of sexual slavery, decided to tell her story publicly after she noted that the majority of Americans believe that trafficking is something that happens only to foreign girls, not the girl next door in the United States.  She contributed to the screenplay by director Megan Griffiths, from a story crafted by fellow contributor, Rick Phillips Jr.

Chong was an 18-year-old Korean-American teen working in her parents' shop when she was kidnapped and sold into sexual slavery in 1995.  She was selected because the traffickers thought she was younger than her actual age.  Let that sink in a moment.

Jamie Chung

In the film the traffickers force her to break completely with her past and lose all hope of rescue, using a very effective combination of both physical and psychological torture.  She is given a new name - Eden. Actress Jamie Chung does a great job of conveying Eden's psychological state during each stage of her captivity.

She is a spunky girl and spends the early months repeatedly defying the traffickers and causing as much trouble as she can.  After the point is made, the story mercifully jumps forward to one year later, sparing us the awful details of how the traffickers ultimately break her spirit to resist.  They give us a taste of that horror, and it's all that's needed to make the point.

Jamie Chung

Eden survives the second year by playing along with the traffickers and working hard to win their confidence.  The more they trust her, the more she will be allowed access to places that might open opportunities for escape, and that turns out to be the smart move, as escape she does, but not until long after she has experienced horrors that will undoubtedly leave her psychologically scarred for life.

The filmmakers chose to tell this story without resorting to the graphic detail  of torture and sex scenes.  Like a horror movie that relies more on psychological terror than gore, they get their message across effectively without forcing the audience to look away.  In fact it is difficult to look away, as each new plot twist draws viewers deeper into this world and leave them wondering how Eden can possibly cope with each new setback.

Beau Bridges

Beau Bridges is chilling in his portrayal of trafficker, Bob Gault, who is a US marshal assigned to stop the very business he's engaged in.  Gault travels around talking to local police departments about how to identify and apprehend sex offenders.  In a twist of irony, he tells them in one scene how perpetrators can look like anyone, particularly a trusted member of the community.

Matt O'Leary does a great job of portraying drug-addicted, war veteran bad guy, Vaughan, in all of his complexity. He is a volatile personality, forcing Eden to work hard to win his trust during his more lucid moments, while keeping him at arms link during his frequent descents into depraved cruelty.

Griffiths does an excellent job in straddling the line between depicting the horrors of sexual slavery and crossing over into exploitation.  She makes her point by making sensitive choices about a subject in which sensitivity is lost.  SXSW rewarded the Sundance veteran last year after the film's premiere with the festival's Narrative Feature Award, along with a special recognition to Jamie Chung for her performance.

Eden is currently in limited release in the USA, but is also currently available for download on iTunes, Amazon and Vudu.

To the Wonder

The Meaning in Malick                      
by Mark Dispenza

The films of Terrence Malick may not be as ethereal as we think, and maybe that's the point.

After viewing his latest feature, To the Wonder, I believe that against all odds, I may have finally come to understand him.  A perennial favorite at Cannes, Malick's films feature stunning cinematography, particularly of the natural environment, and a storyline that is slow, uncinematically focused on the inner thoughts of angst-ridden characters, and somewhat spiritual in feel.  They are usually period pieces and there is a sometimes nebulous thread that ties together generations.  In the Tree of Life, Malick famously interwove his protagonist's memories of childhood with scenes of the dinosaurs.

Audiences and critics have struggled to understand Malick's films since he reappeared at the movies in 1998 with The Thin Red Line, after an absence of over 20 years.  Some of the most talented actors in Hollywood are attracted to Malick, and he has achieved a guru-like status among them that has boggled my mind.  I've always chalked it up to the shallow nature of Hollywood.  Just because something has the appearance of being deep and spiritual, doesn't mean it's not a load of baloney under the surface.

If you're a long-time reader of this blog, you likely know that I have historically struggled with Malick and have been unable to relate to his films, because his stories do not appear to me to contain any kind of narrative arc, and his protagonist does not really change or come to any kind of personal resolution by the end of the story.  That to me is a fundamental violation of the form and purpose of storytelling.  If there is not a discernible hero's journey, what's the point?

And then I saw To the Wonder.

Ben Affleck and Olga Kurylenko

The story follows the off again, on again romance and marriage of Neil (Ben Affleck) and Marina (Olga Kurylenko).  Typical of a Malick film, the relationship unfolds visually against voice-overs of the characters, as they question and second-guess each other.  Malick's characters are improbably articulate, almost poetic, in their musings.

Earth is a character in the film, also par for the course with Malick, and his characters are surrounded by incredible natural beauty, captured in stunning cinematography by his long-time director of photography, Emmanuel Lubeski.

Neil can't seem to stay satisfied, despite many wonderful moments of love and happiness with Marina.  The two interact lovingly and tenderly in one scene and hurt each other carelessly in the next.  They break up.  They get back together.  Neil sends her away and has an affair with Jane (Rachel McAdams), who he's known and coveted for most of his life.  When he's with Jane, he hurts her, too, even though he knows she's had a tough time and trust does not come easy to her.

Marina is also complicit in the ongoing sabotage of her relationship with Neil and has considerable trouble in her relationship with her daughter.  By the way, it's wonderful to find out that Bond girl Kurylenko is also a talented actress.  In typical Hollywood fashion previous filmmakers have utilized her as little more than eye candy.  Malick utilizes her to full effect and allows her to show a beauty that is more than skin-deep.

Javier Bardem

Although Neil is the central character of the film, there is the parallel journey of the Catholic priest, Father Quintana, played by Javier Bardem, who can always be counted on to deliver a memorable performance.

Although Neil and Father Quintana live in the same city and Neil is one of Quintana's parishioners, their narratives intersect infrequently, but notably during moments of major transition in Neil's life, such as marriage, childbirth and divorce.

The film's focus on Neil is broken up by scenes of Quintana going about his priestly duties, engaged in a negative inner dialogue in which he agonizes over the Lord's purpose for him.  Quintana does not believe his life means anything, so he seeks an elusive higher calling that will leave him fulfilled.  What's amazing is that all of this negative self-talk occurs over scenes in which Quintana is actively engaged with people during the most important moments of their lives, and as he comforts those who suffer, very often their sole lifeline during a terrible time.

In one memorable scene Quintana goes to the prison to hear the confession of a convict.  At first the convict is evasive and defensive, refusing to admit to his actions in some undisclosed crime.  As he talks to Quintana, he begins to complain loudly about the bright light coming through the window.  He is in an exaggerated amount of physical discomfort and becomes emotional, near the point of breakdown.  Is he in pain because his conversation with Quintana illuminates the terrible error of his ways?  Quintana is so caught up in his negative self-talk that he hardly seems to notice.

In another scene a parishioner afflicted with Down's Syndrome notes Quintana's morose state and points out that there are many churches in the city, and therefore, many pastors are required.  If people didn't need them, why would they be there?

Is that Malick's message?  As we go through life agonizing over our purpose and fighting to align ourselves with the person or thing that we believe will make us happy and fulfilled, are we missing the reality that the people we touch everyday are the meaning of our lives?  Are we missing the beauty all around us by our perpetual unhappiness?  Could it be that we are just a speck on the surface of the natural world and on the long axis of time, and all of our personal discomfort is ultimately meaningless against the broad tableau of our existence?  If that's the case Malick may be giving us a truly illuminating and profound statement of the human condition.

Then again, maybe I'm wrong, and my brain is finally fried after seeing too many of these films and trying to decipher their meaning.

Malick isn't talking.

To the Wonder is currently in limited theatrical release and can also be downloaded from iTunes.

Upstream Color

Beneath the Surface                         
by Zac Ryan

As the Hollywood studios ramp up their release schedule of uninspired and unoriginal summer programming, thankfully we can expect something original, albeit a little strange, in the latest film from Shane Carruth.

Carruth first burst onto the scene at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival with his micro-budget film, Primer, which he claims he made for only $7,000, "because that's how much Rodriguez made El Mariachi for." While Primer tackled what may happen in the future with the possibility of time travel, Upstream Color tries to dig deeper into what may have happened in our past to make us feel how we do in this given moment. It is our own actions, or possibly misfortune, that brings us to who we are now.

Sure, it doesn't sound too original, but how it builds is what really allows Carruth to shine as the ultimate multi-hyphenate (he directed, wrote, starred, shot, co-edited, scored and distributed the film). And just like his previous film, he wants to give you enough pieces to give you something to talk about once the end credits start to roll.

Now before I get into what actually happens in the film, I wanted to give a bit of a spoiler warning here. I'm not going to give everything away, but I feel that this film is best experienced knowing as little as possible. I went in without even seeing a trailer or reading a synopsis, and yet I was transfixed from the opening scene until the end, even if the extra large iced tea kept yelling at me to leave the auditorium for a couple of minutes. I couldn't.

Amy Seimetz

When the film first starts, we witness the Thief (Thiago Martins) digging through some blue orchids. Not for the plants themselves, but for the worm-like creatures within the soil. These worm-like creatures have a side-effect when ingested, leaving the person under a spell, a zombie-like trance, allowing the Thief to get them to do mundane tasks, including memorizing and writing down passages of Thoreau's book, "Walden". One night he finds the unsuspecting Kris (Amy Seimetz), drugs her and uses his power of persuasion to drain her of her life savings, leaving her broke and jobless, as she tries to put the pieces of her life back together.

One night she is drawn to a pig farm that is run by The Sampler (Andrew Sensenig), or so it seems. The Sampler easily blends into any group and setting, and spends most of his time in nature recording its sounds. What for? That's part of the mystery of the film. But it is sound that draws Kris to his farm after several unsuccessful attempts to remove the worms from her body with a knife. The Sampler is able to extract the parasite and implants it within one of the pigs on the farm, which he tags "Kris."

Amy Seimetz and Andrew Sensenig

As stated in the opening, this is like nothing you've ever see from one of the major studios (or possibly even one of the many indie distributors), and this is only the first third of the movie. In the last hour of the film, it shifts from the sci-fi set-up to something a little more mundane, a romantic drama. After meeting on a train, Kris finally agrees to have coffee with Jeff (played by Carruth). There's no way to tell how much time has passed, but Kris is on the defensive and attempts to put a stop to any relationship by divulging she has problems which only prescription medicine can help. But this doesn't phase Jeff, as he also has some of his own problems.

The relationship grows, connections are made, and the bigger purpose of the narrative slowly starts to unfold. To go any deeper would be criminal, but to say it all ends up where you believe, you may be shocked in the end. Or maybe I was just entranced while watching the film, slowly manipulated and sucked in by the beautiful cinematography and accompanied score.

If David Cronenberg and Terrence Malick had a child together, it just may have turned out to be Shane Carruth. Let's just hope that we don't have to wait another nine years for his next film. In the meantime, I may just have to watch the film once again to grab the hidden clues that were missed the first time around.

Upstream Color is currently in a limited theatrical run (dates found here) and will be available on most digital platforms starting May 7th.

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Mud

The Way 0f the River                           
by Mark Dispenza

Mud is a coming of age tale that echos the stories of Mark Twain.

Although the film is set in contemporary Arkansas, the lives of the people who derive their living from the mighty Mississippi aren't so different from their ancestors of a century ago.  It's here that Ellis, played by Tye Sheridan (The Tree of Life), and Neckbone (Jacob Lofland), two young men caught between the responsibilities of adulthood and the wonder of childhood, rush to complete their chores so they can sneak out to find adventure.

Find it they do.  They go out to a small island in the middle of the river to locate the wreck of a boat that became lodged in a tree during the last big flood.  They hope to make it their secret hideaway, but someone has beat them to it. "Mud," played by Matthew McConaughey, has made it his temporary hideout, while he awaits rendezvous and escape with Juniper (Reese Witherspoon), the love of his life.

Matthew McConaughey

Mud is a fugitive from the law, and while he does not want to attract attention to his location, he finds the boys to be useful and all too willing allies he can use to make supply runs without giving himself away.  Over the course of a few days, Ellis learns a lot about love and personal responsibility, and he has an incredible adventure while doing so.

Reese Witherspoon

This is a story well-told and a very entertaining way to spend two hours at the movies.  Writer-director Jeff Nichols, best known previously for Take Shelter, confirms his status as a filmmaker who knows how to spin a good yarn and keep the audience completely mesmerized for the duration.  The cast includes Nichols veteran, Michael Shannon, and Sam Shepard in standout supporting roles.

The river itself is a character in the film, which is partially a tribute to the rapidly dwindling population of rural river dwellers, soon to be a vanished breed.  Mark Twain would be proud.

"The Mississippi River will always have its own way; no engineering skill can persuade it to do otherwise..."

- Mark Twain in Eruption

Room 237

Signs and Interpretations                
by Zac Ryan

It has long been known that Stanley Kubrick was a perfectionist, sometimes calling for hundreds of takes with the same line read over and over, just to get the right nuance and emotion from the actor. To say everything that ends up on the screen was meticulously planned and planted by the iconic filmmaker may be a stretch, but Room 237 goes into great depths to bring to light several conspiracy theorists and lovers of The Shining to highlight the little nuances that indicate there may be something deeper there than an adaption of the best-selling Stephen King novel - an adaptation that the author hated so much that he made sure the film was remade into a less-than-stellar, but more faithful miniseries adaptation.

In this day and age of the internet, there are countless conspiracy theorists with a forum to tout their ideas to the public. Several years ago on the web,  I first came across the documentary's craziest of assertions, that Kubrick used the film as a confession that he was hired by NASA to fake the first moon landing. Clues validating that theory can be found by watching the film with an obsessive eye through countless viewings. Even that theorist, one of the many disembodied voices of the documentary, claims that while what we saw on television was faked, NASA did in fact land on the moon. It may be a crazy pill to swallow, but this obsessive viewer isn't the only one to find a deeper meaning in Kubrick's film.

Room 237 is filled with accounts of what Kubrick may have been trying to say, and if he were alive today, he may have been filled with glee to see so many different interpretations, only to stay mum about why the film diverges so far from King's original novel. Two of the doc's other subjects feel Kubrick was trying to deliver a message about genocide. One find clues behind the Calumet powder cans on the Overlook Hotel's supply shelves, with their depiction of a native American on the label, and believes that Kubrick was trying to bring to light the demise of the American Indian. Another theorist sees a deeper message in the recurrence of the number 42, along with different divisions and multiplications of that number, as a sign of the Nazis and a reference to the holocaust.

The last of the conspiracies goes into great detail about the layout of the hotel, including the patterns in the carpet and how Danny's ride on his tricycle is totally impossible. It is one of the most plausible and interesting of the takes. But honestly, anyone who has ever worked on a film set knows that everything cannot align perfectly or make total sense spatially. Films are filled with countless continuity errors, usually missed by everyone on set, including the director, that aren't noticed until the film is watched several times. Every film's page on IMDb will have at least one of these errors listed, but with Kubrick's madness, could there be any meaning beyond that, or were they just mistakes? We may never know.

Rodney Ascher doesn't bring anyone on to counter his subjects' asinine ideas and theories, but the film still works. Each theory is given in voiceover, without identifying the theorist, and it works. Scenes from The Shining and other Kubrick films are shown over and over in detail, with occasional stock footage or alternate film scenes, to clue us in on what might be seen. Maybe they're right, or maybe they're nuts, and that's why we don't want to see what the theorists look like. Their appearance will not cloud our perception.

Room 237 takes obsessive culture to a new realm, and even if the film does drag on a bit in its 100+ minute runtime, I immediately wanted to watch The Shining again to see if I could find any other tidbits that Kubrick may have hidden or mistakes in continuity that weren't meant as anything more. Cinephiles, Kubrick fans and those who like dissecting conspiracy theories will dig the film, but outside of that small demographic, viewers may be left wanting a little more.

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The Sapphires

A Really Good Show                                    
by Mark Dispenza

The latest film from the land down under is formulaic, predictable and loads of fun.

The Sapphires has a simple story line that's a proven crowd-pleaser.  It's shades of Disney's Cool Runnings infused with American Idol, or rather, Australian Idol in this case.  An alcoholic, disillusioned white guy stumbles upon four Aboriginal girls with big dreams and unrefined talent.  They convince him to become their manager and whip them into shape for the big time - the opportunity to join a USO tour of Vietnam.

It's easy to root for these underdogs.  Each character faces a unique personal challenge, and watching them grow and develop together is fun to watch.  In the end they overcome their differences, come closer together, and talent manager Dave Lovelace, played to perfection by Chris O'Dowd, finds that he learns a lot more from the girls than they will ever learn from him.

Chris O'Dowd and Deborah Mailman

The film is a nostalgic journey back to 1968, a year of Motown hits, global upheaval and a new era of civil rights for black people in both Australia and the United States.  The girls have mixed race parentage and they are survivors of a shameful period in Australian history, when mixed race children were often taken from their parents and forced to live a segregated lifestyle on special reserves or missions.

Fortunately the politics of the Vietnam War are not rehashed in this story, although the dangers and personal sacrifice experienced by the troops are much in evidence.  This tale is all about the girls and their personal journeys together.  Director Wayne Blair, an Aborigine himself, gets it right and he keeps true to the spirit of the Tony Briggs play on which the film is based.   The play was inspired by the true story of Briggs' mother, Laurel Robinson, and his aunt, Lois Peeler, who actually sang in a USO tour of Vietnam in 1968.

The Sapphires doesn't break new ground in filmmaking or story development, but sometimes it's fun to just sit back and enjoy the show.

The Place Beyond the Pines

Fathers and Sons                                 
by Zac Ryan

A triptych yarn of epic proportions, Derek Cianfrance's latest film explores how an individual's choices, right or wrong, affect their own lives and the lives of those around them, even over a decade later.

"Handsome Luke" (Ryan Gosling), the brash persona of  a daredevil cyclist, isn't the most sane of gentlemen. He travels around with a carnival from town-to-town,, his body covered in tattoos, riding around in a steal circular cage with two other cyclists. He's a daredevil, but it isn't until the carnival makes its return to Synecdoche, New York, that his life is thrown into a tailspin. There he finds that Romina (Eva Mendes), the woman with whom he shared a tryst during his last time through, has birthed his kid.  It is time to hang up the high-octane lifestyle for something a little more mundane.

He quits the traveling carnival and tries to find his place within the small town and to weasel his way back into the life of Romina and his child. But Romina has moved onto greener pastures. She now lives with Kofi (Mahershala Ali), who has stepped in to be the child's father, offering them his home and a stable future. It isn't until Luke meets up with the garage owner, Robin (Ben Mendelsohn), that his life is truly turned upside down. Working in the garage provides a comfortable living, but Robin wants to use Luke's skills behind the wheel of his bike for some high-speed bank robberies. Luke complies, feeling this is the only way to get into the good graces of his baby's mama.

Ryan Gosling and Eva Mendes

Luke is good at what he does, but the law won't be too far behind him, led by the lawyer turned rookie cop, Avery (Bradley Cooper). Together, their lives will intersect, spinning the film to shift focus away from Luke's story, and turning it over to Avery and his battles with a corrupt police force, led by Deputy Deluca (Ray Liotta). Avery only wants to do what's right, and after a near death experience, and his own questions of morality, he must do what's right to turn the city around and set the right example for his own son.

The battles that these two must face, fighting their own demons, their own responsibilities of being a father and setting their own kin on the right path, takes up the first two-thirds of the movie. Cianfrance melds the perfect balance between the two stories.  Even if completely linear, unlike his previous film, Blue Valentine, this story still has plenty of twists and turns and is always one step ahead of the audience... that is until the third act, where the film jumps ahead more than a decade.  Avery is now a politician, but the story centers around the offspring of the two leads, showing the true repercussions of the past.

Bradley Cooper

 Avery's son, Jason (Dane DeHaan), crosses paths with Luke's son, AJ (Emory Cohen), while in school. Jason is a little more clean cut, but he isn't as clean and as wholesome as he appears on the surface. As AJ befriends him, the differences between the two socioeconomic classes collide. Truths are revealed about the past, bringing the film to its conclusion.  By this time the viewer may finally be a little ahead of the film. During the stories of the fathers, the story keeps the viewer always guessing what the characters will do next, but based on their father's prior actions, the story of the sons becomes a slight bit predictable.

I don't say that to turn you off, as the first two thirds of the film are superb. Gosling and Cooper both cement themselves into leading man territory and justify their prior acting award nominations. I'm not saying that the young actors in the third act are weak (they're not), but the script seems to leave them a little less well-rounded than their fathers. Maybe that's the point that the director and the screenwriters were trying to convey in the battle of nature vs. nurture. The actions of the past cannot be ignored or escaped.

Besides the great performances, the film is beautifully shot by Sean Bobbitt, including one of the greatest opening tracking shots in some time. Cianfrance also knows when to pull back and let the characters and their actions play out, cutting at the right moment to build tension, and leaving the viewer to question every character's decisions. While the run time is just short of two and a half hours, the film moves along at a steady clip, aided by a superb soundtrack from Mike Patton.

While the film had early buzz out of the Toronto Film Fest, the early release date lessens the chances that either of the two leads will garner any of the award attention they justly deserve.

Currently The Place Beyond the Pines is playing in New York and Los Angeles, with release planned in further cities over the next couple of weeks.