Lake Tahoe
Competition
BERLIN -- Using humor and understatement to tackle the big theme of a boy coming to terms with death and mourning, Fernando Eimbcke's carefully crafted "Lake Tahoe" hits many of the same marks as his well-liked debut "Duck Season" but with a little less verve. The talent is certainly there, but it will be mainly fest audiences who have the patience to admire the subtleties of this slow-moving, actionless Mexican film that is so reminiscent of new Argentine cinema.
An understandable choice for Berlin competition, the film has a striking simplicity and stylistic rigor that should win it awards from passionate admirers of the minimalist genre while keeping larger audiences at bay. Rather typically, the wry story is painstakingly set in a sleepy seaside town on Mexico's Yucatan peninsula but contains not a single shot of the ocean.
On a deserted road in the middle of nowhere, 16-year-old Juan (Diego Catano) absurdly crashes the family car into a lone telegraph pole. The rest of the film follows his search for spare parts and a mechanic able to fix the car.
Using an unmoving camera and an absolute minimum of dialogue and acting, Eimbcke doesn't leave his young cast much room to err. The film's deadpan humor arises from Juan playing the non-reacting straight man to the eccentric locals, who include a retired garageman and his bulldog, a punk teen mother and a young martial arts fan.
Only a third through the film is the first somber note heard, when Juan finds his mother locked in the bathroom and weeping inconsolably. Gradually, it becomes clear that a traumatic death in the family is being suffered, in silence and solitude, by Juan, his Little Brother and mother.
In the well-chosen young cast are Daniela Valentine as the teen mother and Juan Carlos Lara as a boy mechanic with a passion for Bruce Lee, both ably rendered comic characters. In the leading role, the appealing Catano has a face awash in restrained sensitivity and repressed emotion.
Veteran Yucatan stage actor Hector Herrera is a delight as the suspicious old garageman who gives Juan an important lesson about letting go.
Cinematographer Alexis Zabe's spare, carefully composed images, emphasized by a camera that never moves, and Mariana Rodriguez's editing deliberately on the edge of lethargy underline a frustrating sense of time that never seems to pass (in fact, it's breakfast time for the first hour of the film).
LAKE TAHOE
Cinepantera
Credits:
Director: Fernando Eimbcke
Screenwriters: Fernando Eimbcke, Paula Markovitch
Producer: Christian Valdelievre
Executive producer: Jaime Bernardo Ramos Montoya
Director of photography: Alexis Zabe
Production designer: Diana Quiroz
Costume designer: Mariana Watson
Editor: Mariana Rodriguez
Cast:
Juan: Diego Catano
Don Heber: Hector Herrera
Lucia: Daniela Valentine
David: Juan Carlos Lara
Joaquin: Yemil Sefami
Running time -- 81 minutes
No MPAA rating...
BERLIN -- Using humor and understatement to tackle the big theme of a boy coming to terms with death and mourning, Fernando Eimbcke's carefully crafted "Lake Tahoe" hits many of the same marks as his well-liked debut "Duck Season" but with a little less verve. The talent is certainly there, but it will be mainly fest audiences who have the patience to admire the subtleties of this slow-moving, actionless Mexican film that is so reminiscent of new Argentine cinema.
An understandable choice for Berlin competition, the film has a striking simplicity and stylistic rigor that should win it awards from passionate admirers of the minimalist genre while keeping larger audiences at bay. Rather typically, the wry story is painstakingly set in a sleepy seaside town on Mexico's Yucatan peninsula but contains not a single shot of the ocean.
On a deserted road in the middle of nowhere, 16-year-old Juan (Diego Catano) absurdly crashes the family car into a lone telegraph pole. The rest of the film follows his search for spare parts and a mechanic able to fix the car.
Using an unmoving camera and an absolute minimum of dialogue and acting, Eimbcke doesn't leave his young cast much room to err. The film's deadpan humor arises from Juan playing the non-reacting straight man to the eccentric locals, who include a retired garageman and his bulldog, a punk teen mother and a young martial arts fan.
Only a third through the film is the first somber note heard, when Juan finds his mother locked in the bathroom and weeping inconsolably. Gradually, it becomes clear that a traumatic death in the family is being suffered, in silence and solitude, by Juan, his Little Brother and mother.
In the well-chosen young cast are Daniela Valentine as the teen mother and Juan Carlos Lara as a boy mechanic with a passion for Bruce Lee, both ably rendered comic characters. In the leading role, the appealing Catano has a face awash in restrained sensitivity and repressed emotion.
Veteran Yucatan stage actor Hector Herrera is a delight as the suspicious old garageman who gives Juan an important lesson about letting go.
Cinematographer Alexis Zabe's spare, carefully composed images, emphasized by a camera that never moves, and Mariana Rodriguez's editing deliberately on the edge of lethargy underline a frustrating sense of time that never seems to pass (in fact, it's breakfast time for the first hour of the film).
LAKE TAHOE
Cinepantera
Credits:
Director: Fernando Eimbcke
Screenwriters: Fernando Eimbcke, Paula Markovitch
Producer: Christian Valdelievre
Executive producer: Jaime Bernardo Ramos Montoya
Director of photography: Alexis Zabe
Production designer: Diana Quiroz
Costume designer: Mariana Watson
Editor: Mariana Rodriguez
Cast:
Juan: Diego Catano
Don Heber: Hector Herrera
Lucia: Daniela Valentine
David: Juan Carlos Lara
Joaquin: Yemil Sefami
Running time -- 81 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 2/10/2008
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Frozen
Toronto International Film Festival
CHENNAI, India -- Shivaji Chandrabhushan's first feature, Frozen, conveys in no uncertain terms his love for photography and his sociology background. In black-and-white, he paints the stark landscape of sparsely populated Ladakh, part of the Indian State of Jammu and Kashmir, into an elevating, enriching experience. He studies this community of simple folks through the curious, often irreverent eyes of Lasya, a bubbly teenage girl essayed by Gauri. In fact, the story of Frozen is the story of Lasya as she grows up watching a subtle evolution around her, and Chomo, her Little Brother she imagines to be alive, is her sounding board.
Extremely arty and hence with little chance of opening in regular commercial cinemas, the film most likely will be confined to festival screens. Chandrabhushan's attempt to give his work a slight commercial edge by letting the camera play on Lasya, resplendent in rich Ladakhi costumes, does not quite work.
Lasya lives on barren terrain, complete with snow and leafless trees suggesting cold hostility. She grows up seeing her old father, Karma (Danny Denzongpa), losing a battle with modern existence. At the local market, his handmade jams can no longer compete with factory-produced food. The enormous debts he owes scheming moneylenders (who shamelessly suggest writing off the loans in exchange for a night with Lasya) push him to the brink of soulless mountain crevices. And when the Indian army sets a base close to his home, it seems like the end of the road, especially when the commanders want him to move. Lasya is caught in this endless, irreversible conflict, but manages to skate on thin ice, bluntly refusing irresponsible sexual propositions from Romeo (Shakeel Khan) and splendidly adapting herself to the rapidly changing scenario.
The movie was shot at an altitude of 12,000 feet above sea level in Ladakh, bordering China, and in extreme winter conditions in order to create the right mood and look. Shanker Raman's lens freezes the grim, gray scenery, highlighting the cunning of the moneylenders and the opportunism of Romeo. These are sharply contrasted with Lasya's innocence. Acting as a kind of bridge between these two extreme points is Karma, who knows that his idyllic existence is slipping, and yet he can do very little to stop the onslaught of consumerism and its known evils. Denzongpa performs convincingly, stoically facing the predicament and pain of a man lost in the snow.
FROZEN
Seagull Media Prods. in association with Phat Phish Motion Pictures
Credits:
Director/writer/producer: Shivajee Chandrabhushan
Executive producer/Director of photography: Shanker Raman
Production designers: Siddharth Sirohi. Sonali Singh
Music: John P. Varkey
Costume designer: Loveleena Jain
Editor: Shan Mohammed
Cast:
Karma: Danny Denzongpa
Lasya: Gauri
Chomo: Skalzang Angchuk Gultuk
Romeo: Shakeel Khan
Running time -- 110 minutes
No MPAA rating...
CHENNAI, India -- Shivaji Chandrabhushan's first feature, Frozen, conveys in no uncertain terms his love for photography and his sociology background. In black-and-white, he paints the stark landscape of sparsely populated Ladakh, part of the Indian State of Jammu and Kashmir, into an elevating, enriching experience. He studies this community of simple folks through the curious, often irreverent eyes of Lasya, a bubbly teenage girl essayed by Gauri. In fact, the story of Frozen is the story of Lasya as she grows up watching a subtle evolution around her, and Chomo, her Little Brother she imagines to be alive, is her sounding board.
Extremely arty and hence with little chance of opening in regular commercial cinemas, the film most likely will be confined to festival screens. Chandrabhushan's attempt to give his work a slight commercial edge by letting the camera play on Lasya, resplendent in rich Ladakhi costumes, does not quite work.
Lasya lives on barren terrain, complete with snow and leafless trees suggesting cold hostility. She grows up seeing her old father, Karma (Danny Denzongpa), losing a battle with modern existence. At the local market, his handmade jams can no longer compete with factory-produced food. The enormous debts he owes scheming moneylenders (who shamelessly suggest writing off the loans in exchange for a night with Lasya) push him to the brink of soulless mountain crevices. And when the Indian army sets a base close to his home, it seems like the end of the road, especially when the commanders want him to move. Lasya is caught in this endless, irreversible conflict, but manages to skate on thin ice, bluntly refusing irresponsible sexual propositions from Romeo (Shakeel Khan) and splendidly adapting herself to the rapidly changing scenario.
The movie was shot at an altitude of 12,000 feet above sea level in Ladakh, bordering China, and in extreme winter conditions in order to create the right mood and look. Shanker Raman's lens freezes the grim, gray scenery, highlighting the cunning of the moneylenders and the opportunism of Romeo. These are sharply contrasted with Lasya's innocence. Acting as a kind of bridge between these two extreme points is Karma, who knows that his idyllic existence is slipping, and yet he can do very little to stop the onslaught of consumerism and its known evils. Denzongpa performs convincingly, stoically facing the predicament and pain of a man lost in the snow.
FROZEN
Seagull Media Prods. in association with Phat Phish Motion Pictures
Credits:
Director/writer/producer: Shivajee Chandrabhushan
Executive producer/Director of photography: Shanker Raman
Production designers: Siddharth Sirohi. Sonali Singh
Music: John P. Varkey
Costume designer: Loveleena Jain
Editor: Shan Mohammed
Cast:
Karma: Danny Denzongpa
Lasya: Gauri
Chomo: Skalzang Angchuk Gultuk
Romeo: Shakeel Khan
Running time -- 110 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 9/19/2007
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
The Cold Flame (Feng Huo)
Shanghai International Film Festival
SHANGHAI -- An act of childish spitefulness can have life-and-death consequences in times of extreme duress. Louis Malle has developed this theme to devastating effect in "Au revoir les enfants" (1987). "The Cold Flame", also set in W.W.II with youngsters as central characters, reveals how wartime life is colored by random acts of cruelty and innate impulses of compassion. Like Malle's masterpiece, casual lies in "The Cold Flame" become the catalyst for a chain of poignant events. The title supposedly implies that the true damage of people's actions cannot be felt until sufficient time has elapsed.
Pitching itself as a "market-friendly" product rather than "festival film," "The Cold Flame" secured a market screening at Cannes and is now in competition for SIFF's Asian New Talent Award. Though local critical response appears positive, the film may receive a warmer welcome overseas, especially European festivals and art house cinemas before being accepted by the average Chinese movie-going public.
The film follows the plight of a 13-year-old girl Jingxuan and her Little Brother. Orphaned during the war, she seeks refuge in a Northern town, and survives on charity food rations. She becomes besotted with an injured officer while helping out at emergency hospital for wounded soldiers, converted from the local convent. However, the sudden attack of Japanese troops brings a rude interruption to furtive longings and fragile ties.
Wang focuses on the human drama of a few core characters, and offers a fresh perspective unusual in mainland Chinese films of this genre. Wisely avoiding costly battle scenes and party-line patriotism, Wang invests the KMT (Nationalist) soldiers with humane attributes, and the main characters with moral ambiguity. People are shown telling lies to sustain their dignity and fantasies, but sometimes also for self-interest, such as the lies Jingxuan tells her rival, the "Little Widow", or the officer's lie about the woman in the photo he keeps. Food takes on symbolic meaning as its offering or denial turns acts as a measure of the character's humanity, vanity or weakness.
Former fireman Leon Yang Shupeng directs his debut feature with self-assurance. It is well-scripted and visually stunning. Interiors, especially the cavernous church hall and makeshift hospital, are bathed in a somber, red glow, evoking a gothic, unreal ambience. Pacing is a slow build-up, like the lull before a storm, with the powerful climax coming fast and furious.
Alternating flashbacks of combat scenes are shot in a grainy, grayish texture, but the tone and the sudden "Saving Private Ryan"-like sound effects jar with the rest of the film's otherwise controlled aesthetic.
THE COLD FLAME (Feng Huo)
Backlight Image Beijing/Infotainment China Media
Credits:
Director/writer/production designer/editor: Leon Yang Shupeng
Producer: Amber Wong, Cindy Mi Lin
Director of photography: Ma Weiye
Music: Hou DuduCast:
Du Jingxuan: Michelle Gong Siyu
Xue Youfang: Zhang Hanyu
Younger brother: Yang Shaoshuai
Little Widow: Feng Yan
Running time -- 93 minutes
No MPAA rating...
SHANGHAI -- An act of childish spitefulness can have life-and-death consequences in times of extreme duress. Louis Malle has developed this theme to devastating effect in "Au revoir les enfants" (1987). "The Cold Flame", also set in W.W.II with youngsters as central characters, reveals how wartime life is colored by random acts of cruelty and innate impulses of compassion. Like Malle's masterpiece, casual lies in "The Cold Flame" become the catalyst for a chain of poignant events. The title supposedly implies that the true damage of people's actions cannot be felt until sufficient time has elapsed.
Pitching itself as a "market-friendly" product rather than "festival film," "The Cold Flame" secured a market screening at Cannes and is now in competition for SIFF's Asian New Talent Award. Though local critical response appears positive, the film may receive a warmer welcome overseas, especially European festivals and art house cinemas before being accepted by the average Chinese movie-going public.
The film follows the plight of a 13-year-old girl Jingxuan and her Little Brother. Orphaned during the war, she seeks refuge in a Northern town, and survives on charity food rations. She becomes besotted with an injured officer while helping out at emergency hospital for wounded soldiers, converted from the local convent. However, the sudden attack of Japanese troops brings a rude interruption to furtive longings and fragile ties.
Wang focuses on the human drama of a few core characters, and offers a fresh perspective unusual in mainland Chinese films of this genre. Wisely avoiding costly battle scenes and party-line patriotism, Wang invests the KMT (Nationalist) soldiers with humane attributes, and the main characters with moral ambiguity. People are shown telling lies to sustain their dignity and fantasies, but sometimes also for self-interest, such as the lies Jingxuan tells her rival, the "Little Widow", or the officer's lie about the woman in the photo he keeps. Food takes on symbolic meaning as its offering or denial turns acts as a measure of the character's humanity, vanity or weakness.
Former fireman Leon Yang Shupeng directs his debut feature with self-assurance. It is well-scripted and visually stunning. Interiors, especially the cavernous church hall and makeshift hospital, are bathed in a somber, red glow, evoking a gothic, unreal ambience. Pacing is a slow build-up, like the lull before a storm, with the powerful climax coming fast and furious.
Alternating flashbacks of combat scenes are shot in a grainy, grayish texture, but the tone and the sudden "Saving Private Ryan"-like sound effects jar with the rest of the film's otherwise controlled aesthetic.
THE COLD FLAME (Feng Huo)
Backlight Image Beijing/Infotainment China Media
Credits:
Director/writer/production designer/editor: Leon Yang Shupeng
Producer: Amber Wong, Cindy Mi Lin
Director of photography: Ma Weiye
Music: Hou DuduCast:
Du Jingxuan: Michelle Gong Siyu
Xue Youfang: Zhang Hanyu
Younger brother: Yang Shaoshuai
Little Widow: Feng Yan
Running time -- 93 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 6/26/2007
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Scribe Bush, NL going on 'Mancation'
New Line is packing the cooler, throwing on some sunscreen and leaving for a Mancation. The studio has picked up the comedy pitch from writer Jared Bush, with studio-based Benderspink producing.
The story follows a guy who decides that marriage has drained his Little Brother's manhood, so he drags him on a testosterone-filled getaway to help him get it back.
Chris Bender and JC Spink are producing, with the company's Jake Weiner exec producing.
New Line's Cale Boyter and Sam Brown are overseeing.
The deal was in the mid-six figures.
Bush, a writer-producer on the CW's All of Us, and Benderspink recently teamed on the romantic comedy Save the Date, in development at New Line.
Benderspink is developing the comedy Torrente, a remake of the hit Spanish comedy, and the sci-fi thriller Y: The Last Man for New Line. The company has Guy Not Taken set up at DreamWorks and A Fistful of Candy at Columbia.
Bush is repped by CAA, Foursight Management and Rohner & Walerstein.
The story follows a guy who decides that marriage has drained his Little Brother's manhood, so he drags him on a testosterone-filled getaway to help him get it back.
Chris Bender and JC Spink are producing, with the company's Jake Weiner exec producing.
New Line's Cale Boyter and Sam Brown are overseeing.
The deal was in the mid-six figures.
Bush, a writer-producer on the CW's All of Us, and Benderspink recently teamed on the romantic comedy Save the Date, in development at New Line.
Benderspink is developing the comedy Torrente, a remake of the hit Spanish comedy, and the sci-fi thriller Y: The Last Man for New Line. The company has Guy Not Taken set up at DreamWorks and A Fistful of Candy at Columbia.
Bush is repped by CAA, Foursight Management and Rohner & Walerstein.
- 4/18/2007
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Blame It on Fidel
This review was written for the festival screening of "Blame It on Fidel" (La Faute a Fidel).PARK CITY -- Documentary filmmaker Julie Gavras has made a successful transition into narratives with the remarkably assured, thoroughly delightful "Blame It on Fidel" (La Faute a Fidel).
Adapted with considerable grace and style from an Italian novel by Domitilla Calamai, Gavras has reset the story of social unrest as seen through the eyes of a young girl in France circa 1970.
The beautifully observed, terrifically acted production, screened as part of the expanded dramatic World Cinema Competition at Sundance, where it was met with an enthusiastic audience response, should have no trouble charming a suitable American distributor. It opened in France late last year.
When we first meet the fiercely logical Anna (splendidly performed by Nina Kervel), the 10-year-old has been living an orderly, comfortable middle-class existence with her French journalist mother, Marie (Julie Depardieu), and Spanish attorney father, Fernando (Stefano Accorsi).
But her structured, bourgeois lifestyle is about to undergo a serious upheaval when her parents turn into radical political activists after Fernando's sister and daughter arrive from Spain to live with them following the arrest of her anti-Franco husband.
The visit has triggered guilty feelings of familial neglect in her father, and after her parents return from an extended trip to Chile, Anna is thrust kicking and screaming into a daunting new world while her Little Brother Francois resiliently embraces the new developments.
Suddenly, Anna's former spacious home with a garden is replaced by a cramped apartment where women being interviewed for her mother's book on women's abortion issues and strange, scruffy young men come and go all hours of the day and night. Her beloved Castro-bashing Cuban nanny has been replaced by a succession of refugees who cook weird food, and she's forced to sit out her Catholic school's Divinity classes.
Through it all, Anna's constantly questioning, big brown eyes speak volumes as writer-director Gavras -- who comes by her political interests naturally as the daughter of famed filmmaker Costa-Gavras -- adroitly adds in witty dollops of irony to go along with all the conflicting ideologies.
Things come to a visually stirring turning point during a powerful sequence in which Anna is brought along on a protest with her parents and riot police turn back the crowds with tear gas.
The look on the girl's face, simultaneously registering fear, confusion and a strange, wise-beyond-her-years comprehension as she's enveloped in a suffocating gray haze, is a testament to young Kervel's exceptional portrayal (watch out, Dakota Fanning!), Gavras' never-heavy touch and cinematographer Nathalie Durand's artfully thoughtful compositions.
BLAME IT ON FIDEL
Gaumont
A Gaumont presentation in association with Les Films du Worso
Credits:
Screenwriter-director: Julie Gavras
Producers: Sylvie Pialat, Matthieu Bompoint
Director of photography: Nathlie Durand
Art director: Laurent Deroo
Editor: Pauline Dairou
Costume designer: Annie Thiellement
Cast:
Marie: Julie Depardieu
Fernando: Stefano Accorsi
Anna: Nina Kervel
Francois: Benjamin Feuillet
Grandpa: Olivier Perrier
Granny: Martine Chevallier
Running time -- 110 minutes
No MPAA rating...
Adapted with considerable grace and style from an Italian novel by Domitilla Calamai, Gavras has reset the story of social unrest as seen through the eyes of a young girl in France circa 1970.
The beautifully observed, terrifically acted production, screened as part of the expanded dramatic World Cinema Competition at Sundance, where it was met with an enthusiastic audience response, should have no trouble charming a suitable American distributor. It opened in France late last year.
When we first meet the fiercely logical Anna (splendidly performed by Nina Kervel), the 10-year-old has been living an orderly, comfortable middle-class existence with her French journalist mother, Marie (Julie Depardieu), and Spanish attorney father, Fernando (Stefano Accorsi).
But her structured, bourgeois lifestyle is about to undergo a serious upheaval when her parents turn into radical political activists after Fernando's sister and daughter arrive from Spain to live with them following the arrest of her anti-Franco husband.
The visit has triggered guilty feelings of familial neglect in her father, and after her parents return from an extended trip to Chile, Anna is thrust kicking and screaming into a daunting new world while her Little Brother Francois resiliently embraces the new developments.
Suddenly, Anna's former spacious home with a garden is replaced by a cramped apartment where women being interviewed for her mother's book on women's abortion issues and strange, scruffy young men come and go all hours of the day and night. Her beloved Castro-bashing Cuban nanny has been replaced by a succession of refugees who cook weird food, and she's forced to sit out her Catholic school's Divinity classes.
Through it all, Anna's constantly questioning, big brown eyes speak volumes as writer-director Gavras -- who comes by her political interests naturally as the daughter of famed filmmaker Costa-Gavras -- adroitly adds in witty dollops of irony to go along with all the conflicting ideologies.
Things come to a visually stirring turning point during a powerful sequence in which Anna is brought along on a protest with her parents and riot police turn back the crowds with tear gas.
The look on the girl's face, simultaneously registering fear, confusion and a strange, wise-beyond-her-years comprehension as she's enveloped in a suffocating gray haze, is a testament to young Kervel's exceptional portrayal (watch out, Dakota Fanning!), Gavras' never-heavy touch and cinematographer Nathalie Durand's artfully thoughtful compositions.
BLAME IT ON FIDEL
Gaumont
A Gaumont presentation in association with Les Films du Worso
Credits:
Screenwriter-director: Julie Gavras
Producers: Sylvie Pialat, Matthieu Bompoint
Director of photography: Nathlie Durand
Art director: Laurent Deroo
Editor: Pauline Dairou
Costume designer: Annie Thiellement
Cast:
Marie: Julie Depardieu
Fernando: Stefano Accorsi
Anna: Nina Kervel
Francois: Benjamin Feuillet
Grandpa: Olivier Perrier
Granny: Martine Chevallier
Running time -- 110 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 1/31/2007
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Blame It on Fidel
PARK CITY -- Documentary filmmaker Julie Gavras has made a successful transition into narratives with the remarkably assured, thoroughly delightful "Blame It on Fidel" (La Faute a Fidel).
Adapted with considerable grace and style from an Italian novel by Domitilla Calamai, Gavras has reset the story of social unrest as seen through the eyes of a young girl in France circa 1970.
The beautifully observed, terrifically acted production, screened as part of the expanded dramatic World Cinema Competition at Sundance, where it was met with an enthusiastic audience response, should have no trouble charming a suitable American distributor. It opened in France late last year.
When we first meet the fiercely logical Anna (splendidly performed by Nina Kervel), the 10-year-old has been living an orderly, comfortable middle-class existence with her French journalist mother, Marie (Julie Depardieu), and Spanish attorney father, Fernando (Stefano Accorsi).
But her structured, bourgeois lifestyle is about to undergo a serious upheaval when her parents turn into radical political activists after Fernando's sister and daughter arrive from Spain to live with them following the arrest of her anti-Franco husband.
The visit has triggered guilty feelings of familial neglect in her father, and after her parents return from an extended trip to Chile, Anna is thrust kicking and screaming into a daunting new world while her Little Brother Francois resiliently embraces the new developments.
Suddenly, Anna's former spacious home with a garden is replaced by a cramped apartment where women being interviewed for her mother's book on women's abortion issues and strange, scruffy young men come and go all hours of the day and night. Her beloved Castro-bashing Cuban nanny has been replaced by a succession of refugees who cook weird food, and she's forced to sit out her Catholic school's Divinity classes.
Through it all, Anna's constantly questioning, big brown eyes speak volumes as writer-director Gavras -- who comes by her political interests naturally as the daughter of famed filmmaker Costa-Gavras -- adroitly adds in witty dollops of irony to go along with all the conflicting ideologies.
Things come to a visually stirring turning point during a powerful sequence in which Anna is brought along on a protest with her parents and riot police turn back the crowds with tear gas.
The look on the girl's face, simultaneously registering fear, confusion and a strange, wise-beyond-her-years comprehension as she's enveloped in a suffocating gray haze, is a testament to young Kervel's exceptional portrayal (watch out, Dakota Fanning!), Gavras' never-heavy touch and cinematographer Nathalie Durand's artfully thoughtful compositions.
BLAME IT ON FIDEL
Gaumont
A Gaumont presentation in association with Les Films du Worso
Credits:
Screenwriter-director: Julie Gavras
Producers: Sylvie Pialat, Matthieu Bompoint
Director of photography: Nathlie Durand
Art director: Laurent Deroo
Editor: Pauline Dairou
Costume designer: Annie Thiellement
Cast:
Marie: Julie Depardieu
Fernando: Stefano Accorsi
Anna: Nina Kervel
Francois: Benjamin Feuillet
Grandpa: Olivier Perrier
Granny: Martine Chevallier
Running time -- 110 minutes
No MPAA rating...
Adapted with considerable grace and style from an Italian novel by Domitilla Calamai, Gavras has reset the story of social unrest as seen through the eyes of a young girl in France circa 1970.
The beautifully observed, terrifically acted production, screened as part of the expanded dramatic World Cinema Competition at Sundance, where it was met with an enthusiastic audience response, should have no trouble charming a suitable American distributor. It opened in France late last year.
When we first meet the fiercely logical Anna (splendidly performed by Nina Kervel), the 10-year-old has been living an orderly, comfortable middle-class existence with her French journalist mother, Marie (Julie Depardieu), and Spanish attorney father, Fernando (Stefano Accorsi).
But her structured, bourgeois lifestyle is about to undergo a serious upheaval when her parents turn into radical political activists after Fernando's sister and daughter arrive from Spain to live with them following the arrest of her anti-Franco husband.
The visit has triggered guilty feelings of familial neglect in her father, and after her parents return from an extended trip to Chile, Anna is thrust kicking and screaming into a daunting new world while her Little Brother Francois resiliently embraces the new developments.
Suddenly, Anna's former spacious home with a garden is replaced by a cramped apartment where women being interviewed for her mother's book on women's abortion issues and strange, scruffy young men come and go all hours of the day and night. Her beloved Castro-bashing Cuban nanny has been replaced by a succession of refugees who cook weird food, and she's forced to sit out her Catholic school's Divinity classes.
Through it all, Anna's constantly questioning, big brown eyes speak volumes as writer-director Gavras -- who comes by her political interests naturally as the daughter of famed filmmaker Costa-Gavras -- adroitly adds in witty dollops of irony to go along with all the conflicting ideologies.
Things come to a visually stirring turning point during a powerful sequence in which Anna is brought along on a protest with her parents and riot police turn back the crowds with tear gas.
The look on the girl's face, simultaneously registering fear, confusion and a strange, wise-beyond-her-years comprehension as she's enveloped in a suffocating gray haze, is a testament to young Kervel's exceptional portrayal (watch out, Dakota Fanning!), Gavras' never-heavy touch and cinematographer Nathalie Durand's artfully thoughtful compositions.
BLAME IT ON FIDEL
Gaumont
A Gaumont presentation in association with Les Films du Worso
Credits:
Screenwriter-director: Julie Gavras
Producers: Sylvie Pialat, Matthieu Bompoint
Director of photography: Nathlie Durand
Art director: Laurent Deroo
Editor: Pauline Dairou
Costume designer: Annie Thiellement
Cast:
Marie: Julie Depardieu
Fernando: Stefano Accorsi
Anna: Nina Kervel
Francois: Benjamin Feuillet
Grandpa: Olivier Perrier
Granny: Martine Chevallier
Running time -- 110 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 1/31/2007
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
How to Eat Fried Worms
OK, so this is not a movie for the Food Channel. New Line Cinema has no promotional tie-ins with a recipe book. But the title of "How to Eat Fried Worms" will certainly excite the gross-out joys in adolescent males. Plus, this is actually the title of a popular young-adult book that has remained in print since its 1973 publication, so there is a built-in audience for these cooked worms.
The movie doesn't pitch itself to any demographic beyond its target audience, which might be enough as families will turn out in sufficient numbers to ensure average or better business. Boys will be happy at the mild grossness; parents will tolerate anything that entertains their hyperkinetic boys; and sisters will agree with the film's lone girl, who murmurs on two occasions, "Boys are weird". They are.
The story, adapted from Thomas Rockwell's novel by director Bob Dolman ("The Banger Sisters"), centers on Billy Forrester (Luke Benward), who suffers from all the angst and trepidation felt by any boy who finds himself the New Kid at school. Seemingly every-one picks on him. Everyone except Erika Hallie Kate Eisenberg), who can empathize because as an early-blooming youngster she towers above all her classmates.
When bully Joe (Adam Hicks) and his "team" of insecure but blustery fifth-graders mock Billy by loading his lunch Thermos with wiggly, disgusting worms, Billy reacts without thinking. He flings one of the crawlers into Joe's face. The unintended consequence is that Joe challenges Billy to a bet: Come Saturday, Billy will eat 10 worms by 7 p.m. without heaving his guts. Billy, wouldn't you know, has a weak stomach.
His parents are taking Saturday off for mixed doubles in tennis -- the film presents this match as a challenge from an intimidating co-worker not unlike Joe's challenge to Billy. So Billy must solicit Erika to watch over his annoyingly popular Little Brother Woody (Ty Panitz), then travel around the town to dine on a series of increasingly distasteful dishes concocted by Joe's gang.
Worms get fried in pig's fat and hot chili sauce. The wiggly creatures find their way into omelets, microwaves and food processors. The meals have such names as Barfmallow and Radioactive Slime Delight.
The film aspires to etch a portrait in perseverance and courage in Billy's determination of overcome fear and face up to the unappetizing grub. Meanwhile, Joe's team members shift alliances as more and more kids admire Billy's pluck and fewer and fewer appreciate Joe's bullying. And Billy comes to see in Erika a moral force and alternative approach to life. Indeed one problem about the latter subplot is that young Eisenberg is such a smart and talented actress with a character that's perhaps the best realized of the bunch she virtually steals the movie away from the boys.
The Mark Johnson production, shot in Austin, is smooth and watchable, but the film never reaches that comic or dramatic high point you yearn for in a classic children's film. Think of it more as a milder, more palatable version of "Fear Factor".
HOW TO EAT FRIED WORMS
New Line Cinema
Walden Media presents a Mark Johnson production
Credits:
Screenwriter-director: Bob Dolman
Based on the book by: Thomas Rockwell
Producers: Mark Johnson, Philip Steuer
Executive producer: Toby Emmerich
Director of photography: Richard Rutkowski
Production designer: Caty Maxey
Music: Mark Mothersbaugh, Bob Mothersbaugh
Co-producers: Cale Boyter, Michael Disco, Bob Dolman
Costume designer: Kathleen Kiatta
Editor: Janice Hampton
Cast:
Billy: Luke Benward
Erika: Hallie Kate Eisenberg
Joe: Adam Hicks
Adam: Austin Rogers
Twitch: Alexander Gould
Benjy: Ryan Malgrini
Bradley: Philip Daniel Bolden
Uncle Ed: Clint Howard
Woody: Ty Panitz
Boiler Head: James Bebhorn
Dad: Tom Cavanagh
Mom: Kimberly Williams-Paisley
MPAA rating PG
Running time -- 83 minutes...
The movie doesn't pitch itself to any demographic beyond its target audience, which might be enough as families will turn out in sufficient numbers to ensure average or better business. Boys will be happy at the mild grossness; parents will tolerate anything that entertains their hyperkinetic boys; and sisters will agree with the film's lone girl, who murmurs on two occasions, "Boys are weird". They are.
The story, adapted from Thomas Rockwell's novel by director Bob Dolman ("The Banger Sisters"), centers on Billy Forrester (Luke Benward), who suffers from all the angst and trepidation felt by any boy who finds himself the New Kid at school. Seemingly every-one picks on him. Everyone except Erika Hallie Kate Eisenberg), who can empathize because as an early-blooming youngster she towers above all her classmates.
When bully Joe (Adam Hicks) and his "team" of insecure but blustery fifth-graders mock Billy by loading his lunch Thermos with wiggly, disgusting worms, Billy reacts without thinking. He flings one of the crawlers into Joe's face. The unintended consequence is that Joe challenges Billy to a bet: Come Saturday, Billy will eat 10 worms by 7 p.m. without heaving his guts. Billy, wouldn't you know, has a weak stomach.
His parents are taking Saturday off for mixed doubles in tennis -- the film presents this match as a challenge from an intimidating co-worker not unlike Joe's challenge to Billy. So Billy must solicit Erika to watch over his annoyingly popular Little Brother Woody (Ty Panitz), then travel around the town to dine on a series of increasingly distasteful dishes concocted by Joe's gang.
Worms get fried in pig's fat and hot chili sauce. The wiggly creatures find their way into omelets, microwaves and food processors. The meals have such names as Barfmallow and Radioactive Slime Delight.
The film aspires to etch a portrait in perseverance and courage in Billy's determination of overcome fear and face up to the unappetizing grub. Meanwhile, Joe's team members shift alliances as more and more kids admire Billy's pluck and fewer and fewer appreciate Joe's bullying. And Billy comes to see in Erika a moral force and alternative approach to life. Indeed one problem about the latter subplot is that young Eisenberg is such a smart and talented actress with a character that's perhaps the best realized of the bunch she virtually steals the movie away from the boys.
The Mark Johnson production, shot in Austin, is smooth and watchable, but the film never reaches that comic or dramatic high point you yearn for in a classic children's film. Think of it more as a milder, more palatable version of "Fear Factor".
HOW TO EAT FRIED WORMS
New Line Cinema
Walden Media presents a Mark Johnson production
Credits:
Screenwriter-director: Bob Dolman
Based on the book by: Thomas Rockwell
Producers: Mark Johnson, Philip Steuer
Executive producer: Toby Emmerich
Director of photography: Richard Rutkowski
Production designer: Caty Maxey
Music: Mark Mothersbaugh, Bob Mothersbaugh
Co-producers: Cale Boyter, Michael Disco, Bob Dolman
Costume designer: Kathleen Kiatta
Editor: Janice Hampton
Cast:
Billy: Luke Benward
Erika: Hallie Kate Eisenberg
Joe: Adam Hicks
Adam: Austin Rogers
Twitch: Alexander Gould
Benjy: Ryan Malgrini
Bradley: Philip Daniel Bolden
Uncle Ed: Clint Howard
Woody: Ty Panitz
Boiler Head: James Bebhorn
Dad: Tom Cavanagh
Mom: Kimberly Williams-Paisley
MPAA rating PG
Running time -- 83 minutes...
- 8/22/2006
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Beautiful Country
Screened
Berlin International Film Festival
BERLIN -- "Beautiful Country" is the latest rendition of the American immigrant story -- at least one seems to arrive with each film festival -- and this certainly is one of the more compelling examples of such tales. The film achieves its power through a careful gathering of crucial details, in wordless glances, cruelties of nature and of man and the relentless determination to gain the promised land, even if that land is incapable of living up to those promises.
Producers Edward R. Pressman and Terrence Malick (who conceived the story) took a gamble in hiring a Norwegian, Hans Petter Moland, to direct the saga of a young Vietnamese man who embarks on an arduous journey from his homeland to Texas in search of his American father. Then again, who better to make such an immigrant story than an outsider to both cultures?
With careful handling, Sony Pictures Classics could turn "Beautiful Country" into an art house hit after building momentum on the festival circuit. Name actors such as Nick Nolte -- in a small role as the father -- Bai Ling and Tim Roth can only help.
Born to a Vietnamese mother and an American GI dad, Binh (an accomplished debut by Damien Nguyen) wears the face of the country's enemy. Such half-castes are known by a pejorative expression meaning "less than dust." Simple yet poignant scenes at the outset establish his ostracized status. Even aboard a rusty tanker ferrying human cargo to the New World, the captain (Roth) tells him he will be an outcast wherever he goes.
As Vietnam aggressively celebrates the Vietcong victory, Binh heads for Ho Chi Minh City to locate his mother (Chau Thi Kim Xuan). All he has to go by is an old photo showing a happy couple holding a baby in front of a corner building. He locates that building and soon his mom. He meets a very young half-brother (Tran Dang Quoc Thinh) and then gets a job alongside his mother in the household of a rich though nasty old woman.
(A weakness in the story is that we never learn why Binh's mother more or less abandoned him or why she now greets him with such joy.)
When a household tragedy is blamed on Binh, his mother gives him enough money for him and his brother to flee the country in an open boat. In a Malaysian refugee camp, he meets Ling Bai Ling), a Chinese prostitute with whom he develops a gentle, supportive friendship. During a riot, the three escape and essentially barter their souls for passage to New York on a tanker.
Many die en route, including Binh's Little Brother. After suffering a period of virtual slavery in New York's Chinatown, he parts company with Ling to hitchhike his way to Texas in search of his dad.
Pretty familiar stuff all along the way. Yet the details are surprisingly fresh, and the characters are vividly drawn. The script by Sabina Murray and Larry Gross eschews melodrama whenever possible for a realistic portrait of the hardships of the illegal immigrant experience. People ruthlessly focus on their own self interest, but the film avoids picking out heroes or villains. This is just the way people behave on the immigrant trail.
Moland gets wonderful performances from his cast. Nguyen must be the narrative's driving force and yet perform an often-reactive role, a seeming contradiction he smoothly handles. Nolte and Roth show restraint in playing highly flawed individuals. Ling lets no sentimentality encroach on the prostitute, who is lively on the outside and dead within.
Cinematographer Stuart Dreyburgh catches the grit and beauty of the lands and seas Binh transverses. Zbigniew Preisner's music never intrudes, rather gently accompanying the perilous journey with an evocative score that pulls in themes from cultures encountered.
BEAUTIFUL COUNTRY
Sony Pictures Classics
Dinamo Story AS/Sunflower Prods.
Credits: Director: Hans Petter Moland
Writers: Sabina Murray, Larry Gross
Story: Terrence Malick
Producers: Edward R. Pressman, Terrence Malick, Petter J. Borgli, Tomas Backstrom
Director of photography: Stuart Dreyburgh
Production designer: Kalli Juliusson
Music: Zbigniew Preisner
Costume designer: Anne Petersen
Editor: Wibecke Ronseth. Cast: Binh: Damien Nguyen
Ling: Bai Ling
Tam: Tran Dang Quoc Thinh
Captain Oh: Tim Roth
Snakehead: Temuera Derek Morrison
Steve: Nick Nolte
Running time -- 137 minutes
No MPAA rating...
Berlin International Film Festival
BERLIN -- "Beautiful Country" is the latest rendition of the American immigrant story -- at least one seems to arrive with each film festival -- and this certainly is one of the more compelling examples of such tales. The film achieves its power through a careful gathering of crucial details, in wordless glances, cruelties of nature and of man and the relentless determination to gain the promised land, even if that land is incapable of living up to those promises.
Producers Edward R. Pressman and Terrence Malick (who conceived the story) took a gamble in hiring a Norwegian, Hans Petter Moland, to direct the saga of a young Vietnamese man who embarks on an arduous journey from his homeland to Texas in search of his American father. Then again, who better to make such an immigrant story than an outsider to both cultures?
With careful handling, Sony Pictures Classics could turn "Beautiful Country" into an art house hit after building momentum on the festival circuit. Name actors such as Nick Nolte -- in a small role as the father -- Bai Ling and Tim Roth can only help.
Born to a Vietnamese mother and an American GI dad, Binh (an accomplished debut by Damien Nguyen) wears the face of the country's enemy. Such half-castes are known by a pejorative expression meaning "less than dust." Simple yet poignant scenes at the outset establish his ostracized status. Even aboard a rusty tanker ferrying human cargo to the New World, the captain (Roth) tells him he will be an outcast wherever he goes.
As Vietnam aggressively celebrates the Vietcong victory, Binh heads for Ho Chi Minh City to locate his mother (Chau Thi Kim Xuan). All he has to go by is an old photo showing a happy couple holding a baby in front of a corner building. He locates that building and soon his mom. He meets a very young half-brother (Tran Dang Quoc Thinh) and then gets a job alongside his mother in the household of a rich though nasty old woman.
(A weakness in the story is that we never learn why Binh's mother more or less abandoned him or why she now greets him with such joy.)
When a household tragedy is blamed on Binh, his mother gives him enough money for him and his brother to flee the country in an open boat. In a Malaysian refugee camp, he meets Ling Bai Ling), a Chinese prostitute with whom he develops a gentle, supportive friendship. During a riot, the three escape and essentially barter their souls for passage to New York on a tanker.
Many die en route, including Binh's Little Brother. After suffering a period of virtual slavery in New York's Chinatown, he parts company with Ling to hitchhike his way to Texas in search of his dad.
Pretty familiar stuff all along the way. Yet the details are surprisingly fresh, and the characters are vividly drawn. The script by Sabina Murray and Larry Gross eschews melodrama whenever possible for a realistic portrait of the hardships of the illegal immigrant experience. People ruthlessly focus on their own self interest, but the film avoids picking out heroes or villains. This is just the way people behave on the immigrant trail.
Moland gets wonderful performances from his cast. Nguyen must be the narrative's driving force and yet perform an often-reactive role, a seeming contradiction he smoothly handles. Nolte and Roth show restraint in playing highly flawed individuals. Ling lets no sentimentality encroach on the prostitute, who is lively on the outside and dead within.
Cinematographer Stuart Dreyburgh catches the grit and beauty of the lands and seas Binh transverses. Zbigniew Preisner's music never intrudes, rather gently accompanying the perilous journey with an evocative score that pulls in themes from cultures encountered.
BEAUTIFUL COUNTRY
Sony Pictures Classics
Dinamo Story AS/Sunflower Prods.
Credits: Director: Hans Petter Moland
Writers: Sabina Murray, Larry Gross
Story: Terrence Malick
Producers: Edward R. Pressman, Terrence Malick, Petter J. Borgli, Tomas Backstrom
Director of photography: Stuart Dreyburgh
Production designer: Kalli Juliusson
Music: Zbigniew Preisner
Costume designer: Anne Petersen
Editor: Wibecke Ronseth. Cast: Binh: Damien Nguyen
Ling: Bai Ling
Tam: Tran Dang Quoc Thinh
Captain Oh: Tim Roth
Snakehead: Temuera Derek Morrison
Steve: Nick Nolte
Running time -- 137 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 7/9/2004
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Film review: 'Touch Me' Learning to Live Again / Fine performances help 'Touch Me' overcome depressing subject
A sensitively handled, intelligently acted romantic drama about a promising actress who finds out she's been infected with AIDS, "Touch Me" adroitly avoids the usual disease-of-the-week pitfalls.
Former first assistant director H. Gordon Boos ("Platoon", "Tin Cup"), who also co-wrote the melodrama-free script with Greg H. Sims, does a fine job with the potentially tricky material and an interesting cast.
Still, given the downer subject matter and no Tom Hanks or even a Mary-Louise Parker on the marquee, "Touch Me" is going to have a tough time attracting mainstream audiences despite the ultimately upbeat tone.
Amanda Peet ("She's the One") delivers a nicely contained performance as Brigette, an attractive young woman whose life is really starting to come together. She's just landed the female lead in a Los Angeles production of David Mamet's "Speed the Plow" and has embarked on a promising relationship with Adam (Michael Vartan), who manages the fitness club where she works part time as an aerobics instructor.
But then comes the phone call that will change things forever -- a former boyfriend is dying of AIDS, and she may have been infected. A subsequent blood test confirms her worst fears, and while Adam still wants very much to be a part of her life, she shuts him out and moves back to her hometown. Gradually, however, as time and potent new drugs begin to initiate the healing process, Brigette learns how to live again.
At the heart of the picture is a crucial, believable rapport between Peet and Vartan (who bears a passing resemblance to Luke Perry), both of whom do affecting work. Memorable, too, are Erica Gimpel as a mother who's dying of the virus, Peter Facinelli as Vartan's always-partying Little Brother and Greg Louganis in his big-screen debut as a nurturing member of Peet's support group.
Technical support is solid across the board, particularly director of photography Giles Dunning and production designer Abigail Mannox, who create distinctive lighting and color schemes to neatly evoke the picture's shifting emotional phases.
TOUCH ME
Devin Entertainment
A Greg H. Sims production
An H. Gordon Boos film
Credits: Director: H. Gordon Boos; Screenwriters: H. Gordon Boos, Greg H. Sims; Producers: Greg H. Sims and David Scott Rubin; Executive producer: Greg H. Sims; Director of photography: Giles Dunning; Production designer: Abigail Mannox; Editor: Steve Nevius; Costume designer: Denise Wingate; Music: Claude Foisy; Music supervisor: Marvin Scott Jarrett. Cast: Brigette: Amanda Peet; Adam: Michael Vartan; Margot: Kari Wuhrer; Bail: Peter Facinelli; Kareen: Erica Gimpel; Link: Jamie Harris; Robert: Stephen Macht; David: Greg Louganis. No MPAA rating. Color/stereo. Running time -- 107 minutes...
Former first assistant director H. Gordon Boos ("Platoon", "Tin Cup"), who also co-wrote the melodrama-free script with Greg H. Sims, does a fine job with the potentially tricky material and an interesting cast.
Still, given the downer subject matter and no Tom Hanks or even a Mary-Louise Parker on the marquee, "Touch Me" is going to have a tough time attracting mainstream audiences despite the ultimately upbeat tone.
Amanda Peet ("She's the One") delivers a nicely contained performance as Brigette, an attractive young woman whose life is really starting to come together. She's just landed the female lead in a Los Angeles production of David Mamet's "Speed the Plow" and has embarked on a promising relationship with Adam (Michael Vartan), who manages the fitness club where she works part time as an aerobics instructor.
But then comes the phone call that will change things forever -- a former boyfriend is dying of AIDS, and she may have been infected. A subsequent blood test confirms her worst fears, and while Adam still wants very much to be a part of her life, she shuts him out and moves back to her hometown. Gradually, however, as time and potent new drugs begin to initiate the healing process, Brigette learns how to live again.
At the heart of the picture is a crucial, believable rapport between Peet and Vartan (who bears a passing resemblance to Luke Perry), both of whom do affecting work. Memorable, too, are Erica Gimpel as a mother who's dying of the virus, Peter Facinelli as Vartan's always-partying Little Brother and Greg Louganis in his big-screen debut as a nurturing member of Peet's support group.
Technical support is solid across the board, particularly director of photography Giles Dunning and production designer Abigail Mannox, who create distinctive lighting and color schemes to neatly evoke the picture's shifting emotional phases.
TOUCH ME
Devin Entertainment
A Greg H. Sims production
An H. Gordon Boos film
Credits: Director: H. Gordon Boos; Screenwriters: H. Gordon Boos, Greg H. Sims; Producers: Greg H. Sims and David Scott Rubin; Executive producer: Greg H. Sims; Director of photography: Giles Dunning; Production designer: Abigail Mannox; Editor: Steve Nevius; Costume designer: Denise Wingate; Music: Claude Foisy; Music supervisor: Marvin Scott Jarrett. Cast: Brigette: Amanda Peet; Adam: Michael Vartan; Margot: Kari Wuhrer; Bail: Peter Facinelli; Kareen: Erica Gimpel; Link: Jamie Harris; Robert: Stephen Macht; David: Greg Louganis. No MPAA rating. Color/stereo. Running time -- 107 minutes...
- 5/12/1998
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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