The Edge of Heaven

After Head-On, Fatih Akin is a filmmaker of whom I expect much, and while he doesn’t disappoint here, the plus in my recommendation is dependent on the dvd’s “Making of” extra, one of the best I’ve seen in showing how the elements of the film came together. Born in Germany of Turkish parents, Akin’s films all confront that duality, and this story too shuttles between the two countries and amongst a group of six characters who sometimes connect and sometimes don’t, in a fatalistic dance signaled by two title cards that announce the deaths of characters before we even meet them. The element of contrivance is strong, but so is the sense of human reality, and discovery as well. The story is broken up in Babel fashion, but much less forced. Schematic sure, but adventitious too, with a documentarian’s feel for local color, whether it’s a red-light district in Bremen or a village on the Black Sea coast of Turkey, a German language bookstore in Istanbul or a prison in Hamburg. Each of the actors is quite involving, though only Hanna Schygulla is a familiar face. Once upon a time Fassbinder’s muse, here she is the hausfrau mother of a young woman who gets involved with an illegal immigrant woman, a radical on the run and looking for her mother, who had long been sending money back to Turkey from Germany. That mother had fallen in with an old Turkish man, whose son teaches Goethe in a German university. These characters collide in different contexts, in a world of hurt where only forgiveness can justify hope. I was struck by the happenstance of watching back to back two foreign films of culture clash, in which characters of differing nationality have to rely on English as their medium of communication, an instance of the soft power of the American imperium. (2007, dvd, n.) *7+* (MC-85.)

The Band's Visit

Though admirably minimalist in its heart-tugging or lesson-learning, this is a crowd-pleaser that didn’t especially please me. Writer-director Eran Kolirin follows an official Egyptian band of eight, dressed in powder-blue military uniforms, as they go astray on their way to perform at the opening of an Arab cultural center somewhere in the Israeli desert. Finding themselves stuck in a remote settlement with “no Arab culture, no Israeli culture, no culture at all,” they have no choice but to accept the hospitality of a lively cafe owner, played so enticingly by Ronit Elkabetz that I had to move Late Marriage to the top of my Netflix queue, where it has languished for years. The culture clash is muted here in the middle of nowhere, with both sides finding common ground in English (which kept this film out of the running for a foreign film Oscar). With some charming set-ups and amusing awkward moments, the film does not press its message of can’t-we-all-just-get-along? It remains astringent and deadpan, but in the end the anecdotes did not add up to much of anything. This is certainly a film that does not insult your intelligence while it tickles your funnybone or heartstrings, but it didn’t tickle mine all that much. (2007, dvd, n.) *6+* (MC-80.)

The Visitor

I am pleased to return to film reviewing with a strong recommendation, for this second film from writer-director Tom McCarthy -- The Station Agent was his first, and as an actor he’s familiar as Templeton the sleazebag reporter in season five of The Wire. Nothing surprising happens in this story of an aging professorial widower, whose life is revived when he returns after a long absence to his pied-a-terre in Greenwich Village and discovers it inhabited by a young Muslim couple, illegal immigrants from Syria and Senegal respectively -- but the film continually surprises in the justice of its quiet observation. It unfolds without underlining. Much of the subtlety is in the performance of Richard Jenkins, a familiar character actor who makes the most of his chance at a starring role. He is matched by Hiam Abbass as the woman who reawakens his soul, completing the work begun by her son, a friendly Syrian drummer who restarts the beat of the older man’s heart by teaching him to play the djembe. The charming young musician is snatched by immigration officials when he gets hung up in a subway turnstile, and is sent to a featureless holding facility in Queens, until he can be deported. Neither his girlfriend, a lovely black woman who sells her jewelry at street fairs, nor his mother can visit him without risking detention themselves, so the disheartened econ prof has to become the go-between that holds them together. This quartet makes for an involving chamber piece set within the great symphony of the city, and the even larger music of a globalized world. This is a film with heart and smarts, that does not oversell its message. (2008, dvd, n.) *8+* (MC-79.)

Next up at the Clark

Anime for Grown-ups: The Art of Japanese Animation.

Saturdays at 1:00 pm in Japanese with subtitles
& at 3:00 pm in dubbed American version

Anime, as Japanese animation is usually called, is an immense presence in the culture of Japan, with global reach as well. The Clark will look at anime not from the perspective of genre expectations, but through the work of directors who speak in the international language of film. So -- no bodacious robot babes or cyberpunk gunslingers, but rather serious and wide-ranging exploration of character and theme in an influential graphic medium, a cinema of dreams replete with fantastic imagery. We’ll screen three films by different directors from Studio Ghibli, led by Hayao Miyazaki, and two films by a leading director of the next generation, Satoshi Kon.

November 1: Porco Rosso. (1992, 94 min., PG) A decade before he became a household name in America with an Oscar for Spirited Away, as well as other children’s favorites, Hayao Miyazaki directed this film explicitly for adults. Rather like Casablanca meets Only Angels Have Wings, it tells of a World War I flying ace, reduced to bounty hunting against air pirates over the Adriatic while the Fascists come to power in ’20s Italy -- and oh, incidentally, he’s turned into the Crimson Pig of the title.

November 8: Whisper of the Heart. (1995, 111 min., PG) Unlike Disney, Studio Ghibli is collaborative rather than corporate. For this thoroughly charming tale of adolescent romance and a bright young girl’s search for self, Miyazaki wrote the script but gave the direction to heir apparent Yoshifumi Kondo. Set in a realistic present, it is a testament to the expressive powers of rather simple animation, with brief fantasy interludes. If you liked Juno, you will love this winning story of a brash schoolgirl finding both a boyfriend and a calling in life.

November 15: Grave of the Fireflies. (1988, 88 min., PG-13) Directed by Isao Takahata, Miyazaki’s longtime collaborator, this sensitive, harrowing film depicts the impact of war on children, warranting comparison to all-time classic Forbidden Games. Two orphans, a boy and his younger sister, struggle for survival in the aftermath of the World War II firebombing of Japan, finding evanescent beauty in a terminal landscape. This sad and powerful masterpiece evokes the horror of war and the hope of humanity as well as any live-action film.

November 22: Tokyo Godfathers. (2004, 92 min., PG-13) Satoshi Kon has established himself as a younger director to watch, among those for whom animation is simply an expressive medium for serious films of all sorts. Here he transposes John Ford’s Western Three Godfathers to the underbelly of modern day Tokyo, with three tramps -- an alcoholic, a transvestite, and a teen runaway -- finding a baby on Christmas Eve, and encountering comic adventures in their heartwarming attempt to return the child to its mother.

November 29: Paprika. (2006, 90 min., R) Satoshi Kon delves into the sci-fi realm so common in anime, but with a distinctive bent, adapting a (non-graphic) novel obsessed with psychoanalysis and the meaning of dreams. Paprika is the therapeutic avatar of a powerful woman psychiatrist, partnered with a blubbery nerd genius who has invented a machine that allows physical entry into the dreams of subjects, a dangerous weapon in the hands of the unscrupulous and power-mad. This may be the boldest popular exploration of dream imagery since Hitchcock’s Spellbound.

Coming to the Clark

This season offers an innovation in film programming at the Clark -- “Artists from Screen to Scholar,” a series of feature films about artists offered in a context that only the Clark can provide. On selected Thursdays at 7:00 pm, a Clark-related or invited scholar will introduce a film about the life and work of an artist, and then after the screening serve as interlocutor for a comparative discussion of film and artist. This format begins with a documentary about the contemporary artist Christo and continues with three films from three nations about the multifaceted Spanish painter Francisco de Goya y Lucientes, each presented with expert commentary.

Thursday, October 16, 7:00 pm
“Interrogating The Gates: Christo Documented and Elucidated”
When “The Gates” were installed in Central Park back in February 2005, the Clark offered a very popular marathon screening of five Maysles Brothers’ films about earlier Christo projects. By then Albert Maysles had been following this project since 1978, from conception to rejection and thence to approval and triumphant realization, and his work was picked up and completed by Antonio Ferrera. This documentary (2007, 98 min.)debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival and was thereafter broadcast on HBO, but can now be seen at proper scale at the Clark, with context and commentary provided Lisa Green, the Clark’s Director of Communications and Design.

Thursday, October 23, 7:00 pm
“The Many Faces of Goya: Take One”
Goya’s Ghosts (2006, 114 min.)
Director Milos Forman tries to recapture the Hapsburg magic of Amadeus, turning his attention to Spain in the same era, and portraying Goya as eyewitness to the horrors of the Spanish Inquisition and the Napoleonic occupation. Stellan Skarsgaard plays Goya, whose role as painter gives him an inside view of history in the making, with the changes embodied in characters played by Javier Bardem and Natalie Portman. Michael Cassin, Director of the Center for Education in the Visual Arts, based at the Clark, will elaborate and debunk the portrait of the artist presented here.

Thursday, November 6, 7:00 pm
“The Many Faces of Goya: Take Two”
Goya (1971, 134 min., in German with English subtitles)
This is a very rare opportunity to see this massive Eastern European co-production in its original widescreen glory. Derived from a novel by Lion Feuchtwanger, it’s an epic biography of the great artist directed by Konrad Wolf. Presented in cooperation with the Center for Foreign Languages, Literatures, and Cultures at Williams College, the film will be introduced and illuminated by Barton Byg, longtime teacher of German and film at UMass Amherst and founding director of the DEFA Film Library there.

Thursday, November 20, 7:00 pm
“The Many Faces of Goya: Take Three”
Goya in Bordeaux (1999, 105 min, in Spanish with subtitles)
Director Carlos Saura takes on Goya, one Spanish master to another, looking back from his approaching death in exile in 1828 to the passionate passages of his earlier life. The production is lavish and phantasmagoric, interspersed with tableaux-like recreations of Goya’s work, particularly the series of etchings, “The Disasters of War.” Mark Ledbury, Associate Director of Research and Academic Programs at the Clark, will bring his scholarly expertise to the presentation and discussion of artist and film.

More random viewing

Another new dvd to mention is the resurrection of the barely-released Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains, a fascinating time capsule from 1981 but not a very good film. This saga of a punkette band called the Stains features a 15-year-old Diane Lane and 13-year-old Laura Dern, with support from a not much older Ray Winstone, who becomes their guide into punkdom. Indifferently directed by music producer Lou Adler, with weak production values and a scattershot script, this still has an aura of authenticity and knowledge of the rock biz. (Not unlike how Payday knows country.) But let’s go back to Diane and Laura as nymphets, and you might have plenty of reason to watch this, or maybe you want to watch members of The Clash and Sex Pistols play backup. Punk is a style of music that passed me right by at the time, as have most subsequent styles, but I must say I have lately been finding out about it through some pretty good films. This isn’t one of them, but isn’t without interest.

Continuing with my half-hearted recital of films I’ve managed to squeeze into gaps in election or financial news, I should take note of one that slipped my mind almost immediately. Smart People (2008, dvd, MC-57) is a half-bright effort from director Noam Murro, about a curmudgeonly English professor played by Dennis Quaid. With support from Ellen Page as his smart-mouthed daughter, Sarah Jessica Parker as his implausible love interest, and Thomas Haden Church as his free-loading brother, this ought to have been much better than it is. The Squid and the Whale this definitely is not. The setting of Carnegie-Mellon in Pittsburgh comes through pretty well, but the script is not nearly as witty as it imagines itself to be, and incidents pile up in sitcom fashion rather than with any organic development. It has some tasty bits going down, but more than Chinese food leaves you hungry a minute after you’re finished with it.

I’m going to close out these random updates with two last films, before going back to individual review and ratings. Both are recommended but with reservations. Snow Angels (2008, dvd, MC-67) is well-made but awfully sad. David Gordon Green halfway crosses over from his indie roots with this adaptation of a Stewart O’Nan novel, mixing thriller and even teen comedy elements into the pathos of small town lives gone astray. I like Kate Beckinsale and she does her best with the role, but seems out of place as a bereft working-class beauty in what was SE Pennsylvania in the 70s in the novel, but is now Nowheresville in an undefined present (actually Halifax). Sam Rockwell, however, fits right in as her estranged loser husband, out of jail and recovery and into evangelical Christianity. A subplot revolves around a highly believable and charming high school romance between Michael Angarano and Olivia Thirlby (Juno’s sidekick), two young actors to watch for in the future. The agonizing arc of the drama is marked by many moments of truthful observation, even when you want to resist the conclusion.

The Rape of Europa (2007, dvd, MC-77) is a conventional but absorbing documentary on art as one of the victims of World War II -- the looting by Hitler and Goering, the evacuations of art from the Louvre and the Hermitage, the collateral damage of the Allied drive up the boot of Italy, the eventual repatriation of Nazi booty to the Jewish heirs of Holocaust victims, and the heroic efforts of the “Monument Men” of the advancing Allies, committed to preserving what they could of the art history of Europe. The approach is miscellaneous but cumulatively powerful, “The World At War” from the perspective of art objects. This will be shown at the Clark next April.