In The Family (2011)

Directed by: Patrick Wang
Country: USA

Review: “In The Family” is the first feature film from actor/writer/director Patrick Wang, whose simplicity and modesty bring sufficient motives to keep an eye on future materials from his authorship. The film depicts the story of Joey Williams (Wang) and his battle, without the law on his side, to keep the custody of Chip (Sebastian Banes), the 6-year-old biological son of his deceased partner Cody (Trevor St. John) whose sister, Eileen (Kelly McAndrew), became the legal guardian of the child. 169 minutes filled with long static shots, never seemed too much to depict this story about gay rights, in which the powerful silences can speak volumes and the emptiness of a shattered life feels real. In truth, the film gained much more with its introverted side, since it goes better with Joey’s personality, than if a vivid portrayal had been made. Detailed and unhurried, “In The Family” never reached my emotions deeply, but on the other hand, presented some other virtues, including enough surprising factors that were determinant for its success. Friendship, love, family relations, and prejudice, were addressed with both straightforwardness and sincerity. Its beautiful ending, along with natural and convincing performances, helped “In The Family” to stand out as a humanist, realistic, and unaggressive tale about a good man that was forced to go against a family that he considered his own.

Byzantium (2012)

Directed by: Neil Jordan
Country: UK / USA / others

Review: With “Byzantium”, Irish filmmaker Neil Jordan returns to the vampire tales, almost a decade after the popular “Interview With A Vampire”. The script was written by Moira Buffini for a teleplay, and tells the story of reserved Eleanor (Saoirse Ronan) and her sociable mother Clara (Gemma Arterton), two vampires whose secret lasts for 200 years. In contemporary world they are hiding in a coastal hotel of England named Byzantium, but we are constantly traveling in time through flashbacks to understand how they were condemned to eternal solitude and got dependent of human blood to keep on living. When their life seemed to become stable again, Eleanor broke a fundamental rule when she fell in love with a waiter who was dying with leukemia. When she wrote to him, revealing her story and secret, Clara had to intervene with all her determination to protect her daughter. Occasionally violent and visually attractive, “Byzantium” failed to fascinate as a story. Not so dark or vibrant as I would like it to have been, the plot showed lack of cohesion in some scenes, which led to a sort of narrative discrepancy. Its disenchantment along with tensionless resolutions proved that Neil Jordan and his vampires already had better days.

Jug Face (2013)

Directed by: Chad Crawford Kinkle
Country: USA

Review: Chad Crawford Kinkle’s first feature film, “Jug Face”, is a limited exercise on horror/thriller. The story centers on Ada (Lauren Ashley Carter), the younger child of a weird, southern couple, who got pregnant from her brother. To complicate the things even more, her family belongs to a backwoods community that made a strange pact with an evil spirit that dwells in a pit. From time to time, The Pit demands the sacrifice of a chosen inhabitant whose head is sculpted in a jug. Unfortunately, the next victim would be Ada and her unborn son, if she didn’t have stolen the jug face. From that moment on, she became haunted by the visions of their god-creature who they called The Pit, having frequent seizures in which she could see several killings. At the start, the weird ambiance was catchy, provoking distressing sensations, but as the killings were occurring, the film loses some consistency, especially after we realize that the story won’t take us anywhere, considering the few community members that remained to be sacrificed. Kinkle gave good indications on direction, showing that in a near future, he might be capable of impress us in a good way. For now, “Jug Face” was simply a somewhat bizarre film, which was not so gripping after all.

Our Children (2012)

Directed by: Joachim Lafosse
Country: Belgium / France / others

Review: “Our Children” is the most compelling Belgian drama since Dardenne brothers’ “The Kid With A Bike”. In its first moments we get to know that something terrible had happened to Murielle (Émilie Dequenne) and her family. To find out exactly what, we just have to follow her life from the moment that passionate Mounier (Tahar Rahim) asks her to marry him. Mounier is a Maroccan descendent whose adoptive father, Dr. Andre Pinget (Niels Arestrup), always supported and protected since childhood. After the couple’s third child has born, they started to struggle with lack of space and money, so they decided to move into Andre’s place. This increasing dependence on him will bring tragic consequences to their relationship, with Andre constantly trying to control the couple’s wills and ideas in an overwhelming way. Another parallel subject, though secondary, that is compellingly depicted in the film has to do with immigration and marriages of convenience. With a finale that gave me the creeps, “Our Children” was able to create such intensity, sadness, and tension around the story, that I felt suffocated just by watching Murielle’s expressions. The performances were simply superb, leading Dequenne to win the Un Certain Regard Award for best actress at Cannes, while Lafosse showed to be a filmmaker with exceptional maturity, presenting us another extraordinary accomplishment in his career.

Shell (2012)

Directed by: Scott Graham
Country: UK

Review: Scott Graham’s first feature film “Shell” was based on his 2007’s short with the same name, being a compelling drama set in a remote place of Scottish Highlands, and centered on a father-daughter relationship. Shell (Chloe Pirri) doesn’t have a very stimulating life for a 17-year-old girl. She lives in the middle of nowhere with her epileptic father, Pete (Joseph Mawie), who owns a garage and a gas station, where she works daily as attendant. At night she cooks their meal, and watches her father washing himself. She has to keep an eye on him whenever she can due to recurrent epileptic crisis. Sometimes the chilling cold that sweeps the region in the middle of the night, makes her jump from her bed to her father’s, creating a visible discomfort. It was very clear that Shell’s dream was to leave the place, and so, the only contact she have with the outside world was when somebody arrived to fuel or ask for help. This kind of situations created a tense jealousy in them that made me suspicious about this familiar, yet strange dependence. Using a minimalist concept, Graham knew how to cook thoroughly this story, increasing my curiosity about what the characters feel and think. The grave silences and revelatory looks speak for themselves, and the film runs patiently towards its freeing ending. Penetrating and uncomfortable, “Shell” is an outstanding film that shall not be ignored.

Apparition (2012)

Directed by: Vincent Sandoval
Country: Philippines

Review: Faith is put to the test in the small Adoration Monastery, located in the middle of the woods in Rizal, Philippines, where a group of devoted nuns dedicate themselves to simple daily tasks and prayers. Set in 1971, when president Marcos declared Martial Law, the film tries to make a parallelism between religious and political ‘silences’, addressing the guilt and remorse that accrue from behaving impassively when facing certain reproachable happenings. The story follows Sister Lourdes, a young nun who happily joins the isolated Monastery, becoming close of Sister Remy whose inclination for political action is in her blood. After the Mother Superior has pointed them as external nuns, they will take advantage of the little freedom granted to attend political meetings in town. Certain day, when they were coming back to Monastery, Sister Lourdes was caught and brutally raped by three rebels in the woods. Since that moment, a diabolical curse falls in the Monastery and peace will no longer be part of the nuns’ daily life. Even if some long shots, especially those with prolonged crying and agony, could have been slightly improved, Vincent Sandoval’s sophomore feature was quite creative, exploring the heaviness in each scene to convey the oppressive sadness of its characters. In soft pale colors, and frequent close-ups, here is another perspective of Philippines’ tough reality, leaving us with the essential question posed by the nuns: why God wants us to go through all this?

The Wolverine (2013)

Directed by: James Mangold
Country: USA

Review: More than ever, super-heroes movies are a trend in cinema. Sadly, the last experiences revealed that, the more the technology advances, the worst is the film, which usually tries to emphasize the visual aspect in detriment of anything else. Helmer James Mangold (“Walk The Line”, “3:10 To Yuma”), along with the pair of screenwriters, Mark Bomback and Scott Frank, seems to have understood this aspect because “The Wolverine” stands slightly above its’ recent competitors, “Man Of Steel” and “Iron man 3”. At least I could follow a minimally interesting story without seeing action on top of action at every three minutes. Logan (Hugh Jackman), living as a hermit and haunted by his past, is suddenly taken into Japan to meet with Yashida, a long-time acquaintance. In his deathbed, Yashida thanks him for having saved his life in the war, but also proposes to transfer Logan’s powers to his own body in order to become immortal. In this Japanese adventure, Logan falls in love with Yashida’s granddaughter Mariko, who became a Yakuza target; he will have to defeat the malevolent Viper, ninjas, and samurais, with the help of clairvoyant Yukio. With some drawbacks and lack of funny moments (that’s not what I would expect from this super-hero), “The Wolverine” provided us with decent action scenes and didn’t leave a bad impression of the most prominent X-Men's mutant hero.

Post Tenebras Lux (2012)

Directed by: Carlos Reygadas
Country: Mexico / others

Review: Carlos Reygadas’ particular way of filmmaking always caused me mixed sensations; he really knows how to create bewildering experiences but at the same time, there are always some setbacks that make me move away from his complex visions. “Post Tenebras Lux”, which means ‘light after darkness’, is a semi-autobiographical film that was made purposely to baffle us, being presented as a sort of a bizarre dream. The film, shot with rigor, presents a peculiar effect that consists in blurring the screen around the edges to enhance the dreamlike idea. The story follows a Mexican middle-class family that decided to move to the countryside, but the isolation will bring negative consequences to their relationship. The only thing that we have sure is that the early visit of the devil (in an animated form) certainly represents a bad omen, but after that, the film starts an odyssey through the inexplicable by presenting us apparently unrelated situations that I often find myself asking what the hell Reygadas was trying to say. “Post Tenebras Lux” is as much intriguing and captivating, as it is despicable and frustrating. Pretentious or not in its disjointed structure, I cannot deny that I was immerse in the story till the end, but can only recommend it for those who don’t mind to have something to decode in practically every scene. It just aims to our senses without worrying with any particular message or logic.

Blue Jasmine (2013)

Directed by: Woody Allen
Country: USA

Review: Woody Allen did great in “Blue Jasmine”, after the last year’s fiasco “To Rome With Love”. The script didn’t show anything groundbreaking, but Allen was able to reinvent himself by giving it the proper touches to triumph, both as drama and comedy. Jasmine (Cate Blanchett) is a high-society New Yorker who is passing through a nervous breakdown and serious financial crisis after her cheating husband, Hal (Alec Baldwin), has been condemned for fraud. In a desperate attempt to recover, she moves into her sister’s small apartment in San Francisco where everything seems too modest and too imperfect for her aspirations. While Jasmine’s sister, Ginger (Sally Hawkins), revealed to be understanding and supportive in every way, Jasmine was completely lost in thoughts from the past, which stubbornly persisted in her unconscious. The performances were close to perfection and none of the characters were there by chance or mistake. Their constant changing moods bestowed such agitation, which at no time allowed the story to slip into monotony. At the sound of a swinging jazz, a staple in his films, Allen offers a genuine character study, showing that there are people who aren’t capable of changing, even when they find themselves in the worst situations. By creating a consistent and funny portrait that confronts insane ambition with cheerful modesty, Allen made of “Blue Jasmine” his best work since “Match Point”.

The Time Being (2012)

Directed by: Nenad Cicin-Sain
Country: USA

Review: Nenad Cicin-Sain has here his debut on direction and screenwriting, but if the former was very well accomplished, the latter evinced some faults that blurred the final painting. Daniel (Wes Bentley) is a painter who is struggling with his own frustration and financial problems. In one of his exhibitions he meets a sinister character named Warren Dax (Frank Langella) who buys one of his paintings and hires him in exchange of several strange assignments. The bitter Warren, despite terminally ill, assumes a challenging behavior with authoritative tones, always avoiding Daniel’s questions about his personal life. Maybe too soon, Warren’s secret is revealed and the film leaves the mysterious mood to enter in a sort of tragic melodrama. We can claim that the concept of selfishness and loneliness of the artist is a bit pushed to the limit here, but I know a lot of people who gave up a normal family life to dedicate themselves to work. Bentley’s performance never matched the level presented by Langella, while in visual terms, the cinematographer Mihai Malaimare Jr. (“Tetro”, “The Master”) revealed a great sensibility for image composition and use of light. “The Time Being”, with its last third of imperfections and hasty solutions, left unclear what were Daniel’s choices, and if he really achieved a wholesome equilibrium. One thing was obvious here: style had a lot more expression than substance.

Wasteland (2012)

Directed by: Rowan Athale
Country: UK

Review: Rowan Athale’s directorial debut “Wasteland” is a heist film, in which I could not identify myself with any character or find anything that stands above the standard patterns of the genre. Its main issue was exactly the lack of something new, aggravated by the unnoticeable performances, bad taste in soundtrack, and an overcooked and sluggish description of a robbery that got me bored all along. The plot starts with a police interrogation and ends in a confession, after Harvey (Luke Treadaway), released from prison six weeks before, has decided to take revenge on Steven Roper (Neil Maskell), the drug dealer responsible for his undeserved arrest. In order to perpetrate his plan, he will count with three friends and will try to calm down his girlfriend who strictly opposes to it. The arguing among the characters seemed too schemed to work properly, which made Mr. Athale's difficulties in terms of script even more visible. The formulaic approach and lack of energy in the scenes and characters, caused “Wasteland” to be even more trapped in its borrowed ideas and contrived plot. A too discouraging ride to be recommended.

What Maisie Knew (2012)

Directed by: Scott McGehee, David Siegel
Country: USA

Review: Set in contemporary New York City, “What Maisie Knew” is an American drama about childhood. Based on Henry James’ novel, the plot is centered on 7-year-old Maisie (Onata Aprile) who was caught in the separation process of her parents. Both want to win her custody, but this seems to be more of a whim than really a sincere intention. Her mother, Susanna (Julianne Moore), is an unstable rock singer who recently married Lincoln (Alexander Skarsgard), a mere puppet in her hands, just to have a chance to keep Maisie around. Beale (Steve Coogan), the father, is an art dealer who is absent most of the time and started a relationship with Maisie’s nanny, Margo (Joanna Vanderham). The film consists basically in showing all these different people taking care of Maisie, who suffers in silence while she observes attentively their behaviors. Becoming a victim of her parents’ selfishness, Maisie will make her own choices to gain the stability she needs in her age. Filmmakers McGehee and Siegel adopted the same unagitated tone along the way, presenting a false sweetness that in some moments were hard to swallow. Sometimes the depth they intended didn’t quite work, hampered mostly due to encounters and relationships that seemed a bit strained along with its expected conclusions. Amongst all this mess involving parents and stepparents, “What Maisie Knew” shows some sensitivity and worth essentially due to the solid performances.

Shun Li And The Poet (2011)

Directed by: Andrea Segre
Country: Italy / France

Review: Italian documentarian Andrea Segre has here a sweet-n-sour debut on fiction, with “Shun Li And The Poet”, a pensive drama that depicts immigration in its modern forms of slavery. Shun Li (Tao Zhao), is a Chinese woman who has been working for eight years in a textile factory in the suburbs of Rome, where she patiently expects the arrival of her son. Under the orders of a doubtful employment agency, she is suddenly moved to Chioggia, a small fishing town that they call Little Venice, to work temporarily in a bar. There, she will become friends with Bepi aka The Poet (Rade Serbedzija), a retired fisherman whose loneliness seems to be relieved with Shun Li’s presence. Their closeness will provoke rumors of all kinds in the town, and soon Bepi starts to realize that to be with her, might not be possible at all. With a keen cinematography, Segre creates a serene portrayal of the situation, almost without any tension. The only scene in which he explores tension had to do with the fishermen’s disagreements. This introspection and subtleness worked well in most of the situations, but there were times that the addition of some guts would have been advantageous. Awarded in Venice, “Shun Li And The Poet” is not a bad film; yet, it could have explored other ways to better denounce this sad reality, perhaps in a grittier manner rather than timid.

Dead Man's Burden (2012)

Directed by: Jared Moshe
Country: USA

Review: Set in 1870 post civil war, Jared Moshe’s debut “Dead Man’s Burden” is a well-written independent western that deals with family matters. In noir tones, it tells the story of Martha (Clare Bowen) and her husband Heck (David Call), whose wish is to sell the rural lands where they live in New Mexico, to open up a hotel in San Francisco. They yearn for the deal with Mr.Lane (Joseph L.Taylor), the representative of a mining company who showed interest in buying their land, but this won’t be too simple, especially after the arriving of Martha’s brother, Wade (Barlow Jacobs), ten years after having been cast out by his father. Filmed with precision and evincing good taste on the gorgeous landscapes chosen, Moshe gives us a slow paced but solid story that brought to my mind another recent western, “Meek’s Cutoff”. It stays far from the old times' westerns, in which the shootings are vivid and thrilling, and we have sure that the protagonist will win. Instead, it adopts a more reserved attitude, although without depriving itself from creating intense moments of tension and anxiety, supported by strong psychological factors. The surprising “Dead Man’s Burden” was able to get my attention all the time, having a valuable factor in its favor: it's very hard to guess its characters' outcome.

Matterhorn (2013)

Directed by: Diederik Ebbinge
Country: Netherlands

Review: “Matterhorn” is a Dutch drama with hints of comedy that marks the directorial debut of Diederik Ebbinge on feature film. The story centers on Fred (Ton Kas), a lonely grieving man in his 50’s who lost his wife and child, and whose life since then became tedious. Fred has the strict look of a British man, being a devout follower of his religion and showing some obsessive-compulsive behaviors. Certain day, he decides to dwell Theo (René Van’t Hof), a homeless man who became mentally handicapped after an accident, but then will have to deal with the bad-mouth parishioners, and especially with his own conscience and reality of the past. Even with a sort of stiffness in its development, this low-key comedy showed some charisma thanks to the actors’ commitment, but the humorous absurdness that came out of its plot was not always rewarding. The fact that Fred was considering Theo as a substitute of both wife and son, whom he misses so much, is perfectly acceptable, but I can’t say the same about the cheesy episode involving a jealous neighbor who has been in love with Fred’s deceased wife. With several ups and downs along the way, “Matterhorn” ended up in great style due to the unexpected revelations disclosed, and by stirring some emotion. It won the audience’s heart in Moscow and Rotterdam Film Fest.

 

The Conjuring (2013)

Directed by: James Wan
Country: USA

Review: I cannot say I am an admirer of James Wan’s horror films, which include “Saw”, “Dead Silence”, “Death Sentence”, or “Insidous”, with exception of his new one, “The Conjuring”. The plot was written by the twin brothers Chad and Carey Hayes, inspired on the true events occurred in 1971 at Harrisville, Rhode Island, where an entire family was threatened by evil spirits, after they have moved to a remote haunted house. Luckily, they were helped by the demonologist Ed Warren (Patrick Wilson) and his clairvoyant wife Lorraine (Vera Farmiga), one of the most famous couple working and researching on paranormal cases at the time. I found this experience to be pretty scary and disturbing, despite of the familiar atmosphere and cyclical sudden frights. Helmer James Wan did it smartly, giving space for the story breathe for itself without rushes or trying to impress gratuitously, until the chilling finale, in which we could experience the intensity and strength of unsettling images related to an exorcism. With great performances from all the cast, stupendous cinematography by John R.Leonetti, and petrifying music by Joseph Bishara, “The Conjuring” is a fantastic achievement on horror that stands closer to the disquietude of “The Exorcist” than to the unimpressive excesses of “Evil Dead”, being already a solid reference in the genre.

Only God Forgives (2013)

Directed by: Nicolas Winding Refn
Country: Denmark / Thailand / others

Review: After the perfectly balanced “Drive”, Nicolas Winding Refn returns murkier than ever with “Only God Forgives”, an immoderately violent and tasteless film, which not even Ryan Gosling and Kristin Scott Thomas could save. The story centers on Julian (Gosling), a respected drug dealer who operates in Thailand’s underworld, and whose brother was murdered after having raped and killed a 16-year-old girl. That’s when their mother, Jenna (Thomas) arrives in Bangkok to take her son’s body with her, but not without demanding a proper revenge. Her cold and calculative character shocked me through statements and behaviors. This very dark case also involves an enigmatic cop (Vithaya Pansringarm) with a special ability to sing, a sort of punisher who knows everything and loves to make justice with his machete. “Only God Forgives” had so much potential to become a great film but it isn’t in fact. As usual, the dark mood that distinguishes Refn’s works is well done, and Larry Smith’s cinematography gives an authentic lesson on image composition filled with predominant hues of saturated red and yellow, but these aspects were completely turned down by extreme scenes of violence and torture, which became simply unbearable to watch. This is a macabre story filled with immoral excesses, with the exclusive goal of affecting us through pain and darkness. A dreadful and sadistic experience.

Once Upon A Time Was I, Veronica (2012)

Directed by: Marcelo Gomes
Country: Brazil

Review: After “I Travel Because I Have To, I Come Back Because I Love You” from 2009, which achieved great notoriety among the critic, Marcelo Gomes returns but not in the same shape as before, to presents us “Once Upon a Time Was I, Veronica”, a drama set in Recife, Brazil, that tells the story of Veronica (Hermila Guedes), a newly graduated doctor who struggles to find balance in her life. The moving camera with unfocused shots used in the film’s opening scene, depicting several naked bodies in the beach, arouse my curiosity in knowing more about Veronica, but in the end my expectations became defrauded. Living alone with her retired father whose terminal illness is advancing, and becoming affected by the ails of her patients from the hospital where she works, Veronica is passing through a crisis that she would never thought it was possible. Furthermore, her inability to commit herself in a steady relationship is increasing her pain, especially when her father inquires her about that matter. Without knowing what she wants from life, she often sees herself as a patient to be treated, unburdening her pains to an old tape recorder in the same melancholic way. When the film reaches its end, all the issues concerning Veronica’s life remained out of focus, and the urban depression it tried to convey seemed vague. This major problem prevented it from succeed, regardless of any other beneficial aspects that might have been presented.

Traffic Department (2013)

Directed by: Wojciech Smarzowski
Country: Poland

Review: Wojciech Smarzowski returns with the raw and aggressive style that characterizes him to fiercely criticize the Polish police system and much more. “Traffic Department” has been a massive success in Poland, and depicts a period in the life of seven conniving cops whose daily life in Warsaw is outrageously filled with sex, alcohol, drugs, and bribery. If this wasn’t enough, there is also racism and corruption associated with governmental people. The story starts without focus on any member in particular, but little by little we get to know that officer Krol is the man to follow, when he became the main suspect of Sargent Lisowski’s mysterious death. There were plausible reasons behind this accusation but Krol will do everything to clear his name and find the truth. I think that Smarzowski, in his urge to denounce this dark side of his own country, took some scenes to extreme levels, especially those depicting the police officers partying. In the other hand, its sarcastic and sturdy vision on the matter has the goal to open the people’s eyes for a problem with great impact in society. The structure is not always clear in its orientation, and sometimes we need to make an extra-effort to understand all the connections. The hasty and abrupt editing is another factor that may not be for everyone’s taste. Even somewhat faulty in its very own poignant and gloomy way, “Traffic Department” uses a strong determination to make us aware of a brutal reality. 

We Steal Secrets: The Story Of WikiLeaks (2013)

Directed by: Alex Gibney
Country: USA

Review: Alex Gibney has a huge experience as documentarian and “We Steal Secrets”, despite not completely elucidatory, gives a good impression on what was the most scandalous case of secret information leak involving the US Government, perpetrated by a non-profit organization called WikiLeaks. The film not only covers the happenings related to this case, but also makes a bit of character studies regarding the individuals involved with this international organization. The introduction of WikiLeaks’s founder, Julian Assange, was made through the association with the worm attack made to NASA computers’ system in 1989, when the spacecraft Galileo was launched. Assange is obviously the central figure here, and the essential question is putted in these terms: is he a hero, for having revealed publicly so many corruption cases and revolting facts involving the American wars in the Middle East? Or is he a villain, for having compromised the world security, as well as having seized the information in an unauthorized and inappropriate manner? Beyond this hard-to-answered question, there are a lot more, especially regarding the posterior accusations of sexual assault made against Assange, and the curious aspects of his personality. Among several shocking revelations, we still have time to get to know a few curious characters, including the US Army soldier Bradley Manning, and the whistleblower and famous hacker, Adrian Lamo. “We Steal Secrets” is worthily informative but not conclusive.