Brick Lane: Building a life

Brick Lane (2007) • View trailer for Brick Lane
3.5 stars (out of five). Rating: PG-13, and quite unnecessarily, for fleeting sensuality
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 7.24.08
Buy DVD: Brick Lane

Having seen her mother commit suicide out of despair, 17-year-old Nazneen's father rips the young woman from the only life she knows in her poor Bangladeshi village, and ships her off to an arranged marriage with an older man who resides in a dilapidated block of flats in London's East End.

Challenging such a decision, which removes Nazneen from the sister she adores, is unthinkable; nor can she even raise any questions.

Having finally decided to take his family on a trip to Bangladesh, the laughably
pompous Chanu (Satish Kaushik, far right) only then insists on "seeing the
sights" in the city — London — that has been their home for so many years.
The resulting family picnic is a source of tolerant amusement to Chantu's
wife, Nazneed (Tannishtha Chatterjee) and barely concealed boredom to their
daughters, from left, Bibi (Lana Rahman) and Shahana (Naeema Begum).

"If Allah had wanted us to ask questions," her older self intones, in narrative voice-over, "he would have made us men."

Such mordant, resigned irony cuts to the core of Brick Lane, director Sarah Gavron's sensitive, eye-opening adaptation of Monica Ali's novel, scripted with impressive care by Abi Morgan and Laura Jones. Although this film can do no more than capture a sense of Ali's intimate book, Gavron's sure hand coaxes telling performances from her central characters, and most particularly from Tannishtha Chatterjee, as the adult Nazneen.

The story proper commences 16 years later, as Nazneen has settled into her dull, empty routine as the wife of Chanu (Satish Kaushik), a large, almost comically formal man nearly crippled by a surfeit of wholly misguided pride. He is the unquestioned lord and master of the household, and we take for granted the fact that Nazneen leaves these small rooms — merely one of many identical flats along the lane that gives this film its name — only to shop for food.

She has neither friends nor acquaintances, hobbies nor avocations: nothing to bring the slightest measure of joy into her life.

Nothing of hers.

Even their two bright and rambunctious daughters — 14-year-old Shahana (Naeema Begum) and 10-year-old Bibi (Lana Rahman) — are at best a mixed blessing, because during moments of anger Chanu is more likely to speak of the infant son who died, years earlier. Instead, Chanu grumbles, Allah has "cursed" him with only daughters.

There's a great temptation, during these early scenes, to dismiss Chanu as a brutish, callous, unloving misanthrope ... but that's both too simple and too indicative of our own reflexive Western sensibilities. Brick Lane, as it progresses, is a quiet waiting game that rewards our patience with small miracles: most particularly the fact (to her surprise) that Nazneen does, in her own way, genuinely love her husband ... and the astonishing realization, eventually, that we also pity and sympathize with the man.

Because Chanu is as much a victim of his own cultural heritage as Nazneen.

For years, the only radiance in Nazneen's existence has been the infrequent mail from her sister, Hasina, who remained in Bangladesh. The other girl speaks merrily of falling in love with this man or that, her words a poignant reminder of the homeland Nazneen has hoped, lo these many years, to see again.

Chanu periodically speaks of his own desire to "return home," but we quickly realize that he's a blue-sky dreamer, as incapable of genuinely planning such a journey as he is at holding down a steady job.

Mongol: The Rise of Genghis Khan -- Shaping the myth

Mongol: The Rise of Genghis Khan (2007) • View trailer for Mongol: The Rise of Genghis Khan
Four stars (out of five). Rating: R, for considerable violence
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 7.2.08
Buy DVD: Mongol: The Rise of Genghis Khan • Buy Blu-Ray: Mongol: The Rise of Genghis Khan [Blu-ray]

His eventual world-conquering prowess notwithstanding, Russian filmmaker Sergei Bodrov's sumptuous Mongol suggests that Genghis Khan never would have survived into seasoned adulthood without frequent divine intervention and considerable help from his wife.

Temudgin (Tadanobu Asano, left) and his beloved Börte (Khulan Chuluun)
snatch a moment to themselves before the arrival of yet another crisis, when the
future nation-builder once again will be forced to battle for his life.

None of which makes this story any less powerful, of course, although the delivery smacks more of myth-making than any scholarly attempt at historical accuracy.

I can't really blame Bodrov, who directed this handsomely mounted film and co-wrote the script with Arif Aliyev. One cannot check textbooks for events that took place in the late 12th century, and thus we're forced to accept Bodrov's interpretation of legend. This is annoying only a few times, specifically when the young warrior's certain death seems assured ... until the next moment, when "the Gods" effect a nifty rescue.

Indeed, the first time this happens — when young Temudgin, not yet khan of anything, crashes through thin ice and plunges into the chilly waters of a massive frozen lake — we can't help wondering if this is merely some sort of oddly symbolic dream ... because, in the next scene, the boy is prostrate on the frozen tundra, somehow having a) not sunk to the bottom due to the weight of his heavy protective clothing; b) gotten himself out of the lake; and c) avoided freezing to death once his sodden body was exposed to the frigid air above.

Bodrov doesn't show any of the details that a reasonable viewer might deem essential: The boy crashes through the ice and into the water, and then — poof! — he's back on land, nowhere near the lake, and rescued by a helpful young shepherd.

Hey, I'm willing to accept our hero being a "chosen one," but it'd be nice to have a little more clarity!

We modern Western viewers, in particular, are much more likely to be impressed by Bodrov's characterization of Börte, Temudgin's faithful, loving and impressively resourceful wife. Now, this is a woman to cherish: She saves her husband's bacon more times than I can count, and is willing to do anything — including selling herself — in order to remain at his side.

Temudgin, for his part, is progressive enough to heed her counsel on matters of importance; he also quite generously accepts as "his" the two children that Börte bears by other men, during the course of this story.

Indeed, you'll be hard-pressed to detect any disagreeable flaws in this characterization of Temudgin. Even as a nascent nation-builder, he's brutal but fair: the sort of leader who first ensures that his men and their families want for nothing, before taking his share of any plunder. Small wonder he attracts followers by the bushel.

But that's getting ahead of things.

Son of Rambow: This Son also rises

Son of Rambow (2007) • View trailer for Son of Rambow
3.5 stars (out of five). Rating: PG-13, for underage smoking and profanity, and youthful bad behavior
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 5.29.08
Buy DVD: Son of Rambow • Buy Blu-Ray: Son of Rambow [Blu-ray]


I often wonder why some parents seem to have repressed the casual cruelties of childhood.

Why else would they stack the deck so badly against their own kids?

When one of their home-grown "special effects" — a dog statue fastened to a
massive kite — is carried off by a particularly strong gust of wind, it drags an
increasingly frantic Lee (Will Poulter, left) and Will (Bill Milner) along in its
wake.

Bad enough that 11-year-old Will Proudfoot (Bill Milner) has been saddled with such an impossible label by parents who clearly invented the surname as one of the tenets of their overly repressive, whacked-out approach to religion. But then Will's mother — his father having died unexpectedly, years earlier — sends him to public school with strict admonitions against being exposed to any sort of music or television, again due to the puritanical teachings of "The Brethren."

That means Will has to leave his classroom — and sit, isolated, in the hallway — every time the teacher shows an educational film.

Small wonder the boy has taken refuge in his imagination, and has meticulously scribbled flip-book images and other colorful drawings in the margins and every inch of white space of his massive Bible.

The setting is the depressed working-class England of 1982. Writer/director Garth Jennings deftly sketches this portrait of a lost and lonely little boy in the opening scenes of Son of Rambow, a movie whose goofy title — while absolutely appropriate — gives little indication of the bittersweet joys to be contained within.

Deliberately filmed with a low-tech style that mimics the story soon to be told, Jennings' charming, frequently hilarious and often heartbreaking coming-of-age saga bears strong echoes of other gleefully eccentric films that came out at roughly the time this story is set: 1981's Gregory's Girl and 1985's My Life As a Dog.

Will's home life is sepulchral: The house is quiet as a tomb, he shares his bedroom with an infirm grandmother, and his younger sister has naught but jigsaw puzzles for entertainment. All three of these women dress as if they live in an Amish community, and Will's mother (Jessica Stevenson) has an unhealthy willingness to take her marching orders from Joshua (Neil Dudgeon), a member of The Brethren who clearly wishes to become part of this fractured family.

Everything changes in a heartbeat for Will one day, when one of his enforced school hallway sojourns causes him to be noticed by the institution's rebellious tear- away, Lee Carter (Will Poulter).

Aggressively disliked by everybody and clearly proud of the mischief he creates, Lee sees Will as an easy mark for persecution ... but, oddly, that particular desire fades rather quickly in the larger, much more aggressive boy.

Will's too trusting, too easy a target. More to the point, Will's so delighted to have been noticed by anybody that he immediately regards "Lee Carter" — Will always uses the other boy's full name — as a friend, despite considerable evidence to the contrary.

And that, Lee quickly realizes, is far more valuable than a victim.

We soon discover that Lee's behavior is a product of similar loneliness: He lives with his contemptuous older brother, Lawrence (Ed Westwick), in the lavish back rooms of a massive estate mostly used as a home for the elderly. Lawrence has no time for Lee, just as their rich, jet-setting (and forever absent) parents have no time for either son.

Lee spends all his home time serving as cook, cleaner and general dogsbody for his brother, whom he worships ... a fact that doesn't seem to register with Lawrence, who delights solely in ordering the punk kid about.

Such orders include sneaking a bulky video camera (1982, remember) into a movie theater and bringing home an illegal bootleg copy of First Blood. But the movie inspires Lee in an entirely different direction; he decides to "borrow" the camera — Lawrence never pays attention anyway — and make his own homegrown adaptation.

Will, for his part, chances to see the entire film while visiting Lee's home for the first time. To say that it changes the boy's life would be an understatement; of all the flicks to serve as his entry to pop culture, this one doesn't just open his eyes. It sears his very brain, as if somebody had forced a branding iron into his head.

And he cheerfully agrees to be the star of Lee's fledgling movie ... which obviously means sneaking out of the house, ditching services with The Brethren and breathing not a word of such behavior to his mother.

These early sequences are hilarious, as Lee fabricates ever-more-dangerous stunts to inflict on Will, but always with available junk or machinery; the other boy, made fearless by his new awareness of the world, accepts all challenges. (My favorite occurs when Will lets himself get hurled backwards after taking the full, close-up force of a farm's industrial sprinkler blast to the chest.)

Much as this plotline drives Son of Rambow, Jennings' film has additional joys in its side-stories. As with Bill Forsyth's Gregory's Girl, a host of supporting school characters wander through this narrative, none more crucial than the French foreign-exchange students who arrive just as Lee and Will are becoming inseparable.

Most of these newcomers are quiet and uncertain, but one departs the bus with a flourish: the jaw-droppingly exotic Didier (Jules Sitruk), dressed with such deliberately aggressive ambiguity that it's difficult to determine that he's a boy.

But he's more than boy enough for all the upper-level girls in Lee and Will's school, who soon are standing in line for an opportunity to lock lips with this guy who seems to be from another planet ... a process stage-managed by Didier's new posse of adoring British lads.

Didier eventually learns of the movie being made, and circumstances allow him to believe that the amiable Will is the driving force, rather than the belligerent Lee. Suddenly wafted into a level of acceptance that makes him giddy, Will allows himself to be seduced by this new popularity ... a change of dynamic that does not go unnoticed by the increasingly abandoned Lee.

Although it seems I've spent a great deal of time on plot exposition, I've barely scratched the surface; what follows plays on the nature of friendship, family and the constant struggle to fit in. Jennings' script wanders a bit, and his focus strays; toward the middle, the film briefly loses its way as Didier's character becomes too prominent.

But for the most part, this tender saga is dead-on with respect to its depiction of that seminal moment when two little boys take their first step toward maturity.

The film's raw, realistic and kitchen-sink approach — which makes the story seem that much more real — is amplified by Jennings and producer Nick Goldsmith's decision to cast total unknowns as their leads. Neither Milner nor Poulter had acted before, and their fresh performances here are unerringly natural.

Poulter is every inch the combative little scamp, but he's also up for the tougher scenes, when Lee's true emotions finally come flooding out. Milner, for his part, wanders forlornly through the early scenes as though drugged: Then, watching his inner light begin to blaze — his eyes and mouth taking on new animation — is as magical as seeing a spring flower unfold.

Jennings and Goldsmith, collectively known as "Hammer & Tongs," have an interesting history. They've collaborated on countless British TV commercials and music videos, and they planned Son of Rambow as their feature film debut. But fate and a thumping big budget intervened, and they found themselves tagged to bring Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy to the big screen.

Although not entirely successful with Adams' fans, Hitchhiker was a quite respectable entry to the movie biz, so Jennings and Goldsmith then returned to their original project. No doubt the Son of Rambow that has emerged now benefits from their greater experience, and Jennings certainly builds his story to a great payoff.

A couple of great payoffs, actually. The obvious one is a real tear-jerker, but the subtler one is much more satisfying: our unexpected realization that nerd-dom is only in the eye of the beholder, and that — as always — one man's trash is another man's treasure.

I'd love to think Son of Rambow will enjoy the slowly building momentum My Life As a Dog experienced two decades ago, but Paramount Vantage isn't throwing much money into the publicity campaign.

That leaves it up to us...

Young @ Heart: Sing loud!

Young @ Heart (2007) • View trailer for Young @ Heart
Four stars (out of five). Rating: PG, for absolutely no reason
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 5.14.08
Buy DVD: Young @ Heart


This film's indomitable spirit is palpable.

No matter how overwhelmed you are about world events, no matter how bad your day, no matter how dismayed you might be — and this is the important one — about any element of encroaching old age, Young @ Heart will make you feel better. Director Stephen Walker's documentary should be bottled and prescribed: Watch once each week before bed. Pleasant dreams guaranteed.

Having learned only hours earlier that one of their members has died, the Young
@ Heart chorus nonetheless rallies for a performance in front on an unusual
audience: the hardened inmates at the local Hampshire County Jail. But as this
film demonstrates time and again, even convicts are no match for the
irrepressible joy that blazes from these two dozen singers.

It's that inspirational.

The previews seen for the past month give an ample glimpse of the giddy enjoyment to be found in this profile of the soon-to-be-even- more-famous Young @ Heart Chorus of Northampton, Mass., but the film in its totality is even more unexpectedly delightful.

I've no idea how many hours of footage Walker and editor Chris King condensed in order to produce this heartwarming gem, but they did a masterful job.

They shot for seven straight weeks while the chorus rehearsed for a one-night-only performance in its home town, splicing this footage with more personal interviews and several music videos — producer Sally George directed these — that are drop-dead hilarious (The Ramones' "I Wanna Be Sedated," David Bowie's "Golden Years" and The BeeGees' "Stayin' Alive").

To borrow that hyperbolic phrase from Hollywood's youth, the results will make you laugh, cry and experience every emotion in between. You'll also be breathless, and more than once.

Young @ Heart isn't merely entertaining, poignant and unforgettable; most of all, it's important. Aside from reminding our offensively snobbish, youth-obsessed culture that life does too begin at 70, and that seniors bring a wealth of experience and pragmatic savvy to everything they do, Walker's film humanizes its subjects to the degree that their outer physical appearance melts away, and we see only a fresh-faced, incandescent inner glow.

At one point, as one of these elderly gentlemen endures a good-natured birthday greeting, we're told that he looks and behaves more like a 10-year-old boy.

Indeed, this could be said of every member of the chorus. They're all childlike, in the most positive sense: curious, fearless, open to new experiences and quite willing to show the world a thing or two.

So far, we could be discussing any chorus of seniors. This one is unique because these 70-, 80- and 90-somethings have become famous for their eye-opening renditions of rock, punk and R&B hits ... the more unexpected the material, the better.

My Blueberry Nights: Sweet dreams

My Blueberry Nights (2007) • View trailer for My Blueberry Nights
3.5 stars (out of five). Rating: PG-13, for profanity and dramatic intensity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 5.1.08
Buy DVD: My Blueberry Nights • Buy Blu-Ray: My Blueberry Nights [Blu-ray]


Some films luxuriate in their display of technique and mood, the characters' actions sometimes shunted aside so we can reflect upon what brought them to this point, and (more crucially) what might be necessary to propel them anew.

With no other friends in whom to confide, a heartbroken Elizabeth (Norah Jones)
tentatively reaches out to compassionate café owner Jeremy (Jude Law); their
resulting friendship gives her the strength necessary to begin a journey of
self-exploration.

Hong Kong director Wong Kar Wai loves the richness of atmosphere; he indulges in arty set design and inventive camerawork, always striving to convey the contemplative, troubled state of mind that he obviously believes characterizes so much of humanity. His films move slowly — some would say much too slowly — while following the actions of protagonists whose feelings smolder beneath a surface veneer usually dictated by social custom.

2000's In the Mood for Love, for example, followed the relationship of chance that develops between stars Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, when they learn that their respective spouses (whom we never meet) are having an affair. What, then, might our protagonists' next move be? A supportive friendship? Their own extra-marital fling, prompted by spite?

The decision unfolds against the gloomy hallways and darkened rooms of an apartment complex in 1960s Hong Kong: often more dream than reality.

Wong's films are an acquired taste: eclectic and temperamental for their own sake, but unfailingly generous to actors willing to conceive and then inhabit richly intriguing characters, suggesting their thoughts and desires via small gestures and minimal dialogue.

"Sometimes the tangible distance between two persons can be quite small," Wong has said, "but the emotional one can be miles."

His English-language film debut, My Blueberry Nights, is very much in this spirit: a quiet examination of a young woman who decides to find herself in the wake of a relationship gone sour. The resulting drama is pure road trip; she journeys across the United States and touches down in this city or that, pausing long enough to become a catalyst in the lives of other troubled souls.

She learns, as do we, that no matter how tragic our own experiences seem, somebody else is having a much tougher time. And, sometimes, watching others fail to cope — watching them sink for the third time — is all the prodding we need to get our own act together.

The young woman is Elizabeth (sultry jazz/folk singer Norah Jones, in a respectable acting debut), and her story begins in New York, where she has just learned that her boyfriend is cheating on her. The news is delivered almost accidentally by a compassionate café owner, Jeremy (Jude Law), who remembers his customers not by their faces, but by what they order; he recalls Elizabeth's "pork chop" companion having been in with somebody else.

The Counterfeiters: Hobson's choice

The Counterfeiters (2007) • View trailer for The Counterfeiters
Four stars (out of five). Rating: R, for violence, profanity and nudity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 4.24.08
Buy DVD: The Counterfeiters • Buy Blu-Ray: The Counterfeiters (+ BD Live) [Blu-ray]


All these years later, the Holocaust still reveals grim and fascinating stories.

And fresh stories of triumph, as well.

Maste forger Salomon Sorowitsch (Karl Markovics, second from left) is
dismayed to discover that the idealistic Adolf Burger (August Diehl, far left) is
sabotaging the faked American dollars produced by a team of incarcerated Jews
that includes Atze (Veit Stubner, second from right) and Dr. Klinger (August
Zirner).

The victory isn't immediately apparent in The Counterfeiters, the Austrian/ German co-production that just took the best foreign film Academy Award. Writer/director Stefan Ruzowitzky's compelling tale reminds us that heroes come in unusual packages, and that the greatest drama occurs when a single human being sets aside a lifetime of self-interest for an act that serves the greater good.

Ruzowitzky's film is both a complex character study and a fairly straightforward depiction of an extraordinarily clever — if all but forgotten — Nazi scheme that, if more successful, could have prolonged the war in Germany's favor. Although not entirely a failure, the plan did not unfold quickly enough to prevent Germany's defeat in 1945, and the credit for this spiritual triumph belongs to a cluster of incarcerated Jews who had been hand-picked for a most unusual work detail.

The film actually focuses on one man: Salomon "Sally" Sorowitsch (Karl Markovics), based as precisely as possible on real-life Russian-Jewish artist Salomon Smolianoff, one of the most notorious forgers of art and money in his day. After a brief prologue, the narrative unfolds as an extended flashback that begins in Berlin in 1936, where Sorowitsch moves casually in a world of swindlers, gigolos and loose women.

He's ruthlessly pragmatic, caring nothing for the rise of Nazi brutality or what it means to his own people; he demands top payment for every passport he forges for a Jew trying to flee the country. But like all those who believe themselves too smart, Sorowitsch gets careless: A lingering dalliance with a beautiful woman results in his being captured by the Nazi secret police.

The arresting officer, Inspector Friedrich Herzog (Devid Striesow), clearly admires Sorowitsch's skill and panache, but of course that doesn't change matters.

Initially sent to a typical concentration camp, Soro-witsch intelligently reveals his artistic skills and becomes something of a personal artist for the vain SS officers. He thus survives for several years before an unexpected transfer to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp.

Sorowitsch is re-united with Herzog, now promoted and in charge of "Operation Bernhard," a counterfeiting operation on an enormous scale. The goal: to design and mass-produce first British pounds, and then U.S. dollars, in order to weaken the economies of both countries.

Married Life: Rather unhappy

Married Life (2008) • View trailer for Married Life
Three stars (out of five). Rating: PG-13, and rather harshly, for disquieting plot elements
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 4.3.08
Buy DVD: Married Life • Buy Blu-Ray: Married Life (+ BD Live) [Blu-ray]

Married Life isn't tastelessly whimsical enough to be taken as a black comedy, but it's also too arch to be regarded as a serious psychological drama.

Blame director/co-writer Ira Sachs, who can't seem to make up his mind.

Having been introduced to Kay (Rachel McAdams), his very married best
friend's lover on the side, the swinish Richard (Pierce Brosnan) decides that he
wants this enchanting creature for himself. He thus begins taking her out on
the town; Kay's enjoyment of this new attention naturally calls her intentions
into question. Ultimately, though, these characters — and all the others in
this film — are too blasé for us to care one way or the other.

The problem also can be traced to Pierce Brosnan, whose raised-eyebrow performance and mordant off-camera narration belong in another film. (Let's face it: Nobody smirks like Brosnan.) Every appearance of his deviously roguish character hints at snarky behavior to come, but he's the only one operating in that realm.

Co-stars Chris Cooper, Patricia Clarkson and Rachel McAdams remain resolutely straight, and we wait in vain for some ingenious plot twists to erupt in the third act.

But they never come.

Indeed, enduring this increasingly dull and dour film to its bitter conclusion produces nothing but disappointment: We slogged through all that for this?

Sachs and co-writer Oren Moverman, adapting a little-known novel by John Bingham — whose major claim to fame, these days, was to have served as the real-life model for John Le Carre's George Smiley — apparently wish to establish a premise and then build a level of playful suspense that Alfred Hitchcock would have admired. They never quite succeed; these characters are too staid to generate any tension.

And despite ample directorial inferences, they're ultimately revealed to have no hidden depths whatsoever: They're merely what they seem ... which isn't all that interesting.

The setting is the late 1940s; the tale is told by Richard (Brosnan), whose off-stage observations are an immediate clue that he's relating the story after the fact. His tone is mildly irreverent; our curiosity is piqued.

Richard's best friend, Harry (Cooper), has been happily married to Pat (Clarkson) for years. They've built a home, a family and a life together. He's some sort of unspecified executive: successful if colorless. She's a housewife: perhaps too intelligent to be content sitting around a house all day, but she accepts her lot uncomplainingly.

The era and general atmosphere seem to have been lifted from a John Cheever story: Everybody dresses too well (even under casual circumstances) and smokes too much, and cocktails are de rigueur after a day at the office, or when friends come over for dinner. Production designer Hugo Luczyc-Wyhowski really nails the oppressively whitebread, Leave It to Beaver ambiance: that exaggeration of "normal" intended to conceal darker behavior.

The Band's Visit: Thoroughly charming

The Band's Visit (2007) • View trailer for The Band's Visit
Four stars (out of five). Rating: PG-13, and much too harshly, for fleeing profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 3.20.08
Buy DVD: The Band's Visit


Ultimately, the universal language of music may be our best chance at salvation.

How short-sighted, then, that when public school budgets hit a crisis — both nationally or locally — the first reflexive response involves cutting all funding for arts and music programs.

Tewfig (Sasson Gabai, far left) and the other seven members of the Alexandria
Ceremonial Police Orchestra find themselves in the middle of nowhere, when a
trip to Israel goes awry due to crossed travel signals. With no idea of what to
do next, and the uncomfortable certainty that language is apt to be rather a
formidable barrier, Tewfig can't imagine how to salvage his band's trip.

Those making such decisions should be strapped to chairs and forced to watch Israeli filmmaker Eran Kolirin's The Band's Visit, a charming little drama with a quiet approach but an oh-so-timely message.

Kolirin's simple little story feels as if it was suggested by actual events, but the filmmaker insists not. That merely adds to the movie's charm; the appearance of authenticity makes the narrative's moral point even stronger.

The setting is contemporary. The eight members of the Alexandria Ceremonial Police Orchestra, their pastel blue uniforms starched to crisp perfection, arrive in Israel in order to perform at the opening of an Arab cultural center. Unfortunately, signals have been crossed; the musicians find themselves at the airport with no sign of their Israeli hosts.

Demonstrating once again that real men never ask for help — no matter what part of the world we're talking about — the stoic and almost comically proud orchestra leader and conductor, Tewfiq (Sasson Gabai), refuses to contact the Egyptian consulate. Instead, he orders junior member Khaled (Saleh Bakri) to obtain travel directions from a nearby kiosk.

The young man and the station agent work their way through Arabic, Hebrew and even fractured English, and the results prove disastrous: The orchestra members soon find themselves stranded on the outskirts of a microscopic Israeli town at the edge of the desert.

By now, Kolirin has proven to be a master of the understated sight gag. Although the situation, at first blush, isn't remotely funny — imagine an octet of militarily garbed Arabs suddenly dumped into the middle of an Israeli community, no matter how small — the sight of these eight men, their pale blue uniforms such a stark contrast to the barren desert, can't help making us smile.

And with that emotional release, not to mention the wry tone that punctuates every conversation between these men, we immediately understand that this will be a story of inclusiveness, not tragedy.

Charlie Bartlett: The doctor is in

Charlie Bartlett (2007) • View trailer
3.5 stars (out of five). Rating: R, for profanity, drug content, teenage smoking and fleeting nudity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 2.22.08

Hang around long enough, and you'll spot this disclaimer at the very bottom of the final credits for Charlie Bartlett:

"No teenagers were harmed in the making of this motion picture."

Principal Gardner (Robert Downey Jr., center) gets curious after spotting a long
line of boys and girls waiting to visit the boys restroom, but before he can peer
inside, a thoroughly calm Charlie Bartlett (Anton Yelchin, left) emerges and
heads off in the other direction ... at which point the other students disappear
as well, leaving Gardner to wonder again precisely what the new kid in school
is up to.

That observation sums up the wonderfully arch tone of Gustin Nash's script, which fuels another mordant view of high school life, very much in the mold of Election and Juno.

Indeed, Nash and director Jon Poll quite cleverly reference one of the great anti-establishment movies of all time, by making prominent use of the Cat Stevens song "If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out," which served as an anthem for 1972's Harold and Maude. The song's appearance here conveys precisely the same sort of triumphant coda: a wistful reminder that success and survival often erupt in unexpected ways, and that some of the best happy endings involve simply surviving another day.

With integrity intact. That's the most important part.

Charlie Bartlett is as hilariously dark a view of high school dynamics as I've seen since Heathers. That film made a heroine out of a girl who essentially turned serial killer in order to establish a place in the social pecking order, whereas Charlie Bartlett (Anton Yelchin) gets ahead in his school by supplying prescription medication to an expanding base of "clients."

The film opens as Charlie is expelled from yet another private school, for making and selling impressively realistic IDs. Although outwardly every inch the blueprint of an educated, well-spoken preppy scholar, Charlie has been tossed from every institution within range of the palatial estate he shares with his somewhat scattered mother, Marilyn (Hope Davis).

That leaves only the local public high school: a bubbling stew of unrestrained hormones and individualists who naturally view the academy-dressed Charlie with giggling derision. Our hero eventually makes his way home with a black eye, courtesy of schoolyard thug Murphy (Tyler Hilton, who played the young Elvis Presley in Walk the Line).

Charlie's mother, incapable of considering any other alternative, sends her only child to the shrink they keep on retainer; that gentleman, not really motivated to "cure" this ongoing cash cow, suggests a regimen of Ritalin.

But Charlie's smarter than that. After wisely rejecting this prescription, having perceived that a five-day dose turns him into an over-stimulated madman, he transforms the hostile Murphy into a business partner; they sell the rest of the pills to an eager consumer base at the next high school dance, and marvel at the results.

Suddenly, Charlie has found a new business model ... and a path toward his own popularity.

Oscar Shorts 2007: Good things in small packages

Academy Award-Nominated Short Subjects (2007)
3.5 stars (out of five). Rating: Unrated, but the equivalent of PG-13 for chaste nudity and violence
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 2.15.08

We see tantalizing snatches of them — no more than a few seconds from each — during the annual Academy Awards ceremony.

Some look interesting; others look profoundly poignant. Some seem downright weird.

Peter and his pet duck stare longingly through a hole in their protective fence,
and out at the forest beyond, which looks like such a wonderful place to play.
But they'll soon learn that this glade has hidden dangers, in Peter and the Wolf.

I refer to the live action and animated short subjects, which for most of us are no more than a list of nominated titles and directors, followed by a gratefully enthusiastic acceptance speech that leaves us wishing for an opportunity to see these filmlets. Aside from an occasional flicker of recognition — Pixar has placed quite a few entries in the animated category, over the years — we're left to wonder about most of these shorts.

Well, wonder no longer.

Perhaps encouraged by the public's growing taste for feature-length documentaries, Magnolia Pictures has assembled the 10 Oscar-nominated live action and animated shorts — five of each — into a road-show package that will dock for one week at Sacramento's Crest Theater, starting today. And while my recommendations are cautiously qualified, you really shouldn't miss the chance to see this program at least once, if only to satisfy your own curiosity.

I say "qualified" because the menu is quite a mixed bag.

All five of the live-action entries are noteworthy: modestly amusing at the least (The Substitute) and impressively produced and acted at the best (The Tonto Woman). One of them, At Night, may well be the saddest short film you ever experience.

The animated entries are ... not so hot. Several represent the triumph of form over content; I can only assume that the individuals who selected the nominees valued animation style first, and storyline second. Not one entry has the brilliant blend of storytelling and rich animation that made prior Pixar entries such as One Man Band and For the Birds (the 2001 winner in this category) so entertaining.

Suzie Templeton and Hugh Welchman's revisionist take on Peter and the Wolf, a UK/ Polish co-production, is the most satisfying of the current bunch. The puppet-style animation is perfect for this adaptation of the familiar story, although you'll wonder for the first few scenes — which play to dead silence from the soundtrack — if you've stumbled into the wrong film.

But then Prokofiev's familiar anthems swell into life, and the saga of a boy, his duck, a bird, a cat and a hungry wolf unfolds as we remember it ... more or less. The charm of this adaptation, aside from the beautifully crafted puppets, comes from the ways in which Templeton and Welchman tweak the narrative. This is most definitely a post-modern Peter, and he comes of age with a live-and-let-live maturity far beyond his years.

At just over 32 minutes, it's also the longest animated piece, but the time passes without discomfort.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly: Taking Flight

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007) • View trailer
Four stars (out of five). Rating: PG-13, for nudity, sensuality and dramatic intensity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 2.1.08

The blurry, eye-blinking, where-am-I point of view scene has been a cinema cliché for decades, as countless directors have put us briefly into a protagonist's head while s/he struggles to consciousness.

Here's the moment we spend the entire film waiting to see: Claude (Anne
Consigny) holds the completed book that she and Jean-Dominique Bauby
(Mathieu Amalric) have spent painstaking months to "dictate" and transcribe.

The next image is equally inevitable: the gradually sharpening close-up of a smiling lover, a worried doctor or a smirking villain. Then standard movie technique resumes, and we're once again in the land of multiple cameras and standard establishing shots.

Not for director Julian Schnabel.

He opens his new film, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, with just such a sequence, as Jean-Dominique Bauby (Mathieu Amalric, perhaps remembered as the French information broker in Munich) battles for awareness after having been in a three-week coma. Cinematographer Janusz Kaminski — a two-time Academy Award winner, for Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan — metaphorically places his camera inside Bauby's skull; we therefore share the man's disorientation as doctors, nurses and orderlies swim in and out of focus.

But it doesn't stop: Schnabel maintains this harrowing point of view, trapping us within Bauby's head just as he was, in reality, fully cognizant while being entombed within his own body.

This is a true story, and far more faithful to actual fact than most films making that claim these days. Bauby was a 43-year-old author and editor of the leading French magazine, Elle, when he was felled by a massive stroke. All at once, his exciting lifestyle — devoted father to adoring children, loving son to his own aging father, new boyfriend to a sensuous young woman quite typical of his glamorous world — came to an abrupt halt.

Bauby hit one of Fate's cruelest jackpots: He recovered consciousness to learn that he was victimized by an extremely rare condition known as "locked-in syndrome." Almost completely paralyzed, he nonetheless quickly regained his sensibilities but had no way of caring for himself, and almost no way of communicating with the world outside his own thoughts.

He could flutter his left eyelid. That was it.

The Orphanage: Creepy child's play

The Orphanage (2007) • View trailer
3.5 stars (out of five). Rating: R, for disturbing images and unexpected violence
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 1.18.08


Nervously unsettled women, oddly sinister children and creepy old estates have been a bad mix ever since 1961's The Innocents, director Jack Clayton's richly atmospheric adaptation of Henry James' The Turn of the Screw.

Laura (Belén Rueda) decides that the only way to fully understand the ghostly
visitations plaguing her new manor home will involve returning the building to
the state it was in years earlier, when it served as an orphanage and she was one
of its young residents. to that end, she puts the dorm-style bedroom back
together and dons a uniform once worn by a staff member ... and waits.

More recently, we were reminded of this heady recipe's ability to raise goosebumps with Nicole Kidman's hypnotic "comeback" role in director Alejandro Amenabar's equally spooky 2001 chiller, The Others.

Enter producer Guillermo del Toro (director of Pan's Labyrinth), who has championed Spanish director J.A. Bayona's similarly suspenseful The Orphanage. Screenwriter Sergio G. Sánchez certainly knows his movie history, because his storyline pays homage to both above-mentioned predecessors, while also borrowing elements from more conventional haunted house entries such as The Haunting and Legend of Hell House.

The result belongs to the school of less-is-more suspense, with Bayona quite content to turn the screws and let our imaginations do the worst. He's after tension, not pointless gore effects, although The Orphanage has a few unexpected shockers that'll make unprepared viewers levitate from their seats.

The moody, malignant tone is established immediately, during a clever opening sequence that shows young hands ripping away wallpaper to reveal the title credits; it's a simple effect, but it feels violently invasive, as if we're sharing secrets that weren't intended to see the light of day.

Which is precisely the point of Sánchez's narrative. Pay close attention to the details, because nothing is wasted along the way.

The film begins with a flashback, as a 7-year-old girl named Laura is introduced as one of the most popular residents at an orphanage by the ocean. She's a happy child, well-regarded by the staff and cherished by the other orphans, all of whom she loves like brothers and sisters.

No surprise, then, that such a well-adjusted child would be adopted, leaving all her friends behind.

Three decades pass, at which point the story officially begins. Laura (Belén Rueda), now happily married to Carlos (Fernando Cayo), has returned to her childhood home. The manor was abandoned years ago; Laura and Carlos, a doctor, plan to reopen it as a center for sick and disabled children. Its setting, adjacent to the ocean and all that fresh salt air, also should be beneficial to their own child, 7-year-old Símon (Roger Príncep), who doesn't know that he's a) adopted, and b) HIV-positive.

There Will Be Blood: Too anemic

There Will Be Blood (2007) • View trailer
Three stars (out of five). Rating: R, for violence and dramatic intensity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 1.17.08


Some films can be admired, even when they're difficult to enjoy.

Some even resist admiration.

Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis, right) and his young son, H.W. (Dillon
Freasier), share an unsettling bond that has more to do with opportunism
than actual love: a dynamic that will fracture as a result of events soon to
take place in the dust-worn community of Little Boston.

There Will Be Blood has much going for it, starting with director/screenwriter Paul Thomas Anderson's all-encompassing sense of early 20th century California, and the hard-scrabble lives endured by the prospectors, entrepreneurs and just plain charlatans who helped create the nascent oil industry.

Production designer Jack Fisk and cinematographer Robert Elswit thoroughly immerse us in the dusty, grimy atmosphere that accompanies both the work and those who endure it; the sense of actually being part of the environment is as strong as in the Coen brothers' No Country for Old Men.

It's also a fascinating chunk of history too infrequently explored by the motion picture industry, which generally focuses on the preceding era — all those Westerns — or the 1920s onward. Rarely do we settle into this period when civilization clearly has been established, although social decorum and the rules of law, order and justice haven't quite caught up yet.

The film also is fueled by a dynamic and thoroughly compelling starring performance from Daniel Day-Lewis, who throws himself into this part, body and soul, with a vigor rarely seen. "Down and dirty" can't begin to describe his work here; his Daniel Plainview — a well-chosen name for a man who prides himself on plain speaking and clear vision — is so much larger than life, so much more vibrant than anybody else, that he seems to stride in blazing color through an otherwise sepia-hued cast of characters.

Unfortunately, There Will Be Blood also is grindingly dull, aggressively unpleasant and populated by amoral, opportunistic individuals with little if any redeeming value. Granted, this tale deliberately focuses on people seeking any available means to exploit each other, but the tapestry includes an entire small community; despite this, we're not given a single character to care about. The one possible exception — Plainview's son — remains a mostly mute phantom, used as little more than an appendage when Plainview wishes to convey his "family values."

And, because this is a Paul Thomas Anderson epic, things inevitably turn weird in the final act. He doesn't get as indulgently freakish as the rain of frogs that climaxed Magnolia, but he certainly concludes this story with a bit of giddily exploitative violence in a setting so intentionally bizarre that it feels like something borrowed from Sweeney Todd.

Even if you've floated along up to this point, buoyed by Day-Lewis' admittedly riveting acting, this final sequence can't help but leave a sour taste.