The Double Hour (la Doppia ora) is an Italian noir thriller that has more dangerous curves than a mountain road. Not since Christopher Nolan's Memento has a film so effectively messed with audience perceptions of reality on a minute-by-minute basis.
Given that this is the debut feature of writer/ director Giuseppe Capotondi, that is high praise indeed. Like Nolan in Memento, Capotondi has achieved a very complex story structure that might easily collapse of its own weight in the hands of a lesser filmmaker. The result proves that he is up to the task, and I eagerly await his next feature. Kseniya Rappoport plays the role of Sonia, an East European immigrant working as a maid in an Italian hotel. Trapped in a nowhere job, she decides to improve her social life by attending a speed dating event. She meets Guido, played by Filippo Timi, an ex-cop with a dark past, who is currently working in private security for a wealthy client. The two fall instantly in love and begin a whirlwind romance that disrupts their worlds in ways neither of them anticipate. During a romantic tryst at the wealthy client's estate, the lovers become victims of a violent robbery, and nothing will ever be the same.
In most noir films the femme fatale is the only one who ever has control, but Sonia is a seductress whose sense of reality is suspect at every turn. Is she seducer or victim? or both? This is a welcome new contribution to the genre that will keep you guessing until the very last moments of the film.
Basilicata Coast to Coast is an Italian comedy about adult men becoming grownups at last. Friends since childhood, four part-time musicians decide to take leave of their families and ordinary lives to cross the southern Italian peninsula on foot to play at a music festival on the opposite coast. The normally 90-minute bus ride from Puglia to Calabria takes them 10 days as pedestrians, with only a donkey cart to carry instruments and supplies.
Tropea, a journalist whose own career has hit rock bottom and digging deeper, reluctantly accompanies the men to create a video documentary for whomever may one day care enough to watch. During the course of the journey, each of the travelers confronts their inner demon, with comic and sometimes touching results.
The film has a lot to say about the clash of youthful expectations with the realities of life. One sequence in particular follows the travelers as they enter an isolated town they've heard is populated by young, beautiful women. On arrival the men gawk open-mouthed at a street teeming with so many hotties that it looks like the opening of a national beauty pageant (a scene that was far too short in my opinion). When they are invited to the town's big dance that night, they arrive as excited as little boys, only to discover that the town's population of men is so large that each woman must dance simultaneously with two men.
The strength of Basilicata Coast to Coast is in the wonderful, quirky characters that populate it, and the actors that play them--including the beautiful Basilicata region that is a character in itself. The film is a terrific directorial debut by actor Rocco Papaleo, who also co-wrote the script for this first feature and stars in it. It is definitely an actor's movie, strong on character but somewhat predictable in story. I found it to be entertaining, although it doesn't break any new ground.
The story may not be unique, but Papaleo does execute it effectively, and he brings it to a close that underscores the old wisdom that life is not about the destination anyway. It's about the journey.
Simple Simon was this year's Oscar entry from Sweden, and many were upset that it made the early short list but not the final cut. It's easy to see why the film has so many fans.
Written and directed by relative newcomer Andreas Ohman, the deceptively well-constructed story is about 18-year-old Simon, an unlikely hero who has Asperger's Syndrome and needs everything in his life to follow a predictable and certain pattern. When the unexpected strikes, Simon retreats inside his home-made space capsule and pretends to be an astronaut floating in outer space. The only person who understands him and can coax him back to the real world is his older brother, Sam. When life at their parents' home gets too difficult, Simon moves in with Sam and his girlfriend, Frida,
It's not long before Simon's antics and his need for constant attention cause Frida to dump them both. Simon is unable to cope with Sam's subsequent depression and becomes desperate to find him a new girlfriend. As Simon is forced farther and farther outside of his perfectly aligned world, he gets caught up in a series of misadventures that are both comic and heart-warming. He meets Jennifer and becomes convinced that she is Sam's perfect soul mate, but Sam won't be convinced. The stakes escalate as Simon goes to greater and greater lengths to bring Sam and Jennifer together.
Simon is well played by Bill Skarsgard, son of veteran actor, Stellan Skarsgard, soon to be seen as the villainous Martin Vanger when the Hollywood remake of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo releases in December.
This film succeeds very well as straightforward comic entertainment, but underneath its simple surface lies much wisdom about the trials and unexpected rewards of befriending someone afflicted by such a debilitating condition. In spite of his limitations, Simon forces himself out of his comfort zone to achieve a greater purpose. Maybe we can all learn from him.
If you're in San Francisco this week or plan to attend the Newport Beach Film Festival next week, I recommend that you add The Whistleblower to your schedule. This fact-based political thriller dramatizes the story of Kathryn Bolkovac, a United Nations International Police Force monitor who risked her job and her life to expose a human-trafficking ring operated by employees of private security contractor, DynCorp, in Bosnia during the late '90s.
The film was co-written and directed by first-timer, Larysa Kondracki, and features Rachel Weisz in one of her finest performances. Monica Bellucci, Vanessa Redgrave and David Strathairn round out a solid cast. Kondracki, a Canadian of Ukrainian origin, spent two years in Europe researching the subject of her film. She proves to be as brave as the real-life heroine, and doesn't flinch in her straight forward depiction of a very sordid subject.
Bolkovac was a police officer in Lincoln, Nebraska, when she decided to accept a highly paid job as a UN peacekeeper in order to earn enough money to move closer to her daughter, then in the custody of her ex-husband. Once in Bosnia she quickly gets promoted to the UN's Gender Office, which oversees sexual assault investigations. While there she must persevere against the boys club atmosphere of her fellow peacekeepers and navigate the cultural complexities of working with a corrupt and sexist local police force.
She uncovers evidence of a sex-trafficking ring operated by peacekeepers from her own employer and kept under wraps by the complicity of UN authorities at the highest levels of the international operation. Nevertheless Bolkovic puts her career and her life at risk by seeking justice for the young girls victimized by the very people who were sent there to protect them.
The subject matter of this film is disturbing and some scenes are hard to watch, but it is well worth your attention. See it for the great performance by Weisz, or because it is a remarkable achievement by a first-time filmmaker, or see it because we all need to be fully aware of the price others pay when we fail our mission. The Whistleblower is scheduled for a US theatrical release in August 2011.
In case you missed the original 1999 release of director Mike Leigh's cinematic masterpiece, Topsy-Turvy, you now have another excuse to see it. The Criterion Collection has just come out with a digitally remastered version, including Blu-Ray, with extended commentary and interviews. Topsy-Turvy is perhaps the best film ever made about the staging of a major theatrical production. A terrific ensemble cast led by Jim Broadbent and Allan Corduner, as famous playwrights W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan, delivers an imaginative, richly detailed look at the personal and professional challenges behind the original staging of the comic opera, The Mikado.
Mike Leigh achieved a rare combination of cinematic beauty and historical detail with this film, populated by richly developed characters. To be perfectly frank, the set-up in the first 30 minutes is a bit slow-moving, and I don't think I would have missed it, but I urge you to stay with it. By the time you're well into the first hour of this story, you'll be completely hooked. Buy it, reserve it on Netflix--do whatever you have to do. Just see it. If you've already seen it, it's time to pay it another visit.
One of the films I couldn't fit into my schedule at the Palm Springs International Film Festival this year was 18 Years Later (18 anni dopo), an Italian film that generated great buzz among audience members there. My frustration at missing the film was finally relieved when I attended this week's screening at the Italian Institute of Culture in Los Angeles. The IIC screening room was packed with what I am told was the largest crowd for a screening there in recent memory. 18 Years Later is the story of Genziano and Mirko, two brothers who have not spoken to one another in the 18 years following the tragic car accident that killed their mother. Upon his death their long-suffering father gets his wish to bring his shattered family back together via an ingenious and resourceful provision in his will. The two brothers must deliver his ashes to the graveside of their mother in the restored antique Morgan in which their mother died.
Despite the serious story line, this bittersweet Italian comedy is a very entertaining and cathartic film. It is packed with memorable characters and never degenerates into blatant manipulation of audience emotion--something Hollywood can learn from. 18 Years Later was a long journey for actor/writer/director Edoardo Leo and his long-time close friend, co-writer and co-star, Marco Bonino. Friends since childhood, they wrote the first draft of the screenplay 10 years ago with the objective of playing the lead roles. After multiple rewrites in both English and Italian, with Marco's wife assisting in the translations, and several false starts between Hollywood and Rome (actor Peter O'Toole was attached at one time to play the grandfather), the two amici finally raised enough money to shoot it themselves. The result was worth that long, hard development hell.
This is a beautiful film about family, guilt and forgiveness. It's a story that resonates with many people. My youngest sister and I stopped talking a decade ago in the aftermath of our own mother's sudden and traumatic death under different circumstances. We started talking to each other again little more than a year ago, and I'm very happy we did. Our journey to self-healing, like Genziano and Mirko's, is hard but ultimately worth the effort.
Despite highly favorable audience reaction during the film's few screenings in this country, Marco reported during the IIC Q&A on Tuesday that the film has yet to be picked up in the USA, although it is being distributed throughout Europe, Australia and other places. I hope that the situation will be remedied soon, so that you can see this film on the big screen.
Writer-director Tom McCarthy has been a favorite among independent film buffs since he took the Sundance Film Festival by storm with The Station Agent in 2003. His follow up film, The Visitor, put a human face on the immigration debate and reignited the already illustrious career of longtime character actor, Richard Jenkins, who subsequently went on to play a prominent role in the Julia Roberts vehicle, Eat Pray Love. For his third outing as writer-director, Tom has teamed up with actor Paul Giamatti to deliver a wonderful story that is both satisfying and real.
Win Win is about Mike Flaherty (Giamatti), a good man who makes a bad choice and then pays for it when things get complicated. The bad choice comes when he lies to the court to gain the guardianship of Leo, a senior suffering from dementia, for the sole purpose of getting the paycheck that comes with that responsibility. Flaherty's law practice is going under financially, a fact he has kept from his family. The money from the guardianship will allow him to keep the critical bills paid.
The complication comes from the unexpected arrival of Leo's long lost grandson, Kyle, perfectly played by 16-year-old newcomer, Alex Shaffer. Kyle doesn't have a father, and his mother's penchant for abusive substances and boyfriends has finally taken its toll. Flaherty has no choice but to take Kyle in. Flaherty's wife, superbly played by Amy Ryan, is suddenly having to deal with a lot of problems she doesn't understand and didn't create.
Flaherty is also the coach of the local high school wrestling team, which much like his law practice, isn't going anywhere. It's not long before he discovers that Kyle is a genuinely gifted wrestler who can give Flaherty's losing team a real shot at a state title game. With that seemingly impossible goal finally in sight, the web of deception unravels, putting at risk his relationship with Kyle, whom the entire Flaherty family has grown to love.
This is Shaffer's first film. He is an actual high school state wrestling champion and infuses the sports scenes with a strong dose of reality. He is also a convincing actor and someone to watch in the future.
This is a timely story about a man who makes a bad choice under financial pressure and must pay the consequences when he is finally forced to come clean. He gets back on the right path at the end, but that path is a hard one, something this film doesn't shy away from. It's not a Hollywood ending. Flaherty is not suddenly going to get rich and the wrestling team may not go to the state finals, but it is a real ending and ultimately much more satisfying. It's what being human is all about. Win Win opened yesterday in select theaters. Don't miss it when it comes to your town.
