There are different sizes and sorts of blind spots you can have as a person who is into movies. You can have not seen something that's been out in theaters for a bit and everyone would assume you've seen; it took me months to get around to Top Gun: Maverick. You may have missed a particular classic - I can't imagine sitting down for three or four hours of The Ten Commandments, for instance. . I'm missing major swaths of certain genres people might assume I'm conversant in, like how I write a lot of horror-movie reviews for someone who has never seen an entry in the Friday the 13th series. And so on.
And then there's the thing when you open your Letterboxd stats page and scroll down to the world map and see large swaths either gray or a very light green, far from the neon yellow of the USA. It's fine to not particularly worry about it - there's a lot of world, and you can get yourself into a situation where you'll never catch up just with whatever's mainstream in your part of it. Still, if you're curious, those gaps can gnaw at you. There's a story I tell even though I don't remember all the details about posting a review of an Iranian art-house movie and having someone in the comments mention that nobody in Iran actually watches them and they don't necessarily reflect the country, because everyone there watches Egyptian action movies. It would be something like twenty years before I actually saw one (mostly. Seeing Indian movies took a while, too, and even then, it took a while to see that there was more than just Hindi-language Bollywood movies, but a whole host of local film cultures, and the very fact of that, on top of seeing Indian-led fantasies, romances, and comedies, taught me something about a massive place I hadn't considered as much more than kind of homogeneous.
But the big gaping hole has been Africa, and while I've chipped away with that through various horror movies and afro-futurist sci-fi movies at Fantasia and the occasional art-house/IFFBoston booking, plus the Officially Sanctioned Cult Phenomenon of the "Wakaliwood" movies from Uganda, nothing from Nigeria has shown up, which kind of shows the pitfalls of relying on art houses and festivals to learn about world cinema: You see a lot of movies from the fringes, an a lot of it is good stuff, but Nigeria's "Nollywood" is the mainstream engine that drives cinema around Africa, cranking out a ton of films - by some accounts, a number right up there with India, China, and the USA, which get exported across the continent and probably influenced that Senegalese import as much as the west did.
I'm not sure what's up with the Regal in Fenway booking Battle on Buka Street this week - it's apparently a massive hit featuring people who are especially popular in Africa and among the diaspora, although I don't know to what extent it is more so than any other recent Nigerian movie. Is there an African immigrant community near there, akin to the way AMC Boston Common is near Chinatown and AMC South Bay apparently draws from a Vietnamese community? Don't know; it wasn't hugely crowded, but it was a literal Saturday matinee (11:50 start time), and who knows how well word got out? Maybe there's all this and Regal figured they don't get the traction on award contenders that other theaters do, they already had M3GAN and Avatar on all the screens they could support, and still had a couple slots per day after even after booking an Egyptian movie, so why the hell not?
And, why the hell not? It's a different thing from a lot of the movies I've seen, and I suspect that it will take me a few tries to get used to. The performances are big and broad in many cases, the story takes some crazy turns, and the ending does not seem to be what most of the movie was leading up to at all (and, man, that movie just stopped). The budget is small enough that the filmmakers sort of suggested a prison break and I had no idea what was going on until later, but I suspect locals would know how to process that sort of scene better. I had it pegged as a comedy going in but it had the feel of a soap opera playing to the rafters, a telenovela cut down to 140 minutes and also in Nigeria. And, speaking of, I am obviously missing a lot of context - is polygamy common in small-town NIgeria? Is one wife being Yoruba and another Igbo a big deal or just interesting details?
I can't say I particularly loved it; it's the sort of thing that I recommend to people because, hey, I bet other folks would like to fill in their blind spots as well, not because it's a particularly strong movie. Anyway, I hope that, with the Seaport and Causeway Street theaters reopening under new managements in the next few months, all these places within a few T stops of each other keep drawing from relatively far afield to fill their screens, including more Nollywood stuff; I'm looking forward to learning more about the cinema and society of Western Africa.
Battle on Buka Street
* * ½ (out of four)
Seen 7 January 2023 in Regal Fenway #6 (first-run, DCP)
Even more than with most foreign-to-me movies, I don't know that I've got the right vocabulary or mindset to approach a Nollywood movie like Battle on Buka Street, and as a result the film both frustrates and fascinates me. It's a film with a few issues beyond me not being used to the vibe of movies from Nigeria, but it's also a lot more movie than I was expecting, different enough in culture and style that I want to see more.
Once upon a time, Maduka (Nkem Owoh), a merchant in the community of Otonwa, had several wives. Two of them in particular, Asake and Ezinne, despised each other, and it only got worse when they each gave birth to daughters on the same day, each figuring the other was trying to upstage her. The daughters carried on their mothers' feud, and a generation later, on the day Asake's daughter Yejide (Funke Akindele) married her fiancé Lashile (Femi Jacobs), Ezinne's daughter Awele (Mercy Johnson Okojie) tied the knot as well, causing an eruption that ended with Awele leaving town. Now, Yejide operates one of the most popular eateries, though Asake (Sola Sobowale) does most of the cooking, with son Ademide (Moshood Fattah) looking to start a singing career while daughter Fadeke helps at the restaurant. It's going well until Awele rolls back into town, older daughter Ifunanya and teenaged twins Kaiso and Kaira in tow, leaving an abusive husband, and opens her own restaurant directly across the street, and not only are Asake, Ezinne (Tina Mba), Yejide, and Awele immediately at each other's throats, but Fade and the twins are all too willing to to engage in an escalating campaign of sabotage, while the more level-headed Ademide and Ify are sent abroad to find opportunity.
That's a lot, and there's more besides. Some of that "more" might have either been shaved out or more tightly integrated in a different sort of movie; there are at least a couple of "wait, what?" moments where directors Funke Akindele & Tobi Makinde do things which could potentially send the movie off in new and screwy directions (and sometimes do) in ways that seem like they use a different shorthand than I'm used to. It goes all over the place and much of the final act is concerned with things that are at best tangential to what had been at the center of the movie for the first half, right up until it ends at a point that didn't particularly feel like the culmination of the story. It can also be abrasive, with lots of parents calling their children idiots and no hints that this family has any feelings more complicated than innate loathing for its other branches.
There is something genuinely appealing about this shagginess, though - there's a straightforward sort of comedy at the core, but that belies that this is also a generational epic and a soap opera, and the way the filmmakers will often shift into different episodes or have the story veer in a new direction with a lot of melodrama makes it bigger than the plot: It's a foolish animosity, but the audience can feel just how much bigger than them it must feel to the characters. The film doesn't do much to dig into how this kind of self-destructive, miserable-looking family feud gets started and sustains itself, but does an impressive job of pulling the audience into it without taking sides but instead feeling how irresistible the momentum of it can be, and how Ifunanya are potentially making a major break by acting sensibly.
The actors playing those two cousins give the performances I felt most comfortable with, in large part because of how they aren't yelling until something merits it; it's part of how they mostly seem to be playing to the other character, not the audience. That's not the case with Akindele and Mercy Johnson as the middle generation, but they are forces of nature, sometimes playing to the rafters but also absolutely convincing in how strongly felt their animosity is and how the ends of their marriages has left something at least a little broken underneath. Sola Sobowale and Tina Mba are both playing it a bit more broad in their roles as the grandmothers - Ezinne's frailty is a millimeter away from being outright comedic.
I'm not quite sure if Nkem Owoh's Maduka is a flat portrayal or hitting a certain type of toxic masculinity that has plausible deniability head-on, with a certain offended above-the-fray manner that on the one hand makes me think that if someone's going to do polygamy at all, they should be better than this, but is probably more about how men like this maintain control by pitting women against each other. That's what's been happening for generations here, to the point where men being good enough to break the cycle seems to be regarded with suspicion by these women who have for so long seen each other as the enemy.
It doesn't quite gel, especially the filmmakers don't seem to have the resources to depict some of the events that the film turns on rather than having them happen mostly off-screen. Nevertheless, I'm curious to see more from Nollywood; it's long been a blind spot and I don't want to judge it by just this one example.
Showing posts with label Nigeria. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nigeria. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 10, 2023
Wednesday, July 22, 2015
The Fantasia Daily 2015.08 (21 July 2015): Buddha's Palm, Ojuju, Nowhere Girl, and Anguish
Doing laundry while on vacation day is kind of a drag. Less of one when it's kind of rainy and you can write in the meantime (and it's not like you've been completely away from regular life, what with working three mornings a week), but it just doesn't feel like getting away?
Kept me busy until it was time for movies, where I arrived at de Seve right in time for what I think is the festival's only English-friendly 35mm screening, a nifty presentation of Shaw Brothers oddity Buddha's Palm. Then, with time to kill but not really wanting to walk around in the rain, I headed across the street to hit Le Gourmet Burger since I'd already seen (T)error and Montreal has many good burgers near Concordia. From there, it was back in line to see Ojuju, which is the sort of thing you don't want to say bad things about because it's from a developing country and the effort is there, but it's just not that great in an objective sense. Then across the street for the new Oshii and bumping into folks I see every once in a while in Boston - aside from seeing them, I've answered a survey while in line and seen a couple other folks I know hail from the Hub doing so, and I wonder if we're giving a skewed idea of how many people come up here from New England.
Then, back to de Seve where Mitch and Anguish director Sonny Ballhi introduced the latter's movie. A pretty darn nifty directorial debut and an interesting Q&A; he talked about being inspired by a spirit expulsion therapy which supposedly has had some good results in treating people with disassociative identity disorder, but which I must admit sounded kind of pseudo-science-y to me. His genuine enthusiasm for the town where he set and shot the movie was nifty, though - he first went there at the age of ten and loved how, for as flat as Illinois and the rest of the Midwest can be, this place had hills to give it some topography.
That was yesterday; today's plan is 100 Yen Love, The Royal Tailor, Momentum, and The Master Plan. Observance is recommended.
Ru lai shen zhang (Buddha's Palm)
* * * (out of four)
Seen 21 July 2015 in the J.A. de Sève Cinema (Fantasia International Film Festival: Retro & Restorations, 35mm)
Even by Shaw Brothers standards, Buddha's Palm is kind of nuts, piling new crazy action and more martial arts masters on whenever things start to slow down the slightest bit. That's not necessarily an unusual way to build these movies, although the frantic redirection and one-more-thing here is enhanced with superpowers and friendly monsters.
The first creator of the Buddha's Palm technique, we're told, "over-practiced with fatal results", but passed the knowledge on to his disciple Ku Han-hun (Alex Man Chi-leung), who fought many devils, made many enemies, and disappeared years ago. Lung Chien-fei (Derek Yee Tung-shing) is not much like him, a scarred nobody pining after his master's daughter Liu Ming-ying (Candice Yu On-on) and getting his ass handed to him so thoroughly when attacking her betrothed (Ku Kuan-Chang) that he goes over a cliff. But, as the narrator notes, "a monster saves him" and he winds up studying at the feet of the blinded Ku. He sets off to find a magical pearl that will cure Ku's blindness, meeting sisters Chu Yu-chan (Kara Hui Ying-hung) and Yu-hua (also Candice Yu), who seek the same pearl for their master Sun Pi-ling (Susan Shaw Yin-yin)...
...Look, that's something like the first half hour of this ninety-minute movie, and by the time Ming-ying and her now-husband pops up again, the viewer will likely react along the lines of "oh, yeah, them!"; over-stuffing doesn't begin to describe what's going on here. The screenwriters (including On Szeto, Manfred Wong, and director Taylor Wong Tai-loi) in some ways don't seem terribly worried about things making what you'd call any sort of sense, especially when an angry mob more or less agrees to put off getting retribution for a slaughter to have a reunion party despite all the bodies being right there in front of them. It's at the suggestion of Pi Ku (Lo Lieh), a martial arts master who just pops up every time the plot could use him despite him always talking about arriving too late. It's a ridiculously random story.
Full review on EFC.
Ojuju
* * (out of four)
Seen 21 July 2015 in the J.A. de Sève Cinema (Fantasia International Film Festival: Fantasia Underground, DCP)
Ojuju is a zombie film from Nigeria, and there can be very little doubt that its place of origin is the most notable thing about it. Horror fans have seen this sort of movie a lot, usually done much better, and only in part because filmmakers in Lagos don't necessarily have a lot to work with. That said, curiosity is a valid reason to watch this, and in some ways this sort of genre film may be a way to soften expectations when dipping one's toe into an incredibly fast-growing cinematic scene.
It starts with a couple of weed dealers (Chidozie Nzeribe & Brutus Richard) shooting the breeze, at least until some guy looking really sick comes stumbling toward them and... Well, guess. After that, we meet Romero (Gabriel Afolayan), trying to be a better man now that his girlfriend-he-doesn't-wear-a-condom-with Alero (Meg Otanwa) is pregnant, although Aisha (Yvonne Enakhena) still flirts with him, Alero's friend Peju (Omowunmi Dada) doesn't trust him, and buddy Emeka (Kelechi Udegbe) still talks to him like he's a stoner. Today, the subject is how something really weird seemed to be going on at Fela's house - Fela being one of the two from earlier.
Lots of people make zombie movies when working on tight budgets and with limited resources; if you want to make a film that people will watch, it's an achievable goal and the basics are known to work. Give writer/director/editor/producer C.J. "Fiery" Obasi some credit for seeing it as a great fit for this setting and working to make it be a bit more than the undead in Nigeria, though: He explicitly connects his plague with the dismal supplies of clean water in his country, and sets the film in a slum whose one entrance/exit and barbed wire walls makes for both practical containment and symbolic import. Not only is food and clean water in short supply, but meat is specifically mentioned as something very hard to come by, an ironic early request by many characters early on. There's meaning to this take on a familiar situation.
Full review on EFC.
Tokyo Mukokuseki Shoujo (Nowhere Girl)
* * * (out of four)
Seen 21 July 2015 in Theatre Hall Concordia (Fantasia International Film Festival, HD)
I enjoyed Nowhere Girl, but I must admit to a sneaking suspicion that the filmmakers wind up saying less than they mean to even as they do so in singular, intriguing ways. Or is that simply criticizing the film for being unconventional? Whichever is the case, the eerie slow build to an exceptional finale is likely to stick in a viewer's head for a while, and that's probably worth noting on its own.
It follows Ai (Nana Seino), a student at an art school for girls who, because of her extraordinary talent and the post-traumatic stress disorder from an undescribed incident, is basically given the run of the place by the headmaster (Hirotaro Honda) in hopes that she will improve. The school nurse (Saeko "Lily" Kamada) does her best to treat Ai, although without much visible progress. There's no missing the resentment her special treatment draws, either from her teacher (Nobuaki Kaneko) or fellow students (Hinako Tanaka, Ayuri Yoshinaga, Kanon Hanakage).
On top of that, the school seems to literally be standing on unstable ground, and the auditorium where Ai is building a large sculpture project is slated for demolition. There is almost no way that this is not symbolic, and it's the sort of thing where director Mamoru Oshii and screenwriter Kei Yamamura (adapting a short film by Kentaro Yamagishi) may ultimately try to get a little too clever, especially as the film nears its conclusion: There is pointed mention made that Ai is having hallucinations, but these things also happen in scenes where she is not present. It can be fit together, although for a movie that is constantly encouraging the audience to look closer and try and fit the parts of a troubled mind together, it's not the tight construction one might hope for.
Full review on EFC.
Anguish (2015)
* * * ½ (out of four)
Seen 21 July 2015 in the J.A. de Sève Cinema (Fantasia International Film Festival, DCP)
Anguish lives up to its title and spreads it around, doing an impressive job of mixing jump shocks and genuine human discomfort. Despite placing that sort of emotion front and center, though, it has a much broader range of empathy for its characters, creating an even better connection with the audience it's looking to scare.
It starts out by introducing the audience to Lucinda (Amberley Gridley) and her mother Sarah (Karina Logue), arguing about the daughter spending a weekend at a cabin with friends. It escalates in a way both would regret if it didn't end in the worst possible way. Some time later, another mother/daughter pair arrives in town: Tess (Ryan Simpkins), a withdrawn girl of fifteen who has been showing signs of mental disorders since she was five, and her fairly young mother Jessica (Annika Marks); father Robert (Cliff Chamberlain) is deployed to the Middle East. Despite it being November, Tess will not be starting school until after winter break, so she has time on her hands to explore and discover that perhaps the voices she hears are not entirely in her head.
Tess seems like a heck of a tricky character to play, so introverted that her mother has to remind her about making eye contact and as such not necessarily getting many chances to really interact with others; it's the sort of character that can come across as a bit of a lump. Fortunately, not only does writer/director Sonny Mallhi give her habits that seem to fit, but Ryan Simpkins digs into them and finds a nice balance between having a natural tendency to retreat from the world around her and a strong sense of curiosity. Tess seems like a complete person from the start rather than one who needs to find a missing piece, and that's important, because it gives the audience a strong sense of her when her brain chemistry goes off or the story's possession elements kick in and she may not be entirely herself any more. Even then, Simpkins is not given exaggerated, broad material to play; rather than going all-out with cackling demons, she's got to give the audience reason to believe but the skeptical other characters reason to disbelieve.
Full review on EFC.
Kept me busy until it was time for movies, where I arrived at de Seve right in time for what I think is the festival's only English-friendly 35mm screening, a nifty presentation of Shaw Brothers oddity Buddha's Palm. Then, with time to kill but not really wanting to walk around in the rain, I headed across the street to hit Le Gourmet Burger since I'd already seen (T)error and Montreal has many good burgers near Concordia. From there, it was back in line to see Ojuju, which is the sort of thing you don't want to say bad things about because it's from a developing country and the effort is there, but it's just not that great in an objective sense. Then across the street for the new Oshii and bumping into folks I see every once in a while in Boston - aside from seeing them, I've answered a survey while in line and seen a couple other folks I know hail from the Hub doing so, and I wonder if we're giving a skewed idea of how many people come up here from New England.
Then, back to de Seve where Mitch and Anguish director Sonny Ballhi introduced the latter's movie. A pretty darn nifty directorial debut and an interesting Q&A; he talked about being inspired by a spirit expulsion therapy which supposedly has had some good results in treating people with disassociative identity disorder, but which I must admit sounded kind of pseudo-science-y to me. His genuine enthusiasm for the town where he set and shot the movie was nifty, though - he first went there at the age of ten and loved how, for as flat as Illinois and the rest of the Midwest can be, this place had hills to give it some topography.
That was yesterday; today's plan is 100 Yen Love, The Royal Tailor, Momentum, and The Master Plan. Observance is recommended.
Ru lai shen zhang (Buddha's Palm)
* * * (out of four)
Seen 21 July 2015 in the J.A. de Sève Cinema (Fantasia International Film Festival: Retro & Restorations, 35mm)
Even by Shaw Brothers standards, Buddha's Palm is kind of nuts, piling new crazy action and more martial arts masters on whenever things start to slow down the slightest bit. That's not necessarily an unusual way to build these movies, although the frantic redirection and one-more-thing here is enhanced with superpowers and friendly monsters.
The first creator of the Buddha's Palm technique, we're told, "over-practiced with fatal results", but passed the knowledge on to his disciple Ku Han-hun (Alex Man Chi-leung), who fought many devils, made many enemies, and disappeared years ago. Lung Chien-fei (Derek Yee Tung-shing) is not much like him, a scarred nobody pining after his master's daughter Liu Ming-ying (Candice Yu On-on) and getting his ass handed to him so thoroughly when attacking her betrothed (Ku Kuan-Chang) that he goes over a cliff. But, as the narrator notes, "a monster saves him" and he winds up studying at the feet of the blinded Ku. He sets off to find a magical pearl that will cure Ku's blindness, meeting sisters Chu Yu-chan (Kara Hui Ying-hung) and Yu-hua (also Candice Yu), who seek the same pearl for their master Sun Pi-ling (Susan Shaw Yin-yin)...
...Look, that's something like the first half hour of this ninety-minute movie, and by the time Ming-ying and her now-husband pops up again, the viewer will likely react along the lines of "oh, yeah, them!"; over-stuffing doesn't begin to describe what's going on here. The screenwriters (including On Szeto, Manfred Wong, and director Taylor Wong Tai-loi) in some ways don't seem terribly worried about things making what you'd call any sort of sense, especially when an angry mob more or less agrees to put off getting retribution for a slaughter to have a reunion party despite all the bodies being right there in front of them. It's at the suggestion of Pi Ku (Lo Lieh), a martial arts master who just pops up every time the plot could use him despite him always talking about arriving too late. It's a ridiculously random story.
Full review on EFC.
Ojuju
* * (out of four)
Seen 21 July 2015 in the J.A. de Sève Cinema (Fantasia International Film Festival: Fantasia Underground, DCP)
Ojuju is a zombie film from Nigeria, and there can be very little doubt that its place of origin is the most notable thing about it. Horror fans have seen this sort of movie a lot, usually done much better, and only in part because filmmakers in Lagos don't necessarily have a lot to work with. That said, curiosity is a valid reason to watch this, and in some ways this sort of genre film may be a way to soften expectations when dipping one's toe into an incredibly fast-growing cinematic scene.
It starts with a couple of weed dealers (Chidozie Nzeribe & Brutus Richard) shooting the breeze, at least until some guy looking really sick comes stumbling toward them and... Well, guess. After that, we meet Romero (Gabriel Afolayan), trying to be a better man now that his girlfriend-he-doesn't-wear-a-condom-with Alero (Meg Otanwa) is pregnant, although Aisha (Yvonne Enakhena) still flirts with him, Alero's friend Peju (Omowunmi Dada) doesn't trust him, and buddy Emeka (Kelechi Udegbe) still talks to him like he's a stoner. Today, the subject is how something really weird seemed to be going on at Fela's house - Fela being one of the two from earlier.
Lots of people make zombie movies when working on tight budgets and with limited resources; if you want to make a film that people will watch, it's an achievable goal and the basics are known to work. Give writer/director/editor/producer C.J. "Fiery" Obasi some credit for seeing it as a great fit for this setting and working to make it be a bit more than the undead in Nigeria, though: He explicitly connects his plague with the dismal supplies of clean water in his country, and sets the film in a slum whose one entrance/exit and barbed wire walls makes for both practical containment and symbolic import. Not only is food and clean water in short supply, but meat is specifically mentioned as something very hard to come by, an ironic early request by many characters early on. There's meaning to this take on a familiar situation.
Full review on EFC.
Tokyo Mukokuseki Shoujo (Nowhere Girl)
* * * (out of four)
Seen 21 July 2015 in Theatre Hall Concordia (Fantasia International Film Festival, HD)
I enjoyed Nowhere Girl, but I must admit to a sneaking suspicion that the filmmakers wind up saying less than they mean to even as they do so in singular, intriguing ways. Or is that simply criticizing the film for being unconventional? Whichever is the case, the eerie slow build to an exceptional finale is likely to stick in a viewer's head for a while, and that's probably worth noting on its own.
It follows Ai (Nana Seino), a student at an art school for girls who, because of her extraordinary talent and the post-traumatic stress disorder from an undescribed incident, is basically given the run of the place by the headmaster (Hirotaro Honda) in hopes that she will improve. The school nurse (Saeko "Lily" Kamada) does her best to treat Ai, although without much visible progress. There's no missing the resentment her special treatment draws, either from her teacher (Nobuaki Kaneko) or fellow students (Hinako Tanaka, Ayuri Yoshinaga, Kanon Hanakage).
On top of that, the school seems to literally be standing on unstable ground, and the auditorium where Ai is building a large sculpture project is slated for demolition. There is almost no way that this is not symbolic, and it's the sort of thing where director Mamoru Oshii and screenwriter Kei Yamamura (adapting a short film by Kentaro Yamagishi) may ultimately try to get a little too clever, especially as the film nears its conclusion: There is pointed mention made that Ai is having hallucinations, but these things also happen in scenes where she is not present. It can be fit together, although for a movie that is constantly encouraging the audience to look closer and try and fit the parts of a troubled mind together, it's not the tight construction one might hope for.
Full review on EFC.
Anguish (2015)
* * * ½ (out of four)
Seen 21 July 2015 in the J.A. de Sève Cinema (Fantasia International Film Festival, DCP)
Anguish lives up to its title and spreads it around, doing an impressive job of mixing jump shocks and genuine human discomfort. Despite placing that sort of emotion front and center, though, it has a much broader range of empathy for its characters, creating an even better connection with the audience it's looking to scare.
It starts out by introducing the audience to Lucinda (Amberley Gridley) and her mother Sarah (Karina Logue), arguing about the daughter spending a weekend at a cabin with friends. It escalates in a way both would regret if it didn't end in the worst possible way. Some time later, another mother/daughter pair arrives in town: Tess (Ryan Simpkins), a withdrawn girl of fifteen who has been showing signs of mental disorders since she was five, and her fairly young mother Jessica (Annika Marks); father Robert (Cliff Chamberlain) is deployed to the Middle East. Despite it being November, Tess will not be starting school until after winter break, so she has time on her hands to explore and discover that perhaps the voices she hears are not entirely in her head.
Tess seems like a heck of a tricky character to play, so introverted that her mother has to remind her about making eye contact and as such not necessarily getting many chances to really interact with others; it's the sort of character that can come across as a bit of a lump. Fortunately, not only does writer/director Sonny Mallhi give her habits that seem to fit, but Ryan Simpkins digs into them and finds a nice balance between having a natural tendency to retreat from the world around her and a strong sense of curiosity. Tess seems like a complete person from the start rather than one who needs to find a missing piece, and that's important, because it gives the audience a strong sense of her when her brain chemistry goes off or the story's possession elements kick in and she may not be entirely herself any more. Even then, Simpkins is not given exaggerated, broad material to play; rather than going all-out with cackling demons, she's got to give the audience reason to believe but the skeptical other characters reason to disbelieve.
Full review on EFC.
Monday, May 04, 2009
IFFB 2009 Day Four: Still Walking, Nollywood Babylon, Lost Son of Havana, and Grace
Saturday was a beast of a day to schedule; going in, all I really knew was that I would end with Grace at the Brattle, since that was the only midnight movie option. In the end, I chose Still Walking over The Answer Man because the latter is scheduled for a release this summer, even if it is smack dab in the middle of Fantasia. I figure that's just the New York/L.A. release date and it will hit Boston a couple weeks later, when I'm home. I asked whether the various guests would be around for the second showing of Last Son of Havana, was told they probably wouldn't be, and decided to go with this screening. There were a couple other decisions, but Nollywood Babylon looked kind of interesting and would give me time to have a burger between screenings.
Last Son of Havana was the festival's centerpiece film, the type we don't really get a lot of opportunities for in Boston - the sort that attracts celebrities, media attention, and the like. The Brothers Bloom was a packed house; Last Son was a packed house where I'm sitting five seats away from Luis Tiant and Fred Lynn, a couple rows from Peter Gammons, and the Farrelly Brothers and Chris Cooper were in the house. There had been rumors that some Red Sox players would come, but the game against the Yankees ran forever - there was a lot of checking the score on mobile phones in the line and in the theater.
I wonder how much films like these bring outside attention to the festival; it's a very different crowd, people just there for the one film. Hopefully some come back or spread the word.
Aruitemo Aruitemo (Still Walking)
* * * ½ (out of four)
Seen 25 April 2009 at the Somerville Theater #5 (Independent Film Festival of Boston)
Among my moviegoing friends, I have gained a not-undeserved reputation for lacking patience with French dysfunctional family dramas. I contend that this is a bit unfair; while I did, in fact, bang my head against the back of my seat during the likes of A Christmas Tale and The Secret of the Grain while muttering my wishes that the characters do something, it has nothing to do with the subtitles. I do the same thing when watching English-language mumblecore, after all. These friends naturally assumed I hated Still Walking, but that's not the case. I rather enjoyed it.
Why is this? The setting, perhaps. Where watching American or French people stew in their own resentment just frustrates me, as I have too clear an idea of how I would not put up with that sort of situation (at least in my mind), Japanese culture is just different enough that it excites my curiosity. Yokohama is also a neat-looking city, as photographed by Yutaka Yamasaki. Yet I think the biggest difference is something else - I don't get the sense that most of the characters in Still Walking have surrendered to their issues; family relationships are tricky, but not a trap.
The family here is the Yokoyamas. Patriarch Kyohei (Yoshio Harada) is a retired doctor in his late sixties. As the film starts, his wife Toshiko (Kirin Kiki) is preparing food with their daughter Chinami (the singly-named You) while Kyohei stays in his office, pretending to attend to patient records despite his clinic being closed. Chinami's husband Nobuo (Kazuya Takahashi) soon arrives with their children Satsuki and Mutsu. Also on the way is second son Ryota (Hiroshi Abe), along with wife Yukari (Yui Natsukawa) and stepson Atsushi (Shohei Tanaka). First son Junpei died a twelve years ago, rescuing a floundering swimmer, and the family is gathering to mark the anniversary. There are, of course, tensions lurking between the Yokoyamas. The house shrine features a photograph of Junpei in his lab coat, highlighting Kyohei's disappointment that Ryota did not also follow in his footsteps and inherit the clinic, instead choosing a career in art restoration. There's prejudice against marrying a widow, and somewhat self-righteous debate among the other family members over whether or not Ryota and Yukari having children of their own would be a good idea.
Complete review at eFilmCritic.
Nollywood Babylon
* * * (out of four)
Seen 25 April 2009 at the Somerville Theater #5 (Independent Film Festival of Boston)
Asked to name the top three film industries in the world, nearly everybody would come up with the United States right away. A good chunk would probably mention India next; the word's gotten out in the past few years. After that, though, most people would likely rattle off a half-dozen or so countries - Japan, China/Hong Kong, France, South Korea, maybe Russia, Italy, and the U.K. - and likely give up before even considering Nigeria. That's because "Nollywood" isn't particularly concerned about exporting, but dominates its native land.
Nollywood's birthdate is given as 1992, financed by electronics merchants in Lagos, the country's largest city. It's a direct-to-video business - though Lagos is a city of fourteen million people, there are only three operating theaters, and none of them show Nollywood movies. It thrives because it's good business - deliver something the audience wants (films that speak directly to African audiences) for a cost low enough to make it profitable. That means shooting on video, quickly, and with perhaps a less-than-experienced cast and crew.
The movie is framed, in large part, around watching Lancelot Oduwa Imasuen shoot one of the dozens of Nollywood movies he's directed. He's one of Nigeria's most popular directors, and we get a front row seat to just how bare-bones Nollywood filmmaking is. The crew is very young - many don't look to be out of their teens - and Imasuen points out that they will likely move up in the industry quickly, maybe even directing movies themselves within a couple years. Sometimes folks on film crews get mistaken for gangsters.
Complete review at eFilmCritic.
The Lost Son of Havana
* * * ¼ (out of four)
Seen 25 April 2009 at the Somerville Theater #1 (Independent Film Festival of Boston)
If The Lost Son of Havana were fictional, there's a good chance that people would call its screenplay ridiculous. After all, it features the World Series, the Negro Leagues, multiple incredible returns from injury, baseball bringing about a reunion of fathers and sons, escapes from Cuba, and a comedic return. It is, more or less, everything a person might try to fit into a baseball movie, and the fact that it's all true doesn't diminish director Jonathan Hock's work at all.
It's worth remembering Hock's name, because it will probably be overshadowed in any promotion by the producers, Bobby and Peter Farrelly. The beginning of the film has a bit that's off-the-wall funny enough that the brothers should absolutely consider poaching it for a feature: In order for the documentary crew to travel with baseball great Luis Tiant on a trip to Cuba to visit old friends and family for the first time in 46 years, they must come in with a baseball team playing a goodwill exhibition game in Havana suburb Piñar del Rio - and while Tiant is allowed to come as a coach, the filmmakers must play. Tell me there's not a movie funnier than The Heartbreak Kid in there.
That's not the movie Hock's making, though. The initial levity of the game passes, and the filmmakers get to the main business of why they came: Following Tiant into Havana as he returns to his old neighborhood to seek out the family and friends he left behind when in 1961, at the age of 20, he followed his father's advice and opted not to return to Cuba after Fidel Castro took power. The people he meets on his quest are interesting: There's Juan Carlos Oliva, brother of Minnesota Twins star Tony Oliva, who played ball as a youth, was a tank commander in Castro's army, and later became a coach. There's a childhood friend by the name of Fermin, who displays a fascinating mix of sentiment and envy when he encounters Tiant. And there's his family; his aunts are sometimes unable to stand and embrace him, but there are plenty of members of the younger generation to fill out the house.
Complete review at eFilmCritic.
Grace
* * ½ (out of four)
Seen 25 April 2009 at the Brattle Theatre (Independent Film Festival of Boston After Dark)
When a child is born in a fantastical serial, whether it be television, comics, or movie sequels, there is almost inevitably some plot twist that ages him/her rapidly, or jumps the audience forward in time, or otherwise presents us with a walking, talking, parent-resenting tween/teen/adult because, as the writers will tell you, babies are boring. I've never thought that necessarily had to be the case, but Grace is pretty good evidence that they're right and I'm wrong - although it's got both enough other problems and enough things that work that I'm not quite willing to concede the point yet.
Madeline Matheson (Jordan Ladd) is excited to become a mother, and is determined to do right for her baby. Her husband Michael (Stephen Park) is a little unsure about Madeline's plans to give birth at a midwife's office rather than a hospital, which only makes sense with her organic vegan diet and all the other principled stands that go with it. Michael's mother Vivian (Gabrielle Rose), a judge, is by no means unsure; she's upset enough that this hippie chick has somehow taken her son away from her, and a child means there will be no getting rid of her. Not satisfied with Madeline using midwife Patricia Lang (Samantha Ferris) as their obstetrician, she tries to force family friend Dr. Richard Sohn (Malcolm Stewart) on the couple. The topic seems moot after an accident on the road, though Madeline insists on carrying the baby to term. During the birth, she somehow seems to will the stillborn Grace back to life, but as she finds out during her first feeding, something is very strange about this little girl.
When you start a movie like Grace, there's a number of obvious hurdles, and writer/director Paul Solet doesn't get past them with the greatest of ease. A baby needing blood rather than mother's milk is a problem which shows up more or less immediately, and that sort of puts the storytellers into a corner. Newborns are, after all, not especially active creatures; unless you give the kid some sort of superhuman capabilities, it can be tough to build suspense in a who-lives-and-who-dies way. The story also relies pretty strongly on an idiot plot (when baby wants blood, call the doctor) compounded by convenient difficulties.
Complete review at eFilmCritic.
Last Son of Havana was the festival's centerpiece film, the type we don't really get a lot of opportunities for in Boston - the sort that attracts celebrities, media attention, and the like. The Brothers Bloom was a packed house; Last Son was a packed house where I'm sitting five seats away from Luis Tiant and Fred Lynn, a couple rows from Peter Gammons, and the Farrelly Brothers and Chris Cooper were in the house. There had been rumors that some Red Sox players would come, but the game against the Yankees ran forever - there was a lot of checking the score on mobile phones in the line and in the theater.
I wonder how much films like these bring outside attention to the festival; it's a very different crowd, people just there for the one film. Hopefully some come back or spread the word.
Aruitemo Aruitemo (Still Walking)
* * * ½ (out of four)
Seen 25 April 2009 at the Somerville Theater #5 (Independent Film Festival of Boston)
Among my moviegoing friends, I have gained a not-undeserved reputation for lacking patience with French dysfunctional family dramas. I contend that this is a bit unfair; while I did, in fact, bang my head against the back of my seat during the likes of A Christmas Tale and The Secret of the Grain while muttering my wishes that the characters do something, it has nothing to do with the subtitles. I do the same thing when watching English-language mumblecore, after all. These friends naturally assumed I hated Still Walking, but that's not the case. I rather enjoyed it.
Why is this? The setting, perhaps. Where watching American or French people stew in their own resentment just frustrates me, as I have too clear an idea of how I would not put up with that sort of situation (at least in my mind), Japanese culture is just different enough that it excites my curiosity. Yokohama is also a neat-looking city, as photographed by Yutaka Yamasaki. Yet I think the biggest difference is something else - I don't get the sense that most of the characters in Still Walking have surrendered to their issues; family relationships are tricky, but not a trap.
The family here is the Yokoyamas. Patriarch Kyohei (Yoshio Harada) is a retired doctor in his late sixties. As the film starts, his wife Toshiko (Kirin Kiki) is preparing food with their daughter Chinami (the singly-named You) while Kyohei stays in his office, pretending to attend to patient records despite his clinic being closed. Chinami's husband Nobuo (Kazuya Takahashi) soon arrives with their children Satsuki and Mutsu. Also on the way is second son Ryota (Hiroshi Abe), along with wife Yukari (Yui Natsukawa) and stepson Atsushi (Shohei Tanaka). First son Junpei died a twelve years ago, rescuing a floundering swimmer, and the family is gathering to mark the anniversary. There are, of course, tensions lurking between the Yokoyamas. The house shrine features a photograph of Junpei in his lab coat, highlighting Kyohei's disappointment that Ryota did not also follow in his footsteps and inherit the clinic, instead choosing a career in art restoration. There's prejudice against marrying a widow, and somewhat self-righteous debate among the other family members over whether or not Ryota and Yukari having children of their own would be a good idea.
Complete review at eFilmCritic.
Nollywood Babylon
* * * (out of four)
Seen 25 April 2009 at the Somerville Theater #5 (Independent Film Festival of Boston)
Asked to name the top three film industries in the world, nearly everybody would come up with the United States right away. A good chunk would probably mention India next; the word's gotten out in the past few years. After that, though, most people would likely rattle off a half-dozen or so countries - Japan, China/Hong Kong, France, South Korea, maybe Russia, Italy, and the U.K. - and likely give up before even considering Nigeria. That's because "Nollywood" isn't particularly concerned about exporting, but dominates its native land.
Nollywood's birthdate is given as 1992, financed by electronics merchants in Lagos, the country's largest city. It's a direct-to-video business - though Lagos is a city of fourteen million people, there are only three operating theaters, and none of them show Nollywood movies. It thrives because it's good business - deliver something the audience wants (films that speak directly to African audiences) for a cost low enough to make it profitable. That means shooting on video, quickly, and with perhaps a less-than-experienced cast and crew.
The movie is framed, in large part, around watching Lancelot Oduwa Imasuen shoot one of the dozens of Nollywood movies he's directed. He's one of Nigeria's most popular directors, and we get a front row seat to just how bare-bones Nollywood filmmaking is. The crew is very young - many don't look to be out of their teens - and Imasuen points out that they will likely move up in the industry quickly, maybe even directing movies themselves within a couple years. Sometimes folks on film crews get mistaken for gangsters.
Complete review at eFilmCritic.
The Lost Son of Havana
* * * ¼ (out of four)
Seen 25 April 2009 at the Somerville Theater #1 (Independent Film Festival of Boston)
If The Lost Son of Havana were fictional, there's a good chance that people would call its screenplay ridiculous. After all, it features the World Series, the Negro Leagues, multiple incredible returns from injury, baseball bringing about a reunion of fathers and sons, escapes from Cuba, and a comedic return. It is, more or less, everything a person might try to fit into a baseball movie, and the fact that it's all true doesn't diminish director Jonathan Hock's work at all.
It's worth remembering Hock's name, because it will probably be overshadowed in any promotion by the producers, Bobby and Peter Farrelly. The beginning of the film has a bit that's off-the-wall funny enough that the brothers should absolutely consider poaching it for a feature: In order for the documentary crew to travel with baseball great Luis Tiant on a trip to Cuba to visit old friends and family for the first time in 46 years, they must come in with a baseball team playing a goodwill exhibition game in Havana suburb Piñar del Rio - and while Tiant is allowed to come as a coach, the filmmakers must play. Tell me there's not a movie funnier than The Heartbreak Kid in there.
That's not the movie Hock's making, though. The initial levity of the game passes, and the filmmakers get to the main business of why they came: Following Tiant into Havana as he returns to his old neighborhood to seek out the family and friends he left behind when in 1961, at the age of 20, he followed his father's advice and opted not to return to Cuba after Fidel Castro took power. The people he meets on his quest are interesting: There's Juan Carlos Oliva, brother of Minnesota Twins star Tony Oliva, who played ball as a youth, was a tank commander in Castro's army, and later became a coach. There's a childhood friend by the name of Fermin, who displays a fascinating mix of sentiment and envy when he encounters Tiant. And there's his family; his aunts are sometimes unable to stand and embrace him, but there are plenty of members of the younger generation to fill out the house.
Complete review at eFilmCritic.
Grace
* * ½ (out of four)
Seen 25 April 2009 at the Brattle Theatre (Independent Film Festival of Boston After Dark)
When a child is born in a fantastical serial, whether it be television, comics, or movie sequels, there is almost inevitably some plot twist that ages him/her rapidly, or jumps the audience forward in time, or otherwise presents us with a walking, talking, parent-resenting tween/teen/adult because, as the writers will tell you, babies are boring. I've never thought that necessarily had to be the case, but Grace is pretty good evidence that they're right and I'm wrong - although it's got both enough other problems and enough things that work that I'm not quite willing to concede the point yet.
Madeline Matheson (Jordan Ladd) is excited to become a mother, and is determined to do right for her baby. Her husband Michael (Stephen Park) is a little unsure about Madeline's plans to give birth at a midwife's office rather than a hospital, which only makes sense with her organic vegan diet and all the other principled stands that go with it. Michael's mother Vivian (Gabrielle Rose), a judge, is by no means unsure; she's upset enough that this hippie chick has somehow taken her son away from her, and a child means there will be no getting rid of her. Not satisfied with Madeline using midwife Patricia Lang (Samantha Ferris) as their obstetrician, she tries to force family friend Dr. Richard Sohn (Malcolm Stewart) on the couple. The topic seems moot after an accident on the road, though Madeline insists on carrying the baby to term. During the birth, she somehow seems to will the stillborn Grace back to life, but as she finds out during her first feeding, something is very strange about this little girl.
When you start a movie like Grace, there's a number of obvious hurdles, and writer/director Paul Solet doesn't get past them with the greatest of ease. A baby needing blood rather than mother's milk is a problem which shows up more or less immediately, and that sort of puts the storytellers into a corner. Newborns are, after all, not especially active creatures; unless you give the kid some sort of superhuman capabilities, it can be tough to build suspense in a who-lives-and-who-dies way. The story also relies pretty strongly on an idiot plot (when baby wants blood, call the doctor) compounded by convenient difficulties.
Complete review at eFilmCritic.
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