Tricked (orig. Steekspel) [2012]

MPAA (UR would be R)  Cinema.nl (2 1/2 Stars)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing
KinoZeit.de listing*

cinema.nl (R. de Gier) review*
Slant (N. McCarthy ) review

Tricked (orig. Steekspel) [2012] (directed and cowritten by Paul Verhoeven [IMDb], along with Kim van Kooten, Robert Alberdingk Thijm, story by Kim van Kooten along with the input of hundreds of Dutch contributors) is a fun "user generated" / "crowd-sourced" Dutch language (English subtitled) film that comes from the Netherlands that played recently at the 17th Annual European Union Film Festival held at the Gene Siskel Film Center here in Chicago.

The concept was this:  After announcing the project on Dutch TV, Paul Verhoeven, et al, placed the script, written by Kim van Kooten for first four minutes of what he promised would be a "user generated" / "crowd-sourced" film on a Dutch website called EntertainmentExperience.nl and ASKED VIEWERS to submit script suggestions for the next four minutes.  These script suggestions would be processed and harmonized to produce the script for the next four minute installment, which would be then filmed and played on Dutch TV / placed on the website again, with VIEWERS asked to submit script suggestions for the next four minutes.  A total of 8 iterations of this process would be performed.

According to the 30 minute documentary segment about the making of the film that preceded the 55 minute final product, Paul Verhoeven, et al, noted that they averaged over 700+ full 5 page script suggestions for each installment plus multitudes of additional comments / suggestions, concurrent video enactments (by other troupes) of the script thus far.  And turn-around between segments was kept to about one month.

The somewhat eyes-rolling review by Nick McCarthy of Slant Magazine noted that Paul Verhoeven, et al simply "reinvented" the creative process that already effectively (if not explicitly) goes into making of any number of contemporary television series.  Nevertheless the project received in 2013 an International Emmy Award (for digital non-fiction) presumably for its originality.

Conceding that the concept was kinda gimmicky, I nevertheless FOUND IT FUN.

Okay, so what was the setup to the story?

The film begins at the home of Remco (played by Peter Blok) the head of some Dutch architectural firm on his 50th birthday.  We're introduced to his 40-something somewhat suspicious/somewhat resentful but 'script playing' corporate wife Ineke (played by Ricky Koole), their two college aged / young adult children Leike (played by Carolien Spoor) who's kind of a lush (she's introduced to us sitting at the breakfast table kinda hung-over) and camera toting Tobias (played by Robert de Hoog) who's later imagined to be something of a perv.

Remco goes to work where we're introduced to two of his junior partners Wim (played by Jochum ten Haaf) and Fred (played by Peter Tiddens).  We hear about a project that their firm is involved-in in Dubai.  As Remco leaves the office later that afternoon he salutes the two "see you at the party."

Remco's birthday party takes place at his house.  It's what one would expect a Party like this to be.  It's part for "family and friends" and part "for show"/"business" and as would be typical of a party like this, it's not necessarily easy to separate the two groups.  So Remco's family is there but so are his business associates.  However, two guests prove somewhat surprising:

First, Leike's BFF Merel (played by Gaite Jansen) shows up.  Leike, already holding a bottle of ... whatever (white wine or champagne) ... opens the door: "Merel?" "I'm here for the party!" Leike (eyes rolling), "But it's for my dad...," Merel (bouncy and smiling), "It's a party!"

Second, a former junior associate, mid-late 20 something Nadya (played  by Sallie Harmsen), that no one has seen for the last 6 months but everybody (including somewhat suspicious, at times resentful but knows the game 'corporate wife' Ineke) had assumed that Remco had been previously <...>, shows-up and looking 8 months pregnant.

Okay, where to we go?  The rest of the movie follows ... ;-)

Given that a project like this would attract the young ... it should not be surprising that a fair portion of the user-generated plot that follows is kinda seamy.  Yup, Leike's a lush, her best friend Merel is kinda a (somewhat gold-digging?) slut, camera toting Tobias' kinda a perv and dad Remco needs to keep his zipper-up.

BUT ... PRODUCTION CONSTRAINTS -- each of the segments out of which the film is assembled is ONLY 4 MINUTES LONG -- actually require that these personal peccadillos be more signaled than dwelt upon.  The result is a rather efficient / fast moving and often very funny film.

Yes, this film is not Gone with the Wind [1939] or Citizen Kane [1941] but it isn't Beevis and Butthead [1993] or even one or another "reality shows" (e.g. Survivor [2000]) either.  Instead there is user-generated plot and humor in the film that I don't think would come simply from "a talented group of 5-6 writers" ANY "5-6 writers."

So while the film was not exactly "high browed," perhaps most resembling a "user generated" Dutch Gossip Girl [2007-2012], credit needs to be given where credit is due: This was certainly a fun project that actually produced a pretty good / funny young adult-oriented (R-rated) film.


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The Single Moms Club [2014]

MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB (A-III)  ChicagoTribune (3 Stars)  RE.com (2 Stars)  AVClub (D+)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing

CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
TheSource (K. Lee) review
ChicagoTribune (R. Bentley) review
RE.com (S. O'Malley) review
AVClub (I. Vishnevetsky) review

BET coverage
Ebony coverage
Essence coverage
TheSource coverage

I want to give writer/director/actor Tyler Perry a hug.  Since beginning my blog, I have not only enjoyed but found positive value (often overwhelming positive value) in every film of his that I've reviewed here.   The current film, The Single Moms Club [2014] (written and directed by Tyler Perry) is IMHO signature Perry material.

Yes, the film is somewhat formulaic -- five single mothers from very diverse backgrounds are brought together to work on a project for their kids' school -- but if it is so, that's more a reflection of the distance that we still have to go as a society in coming to respect one another regardless of our background, than the fault of the writer/director's here.  Perry is showing us what would be possible, if we would _let go_ of a social pecking order that requires us to look down on others for reasons of race, class, luck ... so that we could "feel better" about ourselves.  And Perry ALSO shows us HOW DESPERATE AND LONELY WE ARE when we _choose_ to live our lives on such a slope, with people below us (and people above us...) with us trying "to keep our balance" or even "with our fingers clawing into the slope" in dire fear that we might be slipping down.

Indeed, at least 4 out of 5 women in this story appear terrified at the beginning of the story of _falling_ to a lower social class.

The film with Hillary (played by Amy Smart) a bewildered lawyer's ex, not yet realizing that her vindictive former husband is going to make her (and their daughter ...) pay for her having the audacity to challenge him (on what? we're really never told).  A year before she was "a lawyer's wife" living with a big house and with a maid ... Now she's going to be an lawyer's ex-wife living as small an alimony check as the law would allow.

Her long time (since at least college days)  friend Jan (played by Wendi McLendon) has long seen men as the enemy.  So she has purposefully sought to structure her life to be as "man free" as possible, to the point that she had a child (a girl ...) through artificial insemination some twelve years ago.  But it's not a man free world, and without a husband or at least a father of her child, she ironically finds herself at even a bigger disadvantage career-wise (in which she's really put all her aspirations) than if she had at least a lout of an ex.  At the beginning of the film, after 17 years at a publishing firm, she's FINALLY "up for partner" BUT her 12 year old (approaching her teenage years...) "has decided" to start acting-up ... IF THERE WAS A SECOND PARENT TO SHARE THIS "RITE OF PASSAGE" / BURDEN WITH, IT'D BE EASIER ... BUT THERE ISN'T ONE ...

Jan's desire to be "a success" DESPITE MEN, causes her to be brutally harsh to writers coming to the publishing firm in hopes of getting their manuscripts published, writers like African American single mom May (played by Nia Long) who works for "a local community paper" but like so many other such writers, despite responsibilities at work and at home (her ex, we find later, has a drug problem and together with him they have a 12 year-old boy) she dreams of perhaps "one day getting a book published."  But May's dream continues to depend today, at least in part, _on the mood_ of publishing AGENTS like Jan.  And interestingly IT'S THE AGENTS LIKE JAN (male or female) who in a "dog eat dog (publishing) world" CAN'T FAIL.  Jan _looks at May_ (and perhaps at her work...) and decides "this is too much of a risk (for ME)."

So Jan sends May off from her office packing, and BOTH have "appointments at school" (with regard to something that their kids have done) ... and to BOTH'S surprise ... THEY HAVE APPOINTMENTS AT THE SAME SCHOOL, AT THE SAME TIME (along with the other three (single) moms) over "bad behavior" that their kids have become involved with ... Two of the kids were caught "tagging" (spray painting with graffiti) a wall outside of school while three others were caught smoking.

The Principal tells the five assembled mothers: "Our policy is when the kids get in trouble, we try to get the parents involved.  There's a school dance coming up in 6 weeks ... Guess who we've decided is going to be the Committee to set-up the dance?"

"But we don't know each other?"  "Good.  You'll get to know each other now."

And thus we have the set-up of what becomes "The Single Moms Club" of the movie.

Now who are the other two moms?

Well there's Esperanza (played by Zulay Henau) whose husband, a upper-scale car salesman, left her "for a younger model."  To be sure, Esperanza, has found a new boyfriend too, BUT he's bartender in a restaurant (owned by his parents) a decent enough place (kind of "chain Mexican restaurant") but IT WOULD BE A STEP-DOWN economically from being _at least_ the ex-wife of a BMW salesman.

Finally, there's Lytia (played by Cocoa Brown) who has five kids.  The oldest two (as well as their father) are in jail.  The youngest two are in day-care and the middle one, 12-year-old Hakim (played by DeVion Harris) is in the (private) school with the others and Lytia is working as a waitress so that with whatever scholarships she can get for her son, her son can stay in that school.  And yes, there are neighbors who laugh at her, including the one who Lytia pays day-care to to take care of her two daughters: "You make less as a waitress than you could make being on welfare.  Why the heck do you do it?  Do you think you're better than us?"  (No ... she's doing this because she doesn't want her youngest son to end up in jail like his father and two older brothers ...)

So there, those are the five single moms of the story.  Yes, they are "from different backgrounds."  But thanks to being forced to work together by that Principal, as they start talking they realize that they have a lot in common.  Above all, THEY'RE ALL TERRIFIED ... THEY ALL FEEL that they are NOT "in control" of their lives.  And until they come together, they honestly don't know what would happen to them IF ... (fill in the blank...).

And interestingly enough, it's not like they hate men (not even Jan completely hates them ...).  BUT THEY ARE SCARED ... And part of the rest of the film is about getting them "less scared."

What helps them to become "less scared" is the _community_ that begins to form among them, and then A POSITIVE (WORTHWHILE) MAN coming among them.  Tyler Perry writes himself that role.  And it's not that his T.K. is rich (he's not).  But he has an honest job (he has "a lighting business" for stage productions) and he's _willing to wait_ for his interest (May) to "come to feel safe" around him.

Honestly, my hat off to the guy.  There would be / is some criticism (see above) that these women would "need men" at all.  But we _share_ this planet with each other.  So unless there is good reason to keep distance from someone (and not really knowing a person is a good reason ... for a while) the default position ought to be to _eventually_ let THE OTHER "in" (again, within reason / appropriately).

And this is because THE ALTERNATIVE would be to REMAIN FOREVER AFRAID and ALONE.  And honestly, I think Tyler Perry's often fundamentally religious message would be: God did not make us that way.


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The Fourth Partition / Czwarta Dzielnica [2013]

MPAA (UR would be PG)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing

The Fourth Partition / Czwarta Dzielnica [2013] (directed and cowritten by Adrian Prawica along with Rafał Muskała) is a locally made documentary that played to packed audiences at the recent 25th Annual Polish Film Festival in America held here in Chicago where it won a Discovering Eye Award for Emerging Artists.

The documentary is about the Polish American community in the United States, and above all, in Chicago at the turn of the 20th Century and then its contribution to the creation of the modern state of Poland.  Recently, we had the honor and pleasure of hosting the "South Side Premier" of the film here at Annunciata Parish on Chicago's South East Side to an audience of about 200 people.  Most of them were parishioners, the vast majority were from or descended from the Polish American community of Chicago's South Chicago Neighborhood (bordering the Steel Works nearby) that figured so prominently in the film.

The film makes the point that by the early part of the 20th Century, there were four million Polish immigrants living in the United States, a good portion of them settling in Chicago (which even today is home to more people of Polish descent than the Polish capital city of Warsaw).  These Polish immigrants settled in three key neighborhoods in Chicago: the "Polish Downtown" of Chicago's near North-Side anchored by the two churches St. Stanislaus Kostka (to this day the "Mother Church" of the Polish Community in Chicago) and Holy Trinity, and then The Back of the (Stock) Yards neighborhood on Chicago's South-West Side and tthe South Chicago neighborhood by the Steel mills of Chicago's Far South-East Side.  Both the The Back of the Yards and South Chicago neighborhoods had their key Polish Churches as well, in South Chicago they would have been St. Michael's, Immaculate Conception (both pictured in the film) as well as St. Bronislawa (which was not).

One of the outstanding features of this film was that its makers truly went to the right people to discuss each of these three neighborhoods.  In each case, they leaned-on historians who besides being of Polish American ancestry actually grew-up in the neighborhoods that they were asked to discuss: Victoria Granacki with regard to the old Polish Downtown, Dominic Pacyga of Columbia College with regard to The Back of the Yards and Rod Sellers of the S.E. Side Historical Society in regards to South Chicago.  Each explained what it was like to live in these neighborhoods in their heyday, Victoria Granacki talked about the rivalry that existed between the two anchor "Polish" churches of her neighborhood -- St. Stanislaus Kostka being the more religiously oriented parish, Holy Trinity being more nationalistic.  Dominic Pacyga talked about the smell associated with living quite literally "down wind" from the largest stockyards / meat processing facilities in the country at the time, Rod Sellers of flames and soot that hung-over South Chicago when the Steel mills were still rolling.  They talked of the taverns (and of the funeral parlors) that fought to place themselves as close as possible to the Steel Mills' / Stockyards' gates.  And they all talked of the generosity of those Polish immigrants both with regards to building those enormous Catholic Churches in their neighborhoods, and then supporting both with money and finally even with blood the independence aspirations of their countrymen that they left back home in Poland.  There were Polish American units in the U.S. Army during World War I that later transferred over to Poland after it gained independence (and had to defend that independence) in the years after that war.

The film-makers ultimate argument, encapsulated already in the title of the film, was that with so many Polish immigrants living in the United States at the time of Polish independence (already 4 million) this community could be called  Poland's "Fourth Partition," Poland having been (in)famously carved-up (partitioned) by Prussia, Russia and Austria over the course of the previous two hundred years.

The larger, more implicit point made by the film would be that EVEN TODAY IT SHOULD BE DIFFICULT to talk of Poland, especially in a cultural context (and perhaps even in a political context), without taking into account THE HUGE EXPATRIATE COMMUNITY and THE DESCENDANTS OF THOSE FIRST IMMIGRANTS / EXPATRIATES (as many as 22 million) living outside of its borders, AND THAT A SIMILAR POINT COULD BE MADE WITH REGARDS TO ALL KINDS OF OTHER EXPATRIATE/IMMIGRANT COMMUNITIES AS WELL.  To my smiling Czech-descended ears, the Czech and Slovak communities of Chicago are explicitly mentioned in particular in the film.  However, the same argument could be made with regards to the Lithuanian community in the United States, THE IRISH, and even the Mexican, Puerto Rican, Filipino and Vietnamese communities with large presences in the States.  In recent weeks THE UKRAINIAN COMMUNITY in the United States, and again especially in Chicago, has been in the news... in regards to all the news that's been recently coming out of their home country).  On the flip side, truth be told, there's a large U.S. expatriate population now living all around the globe.  It all makes for an interesting argument in a world that is becoming more globalized by the year.

Needless to say, the film was very well received even immediately beloved here at my Parish.  There are technical issues that could be improved.  Some of the captions are of a font that was hard to read.  The names of the some of the historians interviewed in the film are only given at the end the film, rather than given when they first appear. 

But these are relatively small matters when compared to the larger triumph of this work.  We had the entire Polish American portion of our parish here ENORMOUSLY GRATEFUL that two local film makers proved interested in beginning to tell their story.  And many had suggestions for future projects:  What about the Polish American Community in Chicago during World War II and during the Solidarność Era?   What about simply life at the Steel Mills here?  I added that with all house blessings that we've done here over the years, that perhaps a good horror film of sorts could made out of those stories.  In good part I'm kidding of course, but there are certainly some very good stories here from among the parishioners of all ethnicities of our parish.

Since beginning this blog, I've always been a fan of "smaller works" and a booster of all things local.  The annual Polish Film Festival in America held here in Chicago is jewel here (as are the European Union Film Festival and the Black Harvest Festival organized annually by the Gene Siskel Center and Chicago's Latino Film Festival which is again one of the largest of its kind in the United States and organized annually by the Int'l Latino Cultural Center here).  None of this is an accident.  Centrally located on our continent, Chicago has been a cross-roads and a destination for immigrants, be they from Europe or from the South (Mexico or even Mississippi / Louisiana), for those looking for a better life.   So good job folks, good job.  I wish you well and certainly a film about Chicago's Polish Community during World War II and the Solidarity Era would be worth the view.


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Clownwise (orig. Klauni) [2013]

MPAA (NR would be R)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
CSFD listing*
FDB.cz listing*

Clownwise (orig. Klauni) [2013] [IMDb] [CSFD]*[FDB]* (directed by Viktor Tauš [IMDb] [CSFD]*[FDB]*, screenplay by Petr Jarchovský [IMDb] [CSFD]*, story by Boris Hybner [IMDb] [FDB]*) is a bittersweet comedy coming from the Czech Republic (with collaboration of Finland, Slovakia and Luxemburg) that played recently at the 17th Annual European Union Film Festival held at Chicago's Gene Siskel Film Center.

The film's about a trio of  clown-actors -- Max (played by Oldřich Kaiser [IMDb] [CSFD]*[FDB]*), Viktor (played by Jiří Lábus [IMDb] [CSFD]*[FDB]*) and Edgar (played by Dedier Flamand [IMDb] [CSFD]*[FDB]*)  -- who "back in the day" (25 years ago) had a very successful act going by the name Busters before, for various reasons, parting ways.  In 1985, four years before the fall of the fall of Communism in Central Europe, Edgar had ditched the group as it was touring in Western Europe, settling down eventually in Paris, eventually finding himself a new, larger troupe Les Orphelins, and ... a new wife, Fabienne (played by Julie Ferrier [IMDb] [CSFD]*[FDB]*). The other two on returning back to Prague eventually parted ways as well. Viktor shacked-up with another clown-performer named Sylvie (played by Kati Outinen [IMDb] [CSFD]*[FDB]*) who had clearly become the love of his life and the two came to teach together at a performing arts school in Prague.  Max continued quite successfully with a solo career, eventually getting married as well to Marketa (played by Eva Jeníčková [IMDb] [CSFD]*[FDB]*) some 20-25 years younger than he.  Together they've since had two small children, say 8-12 years old.  

Things would have continued in this way, with each of the three going on with their separate lives if not, after 25 years, Edgar and his wife Fabienne didn't decide to take their pantomime group to Prague.  And it made good business sense to plug that Edgar had been, "back in the day," perhaps "back in the cold days of Totalitarianism" a member of that successful trio called "Busters" which gave the people something to smile about.  'Cept ... of course there are a lot of loose ends.

For one it's been 25 years, and there TOTALLY DIFFERENT press now in Prague no longer concerned about toeing "Party lines" but, above all, "looking for dirt."  So after arriving in Prague with his troupe of French clown-performers, Edgar finds himself, all miked-up, in a very glitzy studio about to be interviewed for some "Entertainment Tonight" radio or television show ... by a 25 maybe 30 year-old "young whipper-snapper" of a reporter, who BEGINS his interview with Edgar with the question: "Well, when you left back in 1985, rather 'late in the game' in that (Totalitarian) Era, don't you think?"
          Edgar would no doubt like to reduce this pip-squeak to ashes: "IF YOU WEREN'T IN YOUR DIAPERS STILL IN 1985, YOU'D KNOW THAT THE 1980s right up to very days before those demonstrations in Wenceslas Square that brought about the Velvet Revolution in (November) 1989 were NOT exactly 'good years' in Communist Czechoslovakia."  INSTEAD, he responds, "Well you know it was complicated, there wasn't a lot of freedom, you never knew when you'd be allowed to travel outside the country again, etc ..."
          But the reporter persists: "Okay, but you were at the top of your career, okay perhaps plateaued, perhaps already in something of a decline.  But in the West, in FRANCE you were a NOBODY.  To be starting over at 45.  That must have been very difficult."
          "Well you know, that's a thing about us mimes, we speak each other's language." Good job Edgar, a zinger right back ... ;-).  "You can see it turned out okay."
          "Well, turning to your former colleagues from Busters.  Have you been in contact with them? Will we perhaps be seeing a re-uinon of you three on stage during one or another of Les Orphalins performances here in Prague?"
          "No, as a matter of fact, I haven't been in contact with my former colleagues here, but I imagine that they do keep-up with the news and know that I'm here now.  I do hope to see them during our tour here."
           "One final question, when you left in 1985, you left a wife and daughter here.  How's it been with them?  Do you plan to see them while you're out here?"
           "Okay, I'm done ..." Edgar slams his clip-on mike on the table and leaves the interview.

I told you that there were A LOT OF LOOSE ENDS...

Yes, Edgar has a former wife Anna (played by Taťjana Medvecká [IMDb] [CSFD]*[FDB]*) and a 30 year-old daughter Natalie (played by Ivana Uhlířová [IMDb] [CSFD]*[FDB]*) who hate him.  Natalie also has an 8 year old girl (Edgar's grand-daughter) who he's barely seen.  On the other side, he has his lovely and loving French wife Fabienne who he married since leaving Czechoslovakia, who honestly seemed to be good for him, seemed to understand him, and was all-but-born-to-play "a sad clown."

Then with regards to Edgar's former colleagues, their "parting" in 1985 was not good.  Indeed, given the nature of it, even if others might have sensed that Edgar was going to STAY (defect) in Western Europe at the end of their tour in 1985 (and perhaps even talked about it), when it actually came to pass it probably was improvised with the others standing in front of the hotel or at the train station asking each other: "Where's Edgar?" and later on their way home "What now?"

But both of Edgar's former colleagues are now also 25 years older, and other things are going on in their lives as well:

Max who married a woman 25 years younger than him, and now at, approaching 70 with two kids 8 and 12 years old, finds that he's come down with colon cancer requiring chemotherapy and eventually a colostomy ... Yes, he has a 45 year old wife, still managed to have two lovely kids, but now medically he may "no longer be able to get it up" and he's facing the reality that he's going to have to go around wearing a colostomy bag for the rest of his life.

Then Victor, who shacked-up with (and possibly married ...) the clear love of his life, Silvie, and the two have been _happily_ teaching together for the better part of two decades in some performing art school in Prague is finding himself having to face the reality that Silvie, the love of his life, is no longer who she was before.  What's happened to Silvie?  To tell you would be an unfair SPOILER but ... it will break your heart as it is Victor's...

So these are three aging "Clowns" facing some really difficult times in the twilight, sunset years of their lives.  What to do?  If you can, see the movie.

I am of Czech descent, so I am biased ... but what a film!

ADDENDUM:

There is _one_ scene in the film that seemed "out of place," unnecessary, perhaps even a little offensive.   On the other hand, knowing something of Czech films, it may have been put purposefully there to provoke (discussion).

In the scene the two young children of Max (the one who's approaching 70 and has been diagnosed of having colon cancer) find themselves in a Church and they walk around.  The little girl says: "Wow look at this guy all shot up by arrows."
            Her brother answers: "He's Saint Sebastian, that's how he died, shot up by arrows."
            "But by whom?  A bunch of Indians?"
            "I'm not sure, maybe."
            "Hey, since we're here, shouldn't we say a prayer for our dad?"
            "Why?  Look at how all these Saints ended up..."

Kids it's precisely because we all eventually have to die that it's a nice thing to pray to God about our needs.  Because our destiny is NOT here on this earth.  We will all eventually leave it.  Our destiny is actually with God, our Creator, who made us in the first place.  We're here only to learn ... and mostly perhaps to just learn this: to love God and then hopefully each other.


* Foreign language webpages are most easily translated using Google's Chrome Browser.  

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The Grand Budapest Hotel [2014]

MPAA (PG-13)  ChicagoTribune (3 1/2 Stars)  RE.com (4 Stars)  AVClub (B+)  Fr. Dennis (1 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RE.com (G. Kenny) review
AVClub (A.A. Dowd) review

The single biggest problem with The Grand Budapest Hotel [2014] (directed and cowritten by Wes Anderson along with screenplay by Hugo Guinness, inspired by the writings of Stefan Zweig [IMDb]) for someone like me (of Czech extraction, hence from exactly the part of the world where this film was to have taken place) IS THE FILM'S TIMELINE:

And while I suppose I should thank Wes Anderson, et al that they didn't go "the full Borat [2006]" route, the very setup of the film betrays an obvious and continued (and I do suspect at least partly willful) Western "disinterest" in that (my family's ...) part of the world.  And it actually would not have taken much to get it right ...

So what the heck am I complaining about?

Well as the title suggests, the films about the former "going-ons" in the inter-war years (1918-1939) at the "Grand Budapest Hotel" (Budapest being the capital of Central Europe's Hungary) set somewhere in the "Sudeten Alps" (the Sudeten Mountains making the border of the Czechlands/Bohemia with Austria and Germany, the Alps crossing over much of Austria and sloping down into Slovenia) in a fictitious "Republic of Zubrowka" (a Polish sounding name) with a nascent Fascist leaning government (again could be Poland, Hungary, Romania, perhaps Croatia) and whose soldiers/police officers were still wearing basically pre-WW-I Hapsburg-era Austria-Hungarian uniforms.  UP UNTIL THIS POINT, I HAVE TO SAY THE SETUP IS BRILLIANT.  If one's going to invent a country FROM THAT BETWEEN WARS ERA IN THAT PART OF THE WORLD, THIS IS HOW ONE WOULD DO IT.

What I object to is what follows.  The story is being told to an English traveler/writer (played by Jude Law) who visits the since declined hotel in 1968 (!) and again in 1985 (!) by the (by 1985...) aging PROPRIETOR of the hotel, Zero Moustava (played as an old man by F. Murray Abraham) who (mild SPOILER ALERT) in the hotel's 1930s "heyday" had been one of the hotel's lowest ranking staff members, the concierge M. Gustave's (played BRILLIANTLY by Ralph Fiennes) "lobby boy" (played by Toni Revolori).

My question is: WHERE in Eastern/Central Europe could this Hotel have been when in 1968 or 1985 Zero Moustava would have still been able TO OWN IT?   The ONLY conceivable place where Moustava could have continued TO OWN that hotel would have been in Austria (It's the ONLY of the above mentioned countries that WASN'T COMMUNIST at the time) and then it's almost certain that the Hotel WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN CALLED THEN "GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL" ...

Now there would have been SIMPLE WORK-AROUNDS to resolve this rather KEY HISTORICAL PROBLEM:

(1) The English writer could have met the older Zero Moustava IN EXILE, perhaps as a proprietor of a small hotel on Italy's Adriatic coast, or perhaps an owner a nice central European restaurant be it in a "Grand City" like London, Paris or New York, or more likely in a smaller more ethnic one like in New Jersey, Ohio or yes EVEN IN CHICAGO (lots of Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Hungarians, Serbs, Croatians, Slovenians, even ... Ukrainians here ...)

or (2) The English writer COULD HAVE ENCOUNTERED the older Zero Moustava STILL WORKING AT THE DECLINED "Grand Hotel Budapest" run in 1968 / 1985 by some State controlled "workers' collective" AS PLACES LIKE THIS WERE ACTUALLY RUN (and MANY would say RUN BADLY, RUN INTO THE GROUND...) DURING THE COMMUNIST ERA IN ALL THE ABOVE MENTIONED COUNTRIES.

In both cases, the 30s-era story still would have worked, but the rest of the film would have been MUCH MORE HISTORICALLY ACCURATE.

There are actually at least two films that use that second option to tell their stories.  The first is Bernardo Bertulucci's The Last Emperor [1987], about the last emperor of China who was born to be emperor but (in the film) ended up living-out the closing years of his life (during the Communist Era) as part of the grounds-keeping staff of Beijing's "Forbidden Palace" where he had once lived.  The second is a Czech dramedy entitled I Served the King of England [2006] that both made its rounds in the West a number of years ago and traverses much of the same ground as Wes Anderson's current film, but remembers that all these "grand places" were confiscated by the Communists when they took power in these countries.

And I make this criticism as an otherwise fan of this film and of Wes Anderson's other works like The Royal Tannenbaums [2001] and Moonrise Kingdom [2012] all dead-pan comedies with great ensemble casts.

So after this rather extended criticism on what to many Americans/Westerners would certainly seem "a rather small matter" (but to us, who're originally from there ...) what then is this film about?

It's about "a lost era" -- between the wars Central Europe -- and about this grand concierge M. Gustave (played again EXQUISITELY by Ralph Fiennes) who in the aging Zero Moustava's (played again by F. Murray Abraham) estimation helped make that era "Great" and worthy of being lamented now that it is gone.

So what make M. Gustave, grand concierge at the Grand Budapest Hotel so great?  Well by the time he arrived at the level of being the grand concierge for the hotel, he had been perfectly groomed for the job.  He knew the hotel, he knew the clients, he (as he explains to new his "lobby boy" in training ... Zero Mustava as very young man) anticipated his clients' wishes EVEN BEFORE THEY WERE ABLE TO ARTICULATE THEM.  Hence the Grand Budapest Hotel, though nestled in the mountains, ran like the smoothest of ships where EVERYTHING RAN PERFECTLY and absolutely EVERYONE from the richest, most pedigreed of clients _to the lowest of the staff_ was happy and indeed PROUD to be there. 

Well, to make so many people, especially the clients so happy, M. Gustave had to schmooze the ladies, especially the older ladies, which it turns out, he did quite gladly, and from which the rest of the story unspools:

One of the rich old ladies, a certain Madame D. (played by a remarkably "age-ified" Tilda Swinton) who he had been schmoozing and, it turns out, sleeping with -- "But she was 84!" exclaims the young, neophyte "lobby boy" Zero.  "Oh, I've had older," responds the nonchalant, this is the way the world works M. Gustave -- dies and leaves him an odd but surprisingly valuable painting ("Boy with Apple") in her Will.

Well, Mde D.'s oldest son and principal heir Dimitri (played by Adrien Brody) is not amused and the rest of the story involving still 30s-era police inspectors (one played here by Jeff Goldbloom), private eyes (one played here by William DeFoe), other grand concierges from other Grand Hotels (one played here by Bill Murray) plays out.  There's even a young "humble but pure" love interest for the young "lobby boy" Zero named Agatha (played by Saouirse Ronan).  With this set of characters and others, both large and small, much indeed can / does happen.

It all makes for a grand and worthy-to-tell tale.  I just wish that they got that little (if IMHO significant to KEY) above mentioned point of history right.  Otherwise, we really _can't_ understand _why_ places like these did "decline."


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Stranger by the Lake (orig. L'inconnu du Lac) [2013]

MPAA (UR would be NC-17)  ChicagoTribune (3 Stars)  RE.com (4 Stars)  AVClub (B)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing
AC.fr listing*

ChicagoTribune (B. Sharkey) review
RE.com (M. Oleszczyk ) review
AVClub (B. Kenigsberg) review

There will be plenty of people who will not be able to get past the (male) nudity and (gay) sex in this nominally unrated but NC-17 deserving French language, English subtitled film Stranger by the Lake (orig. L'inconnu du Lac) [2013] [IMDb] [AC.fr]* (written and directed by Alain Guiraudie [IMDb] [AC.fr]*) that (IMHO, if one can take a few steps back, deservingly) made a splash last year at the Cannes Film Festival and is currently making its rounds in the "art theater circuit" in the United States.  (I saw it recently at Chicago's Music Box Theater).

So why write about it here?  Well, first the film is nominally unrated and it actually would behoove parents to know that the film would definitely deserve an R and probably an NC-17 rating. Second, what if you did have a son, cousin, nephew, brother, coworker, etc ... who was gay?  You could probably do much worse than this film to get a much better sense of what their worlds were like.  And this is because, third, if one can get past all that male nudity and less but definitely present gay sex it's actually a rather good film.  And though there will be folks that will chuckle here, honestly, there is _nothing_ that forbids you from closing your eyes if a particular scene (and not just in this movie, but ANY movie) is too much for you.  And I will flatly admit that I did just close my eyes through the main 2-3-4 minute (gay) love scene in the film.  And in years past, I've closed my eyes in the closing years of my roller-coaster days, when even though I was in my 40s, as the youngest priest around I was still the one responsible for going with the youth group to the "Great America" Amusement Park here in Chicago.  One can get through a lot of things, if one occasionally just closes one's eyes.

Okay, but why do that now (close one's eyes)?  Why do that at a film?  If it's that problematic, why go see it at all?  Well it's hard to be in pastoral ministry (and honestly to be alive at all) and not know gay people.  Yes, the percentages are low, but I honestly don't believe that one could live in the United States or even across the world anymore without knowing at least one or two gay people, maybe not presently, maybe in the past.  But to know NO ONE who was gay?  And then if one has known, worked with, went to school with, been at family reunions with someone who was gay ... wouldn't one (certainly as an adult) want to know a little bit about how they lived?  And then isn't it better to have the story told by someone "in that community" rather than "outside of it"? 

Readers my blog will know that I make it a point of seeing foreign films.  They will also know that I make it a point of seeing films from (our American perspective) "problematic" countries like Iran (they have a _great cinema_ actually) and Russia (less so, because it seems that it _seems_ "less free" than Iran's) or from a lot of countries that a lot of (Americans) would not much think of like Bulgaria or Denmark or LUXEMBURG.  Last year at the Chicago's Gene Siskel Film Center's "16th Annual Film Festival" I saw two _great_ romantic comedies one each from Bulgaria and Denmark and a very good crime thriller from LUXEMBURG (honestly before going, I never would have guessed).  And over the years, I've seen a great horror movie from the Dominican Republic and a Chilean/Bolivian sci-fi movie and another one from Argentina that honestly made me think about my previous (North) American presuppositions.

The recently deceased Roger Ebert who I grew-up watching spar with the above mentioned Gene Siskel (both now legendary movie critics) once called the movies an "empathy machine" that allows one to enter if for a few hours into the world of another person from another country, race or time and to see the world, if for that brief period of time, from his/her perspective.  That's one of the main reasons why I created this blog, to allow people to experience even for a short time what its like to be someone else from another place, another time, and thus to perhaps better appreciate that we're actually far more similar than we have previously thought we are and yet ... can learn from one another.

I am, after all, A CATHOLIC (member of a Church that does see itself as Universal and that ALL OF US are ultimately brothers and sisters to each other and children of the same God).  So I do see films as giving viewers the opportunity to discover a bit about "brothers and sisters" far away.

To the film ...

The entire film takes place over the course of about 10 sunny days in the summer by a rather isolated beach along a rather beautiful if, again, rather isolated lake somewhere in (I'm guessing) the southern part of France.  The beach is rather isolated because to get there one has to take a dirt road and even when one arrives, the parking lot is rather improvised.  Finally, one has to still walk a little ways through the woods to get to said beach.

So the beach is kinda "in the middle of nowhere" (at the edge of the world/civilization/etc) but once one gets there, it's (1) quite nice, (2) isolated from other beaches.  There's apparently another beach somewhere on the other side of the lake that's more accessible than this one and also frequented by more conventional types -- families, tourists, etc, but it's so far away that the clientele on either beach don't bother those of the other.  And yet (3) it's frequented.  There's never a huge crowd at this "out of the way" GAY beach.  But every day there are about 10-15 cars there parked in that improvised dirt parking lot.

So what do people do at this "out of the way, gay beach?"  Well, a lot of them tan, taking in the sun, in the nude, of course, taking an occasional swim out into the lake some ways, perhaps in part to cool off, in part perhaps to try to impress the others also nonchalantly "taking in the sun" hoping perhaps to "hook up" with one or another of them, "back in the woods" later.

As I watched the film, the quite relaxed, generally happy (perhaps not having to worry about being anyone but oneself) behavior of the (all male) beach goers at this beach both reminded me (1) of legends of pagan times.  Apparently the Greek island of Lesbos was where, gay women (lesbians...), would come to similarly "hang out" in pagan times.  Arguably the various legends of the Sirens or Lorelei or water nymphs gathering around any watering hole anywhere derived from a similar experience -- plopping down by a nice beach or meadow somewhere by a body of water, among other beautiful people (or people their same age), basking in the sun, and waiting for something to happen.  And (2) neither is this experience pleasurable to humans alone.  One thinks of all the animals from crocodiles to hippos to water-buffalo who seem to also enjoy just sitting there in the sun, by on in the water, watching the day go by, and also waiting for something opportune to happen as well.

And so it was, this little isolated beach at the farther, more inaccessible, shore of some random lake in southern France offered a lovely place for this in this loose community of men to come out, plop themselves down on their towel, take in some sun, do some swimming, perhaps pick-up some other guy, have some sex with him, come back to the beach, clean themselves off, plop down again on their towel, take in some more sun, take one last swim, dry oneself off, pick-up one's stuff, trudge back to the car and call it a day.

Okay by Catholic Church teaching, the sex these men would engage in would be definitely considered "objectively disordered" as it would habe been entered into with no particular interest in fostering any kind of lasting relationship to say nothing intrinsically not being able to create new (physical) life.   Further, as the conversations of these men themselves prior to engaging in said sexual activity would indicate, they were aware of and calculating the relative risks of said sexual activity that they were proposing to each other, these risks including the rick of infection (in the worst case with AIDS but also any number of other ailments, large and small).

Still, honestly, it was clear that no one was pressuring anyone to do what the other would not want to do ...  Just about everyone seemed to implicitly respect each other's "mellow," appreciating that they were all out there "at the edge of the world" to relax, arguably "be at one/Peace with _themselves_ and with Nature," _enjoy it_ (while it lasted) and then, as the sun set, pack up and go home.  Honestly, isn't that fascinating?  A more or less happy community of the marginalized.

Well, as one would expect, trouble eventually comes to Paradise.  While there may be a natural Beauty to life at the margins, at the edge of Civilization (Natural wonders protected by National Parks are usually not found in the cities), there are Dangers as well.    The denizens of this beach were all folks who've chosen to live at least in part at the edges of society.  And while the experience of being marginalized (because they were generally all gay) perhaps made them more open to others who were "perhaps are a bit strange," among the "Strange" would also lurk the Dangerous.

So it happened that at the end of one of those idyllic days at the Beach at the edge of the world, the film's central protagonist, a rather good looking, well mannered, relaxed, generally confident 20-something Franck (played by Pierre Delandonchamps [IMDb] [AC.fr]) spied on two of the day's beach-goers having what appeared to be a fight.  Except they were having their fight not on land, but some ways out swimming in the lake.  And after some time, it became clear that one of them had decided for -- from Franck's distance of 50-100-200 meter away, up already quite close to the parking lot -- some utterly unknowable reason to try to drown the other ... And since that one was stronger than the other ... he succeeded.

Stupified, Franck continued to look out at the beach and lake from his distance until he was able to recognize who of the day's beach goers had done this terrible deed.  It turned out to be a buff "Mark Spitz"-like relative newcomer to the lake named Michel (played by Christophe Paou [IMDb] [AC.fr]*) 

What to do?  The rest of the film plays itself out -- over the course of the next 8-9 still gentle, still breezy, still lazy, still nominally "idyllic" days -- from there.

Honestly, while certainly not for kids, and many will simply not be able to get past the nudity and the gay sex, it makes for an interesting and manifold thought provoking film.


* Foreign language webpages are most easily translated using Google's Chrome Browser.  

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Run & Jump [2013]

MPAA (UR would be PG-13)  RE.com (3 Stars)  AVClub (B)  Fr. Dennis (4 Stars)

IMDb listing
RogerEbert.com (C. Lemire) review
AVClub (K. Ryan) review

Run & Jump [2013] (directed and cowrtten by Steph Green as well as Aibhe Keogan) is a lovely little film that comes from Ireland that played recently at the 17th European Union Film Festival held at the Gene Siskel Film Center here in Chicago.

A young Irish Co. Kerry family is adjusting to a terribly random life-altering tragedy.  The film begins with
with still young, lovely, full-of-life mid-late 30-something Vanetia (played by Maxine Peake) driving over to a local rehab center in a small sea-side town to bring her similarly mid-late 30-something husband Conor (played by Edward MacLiam) home.  Conor had suffered a stroke (I told you it was a terribly random life-altering tragedy), spent a month in a coma hovering between life and death, and since waking-up the last four months in rehab.   Now still not completely "there" (and he may never be) he's going home.

When the two arrive home, their two kids as well as Conor's parents (visiting from nearby) are there.  Thirteen-fourteen year-old  Lenny (played by Brendan Morris) is clearly still shell shocked.  Younger, eight maybe nine year old Noni (played by Ciara Gallagher) is just happy to see her dad home again. 

Conor's parents are there to give support to their son and his family.  And they are not excited to hear that Vanetia, in part to help compensate for loss of income has decided to accept a rather disconcerting offer to have an American neurologist named Ted (played by William Forte) board with them for a number of months in order to study the extent of Conor's recovery. 

Conor's parents are not particularly excited because, money aside, Ted would be another man in the house, and they do know (as all know) that Conor's not doing well.  But if they had any fears (and perhaps Vanetia had any subconscious hopes), Ted, when he arrives is supremely polite and professional (as one would perhaps expect a well-adjusted American academic well-trained in the ethics of his trade).  But he finds himself in a small town at the very far edge of the Old World in the midst of a family that's been traumatized, a young wife who also still loves her husband but also is also is struggling with "what now" and it's raining all the time.  And though everybody is being very, very nice ... American Ted in his utterly non-judgemental, professional way, and the Irish traumatized family, "We just want to cry but we're going to be really, really nice about it" ... it's clear that this family didn't need a second guy lumbering around half in a coma.

And so it is.  What is mid-to-late 30-something Vanetia still honestly with so much of her life ahead of her but with 2 kids and a tragically half-zombie-like husband living at the edge of the world gonna do?   Well, rent the film it's already on Amazon Instant Video and probably elsewhere.

It is actually a very lovely and very, very human tale ... again told in the midst of rain (but then also in the midst of a lot of verdant green) and coming from a place where "the next parish west ... is in the United States" ;-)


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