The Book of Life [2014]

MPAA (PG)  CNS/USCCB (A-II)  ChicagoTribune (3 1/2 Stars)  RE.com (3 1/2 Stars)  AVClub (B-)  Fr. Dennis (3/1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. McAleer) review
ChicagoTribune (R. Moore) review
RE.com (S. Wloszczyna) review
AVClub (K. Rife) review

The Book of Life [2014] (produced by Guillermo del Toro, directed and cowritten by Jorge Gutiérrez along with Douglas Langsdale) is a lovely, authentic, and hence _brilliantly colored_ children-oriented film celebrating the Mexican annual commemoration of "The Day of the Dead" [en.wikip] [es.wikip]* (Nov. 2nd, All Souls Day in the Catholic Church).

Non-Hispanics, and even non-Mexican Hispanics, not familiar with the Mexican celebration of this day may be absolutely stunned at the exuberance and richness of the art surrounding the celebration of this day, certainly conflating indigenous pre-Colombian traditions with those that arrived with Catholic Spain to Mexico.  Still, before getting on too high of a horse, non-Hispanic "Anglo" Americans ought to remember that traditions surrounding the Anglo-American celebration of All-Hallows-Eve (Halloween, Oct 31, the evening before the Church celebration of the All Saints Day) also involve conflations of Christian and pre-Christian elements arriving from previous Celtic and Germanic mythologies and world views (those ghouls and goblins of Halloween do come from somewhere ...).

The Book of Life [2014] also reminds viewers that traditions like the Mexican take on "The Day of the Dead" [en.wikip] [es.wikip]* can enliven the lives of otherwise "bored" / "alienated" young people who with "earbuds" on, listening to music on their iPods may be convinced that they've seen / experienced "all there is" even as they forget all connections to their past.

So it is, the film begins with a group of typically bored, "gum chewing," "eyes rolling" school kids on a field trip get dropped-off at the end of the day at a "museum."  Indeed, when they arrive, a crotchety security guard tries to get them to get back on the bus, because "it's late."  However, a young vivacious tour guide comes out to meet them and tells them to come along.  Eyes roll, but the kids follow.  And soon the kids find themselves in a brilliantly colored room that's part of the museum's "Day of the Dead" exhibit.  The kids look around, and _are_ surprised, both by the color _and_ by all the statuettes resembling regular "townspeople" (including some dressed as Catholic priests and nuns) doing "regular townspeople-like" things but all being, well, skeletons.  "What is with all that?"  asks one of the bored, gum-chewing students.

The tour guide then explains that this is the Museum's "The Day of the Dead" [en.wikip] [es.wikip]* exhibit and that the "The Day of the Dead" [en.wikip] [es.wikip]* is a Mexican tradition of remembering our dearly beloved relatives who've gone before us.  Indeed, she explains that there are "two worlds" in which Dead can enter when they die, the HAPPY, COLORFUL "Land of the Remembered" and the SAD, GLOOMY "Land of the Forgotten."  By remembering their dearly beloved relatives on All Souls Day / The Day of the Dead, Mexicans keep these relatives in the HAPPY, COLORFUL "Land of the Remembered." ...

The rest of the movie then unspools from there ... including the introduction by the tour guide to the previously bored but now intrigued students (as well as Viewers) to such characters Mexican stories / folklore as Santa Muerte (voiced in the film by Kate de Castillo) who the tour guide explains is the "Ruler" of the "Land of the Remembered" and Xibalba (voiced in the film by Ron Perlman) who rules over the gloomy "Land of the Forgotten."

The Cosmology of the story, of course, is not entirely Christian.  But it presented, above all, as a story and teaches the very salutary lesson of Remembering _nicely_ (and indeed Praying For) those who've gone before us, and that NO ONE is really Dead, so long as his/her memory remains in someone's Heart.

The whole practice of praying for the Dead in the Catholic (and Orthodox) Church, especially on All Souls Day (as well as on the anniversary of the loved one's death) has a similar purpose of maintaining connection with those who've gone before us with the promise that if we honor those who've gone before us, then there will be others who'll honor us after we ourselves are gone.  Hence Death need be as Scary as perhaps it otherwise would be.  It's ... part of Life.

Again, this is quite a lovely film and after so many recent American children's oriented films [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] that have made "people of color" or "with funny accents" the "bad guys," it's nice to see a film that celebrates the diversity present in our various neighbors rather than teach kids to fear it.


* Reasonably good (sense) translations of non-English webpages can be found by viewing them through Google's Chrome browser.

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Black Coal, Thin Ice (orig. Bai ri yan huo) [2014]

MPAA (UR would be R)  Fr. Dennis (1 Star)

IMDb listing
AsianWiki listing

CameraObscura (T. Grégoire) review*
Cinetastic.de (F. Schmidke) review*
kino-zeit.de (J. Kurz) review*
Variety (S. Foundas) review


Black Coal, Thin Ice (orig. Bai ri yan huo) [2014] [IMDb] [AW] (written and directed by Diao Yinan [IMDb] [AW]) is a Chinese "Noir" film that has been making the rounds (and winning awards) in the Festival Circuit and played recently here at the 2014 (50th Annual) Chicago International Film Festival.

The story involves a hard-nosed police detective Zhang Zili (played by Liao Fan [IMDb] [AW]) from an industrial town somewhere in northern China.  One day, in nominally 1999, workers at various plants across the Province are shocked to find human body parts amidst the coal being delivered to them on that day.  Officials soon find that the body parts all belong to a single person, identified by means of an ID found in the pocket of a piece of clothing still clinging to one of the body parts found.  It's of a random worker, again working in one of the factories, in the Province. 

The worker's wife, Wu Zhizhen (played by Gwei Lun-Mei [IMDb] [AW]), a lowly worker in a laundry in one of the Provincial towns is informed of her husband's gruesome death.  But who could have done it?  Police, including Zhang Zili, assume that the murder was the result of some sort of an extortion attempt on the part of the local mob.  But when they the police try to arrest "the usual suspects," a shootout ensues resulting in not only the "suspects" being killed but also a number of police officers attempting the arrest, including one of Zhang's best friends.

Fast forward to 2006.  Blaming himself for the deaths of his colleagues and best friend, Zhang's long since left the police department and become a notorious drunk in town.  However, he comes to hear from a former colleague from the force that there have been two other murders over the past several years, including a recent one, which strangely enough, seem to have been romantically linked to lowly laundress Wu Zhizhen.  What's going on?  Is she some sort of a "black widow" / "femme fatale"?  Of course it's complicated.  Much ensues ...

I generally liked the film, though I do have to say that I DID NOT LIKE the film's principal protagonist Zhang Zili.  I realize that the film was trying to portray him as a "tough guy."  And I do realize that Humphrey Bogart's "Sam Spade" was not exactly "PC" (I remember a film in which Humphrey Bogart's character did not call Lauren Bacall's character BY HER NAME throughout the entire film ... instead calling her "Honey" and "Peaches" and so forth).   However in the current film, Zhang appears to sexually assault at least two women, including the lowly if perhaps morally conflicted Wu Zhizhen.  I just couldn't get past that. 

I always enjoy the application of the "Film Noir" formula to different contexts, but I certainly do believe that the "tough guy detective" need not sexually assault the women in the story to prove his "toughness" no matter what cultural context the film comes from.


* Reasonably good (sense) translations of non-English webpages can be found by viewing them through Google's Chrome browser.

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Ablations [2014]

MPAA (UR would be R)  LeMonde (2 Stars)  Fr. Dennis (2 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
AC.fr listing*

LeMonde (j.F. Rouger) review*
aVoir-aLire (P. Longlais) review*
AbusdeCine (C. Brangé) review*

Ablations [2014] [IMDb] [AC.fr]* (directed by Arnold de Parscau [IMDb] [AC.fr]*, screenplay by Benoît Delépine [IMDb] [AC.fr]*) is a somewhat surreal "David Lynch" [IMDb]-like Belgian-French "comedy" / perhaps even "morality tale" that played recently at the 50th Chicago International Film Festival.

The story begins with the film's central protagonist, a middle-aged man named Pastor (played by Denis Ménochet [IMDb] [AC.fr]*), waking-up one morning in a small field along a river bank, groggy, perhaps "hungover" and ... MISSING A KIDNEY.  Where the kidney once was, he finds ... stitches.

What the heck happened?  Well that's the rest of the movie...

Now how does one "lose a kidney" or "have a kidney stolen" from him/her.  Not easily.  So again, what exactly happened?  And how does one go about finding out what happened?

Well, there are complications.  Even in the most uncomplicated case, going to the police to report that "someone's stolen my kidney" would be rather embarrassing.  However Pastor, who turns out to be some sort of a pharmaceutical salesman (hence middle to upper-middle class) with a wife lovely wife named Léa (played by Virginie Ledoyen [IMDb] [AC.fr]*) and 8-10 year old kid, also has a mistress, a nurse by trade, named Anna (played by Florence Thomassin [IMDb] [AC.fr]*) ... Presumably the last significant place that he was before losing consciousness and ... well, HIS KIDNEY ... was when he was at Anna's.

In any case, he decides that he can't tell his wife that he lost his kidney, because, well ... he'd have to admit that he was somewhere where he should not have been.  Now how do you hide FROM YOUR WIFE THE FACT THAT YOU'RE NOW MISSING ONE OF YOUR KIDNEYS ... After all the stitches are there, where the kidney once was.  Again, not easily.

Anna, however, seems quite happy to "help" her lover, Pastor, go about searching for whoever would have wanted / been able to steal said kidney ... even as the story progresses, Pastor, finds himself more and more estranged from his wife and kid ...

Anyway, much ensues, and, SLOWLY, OH SO SLOWLY, Pastor finds himself realizing that he's going to have to come clean with his wife.  But how long can he string things out ...?


This is a goofy film, but it does remind us, in an absurd sort of a way that "when we go off the reservation" ... ALL KINDS OF THINGS CAN HAPPEN (heck, one could even lose a kidney...) that become very hard to explain to those we have been lying to.

It's all kinda sophomoric, but kinda fun watching the poor guy try to get himself out of a truly crazy situation that he found/put himself in: "Oh what tangled webs we weave, when we first set out to deceive"


* Reasonably good (sense) translations of non-English webpages can be found by viewing them through Google's Chrome browser.

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The German Doctor (orig. Wakolda) [2013]

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

IMDb listing
CineNacional.com listing*

Cine para Leer (M. Alcalá) review*

Clarin.com (P.O. Scholtz) review*
LaNacion.com.ar (J. Porta Fouz) review*

kino-zeit.de (S. C. Reiger) review*
NeueZürcherZeitung.ch (J. Krebs) review*
Büchkritik.at (V. Frick) book review*

ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RE.com (C. Lemire) review
AVClub (I. Vishnevetsky) review


The German Doctor (orig. Wakolda) [2013] [IMDb] [CN.ar]* (screenplay and directed by Argentinian writer/director Lucía Puenzo [IMDb] [CN.ar]* based on her novel [Amzn] [GR] by the same name) tells the story, somewhat fictionalized, of Nazi War criminal Joseph Mengele's time in the Argentinian Patagonian town of San Carlos de Baroliche [en.wikip] [es.wikip]* located at the eastern edge of the Andes Mountains about midway down the length of the country.

The town of San Carlos de Baroliche [en.wikip] [es.wikip]* certainly has an evocative and arguably notorious history.  Already, largely settled by German and Austrian immigrants since the late 1800s, it apparently became a haven for Nazis fleeing Germany at the end of World War II.  Indeed, apparently the town's "German School" was head-mastered for years after the war by another Nazi War criminal, former SS police captain Erich Priebke who had been responsible for the massacre of some 335 Italian civilians among them 75 of Jewish ancestry outside of Rome in 1944 in reprisal to a partisan raid.  Interestingly enough, the town, admittedly located by a large lake, _also_ became a center of Argentina's post-WW II / Peron Era nuclear research program... Finally, some have even claimed that Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun actually lived at a villa outside of the town after the War.  (Both the German School and a destroyed bunker on the grounds of supposedly Hitler's post-WW II residence outside of town appear in the film ...).  With such an evocative / notorious history, San Carlos de Baroliche [en.wikip] [es.wikip]* becomes something like Argentina's Roswell, NM (the notorious site of a supposed post- WW II, 1947 U.F.O. crash). 

With this kind of a history, I suppose it becomes almost inevitable that books and films would come to be made about the town, and I honestly wish to thank the Argentine writer/director Lucía Puenzo [IMDb] [CN.ar]* for letting the rest of the world know a little bit about this place.  It's been common knowledge that many Nazis fleeing Germany after the War ended-up in Argentina.  However, it would seem that it would require a native, an Argentinian, to be really able to tell the story well.  So honestly thank you Ms. Puenzo for telling us this story!

So then what is the trajectory of this tale?  Well the story begins in 1960, in the months just before Israel's Mossad's famous capture of Nazi War criminal Adolf Eichmann in Buenos Aires (bringing him back to trial in Israel).

A quite ordinary Argentinian family is heading to San Carlos de Baroliche [en.wikip] [es.wikip]* to takeover a lakeside hotel left to the mother, Eva (played by Natalia Oreiro [IMDb] [CN.ar]*) by her German descended parents.  Eva had, in fact, grown-up in the town and had attended the town's "German School" noted above in the 1940s.  Her Argentinian husband, Enzo (played by Diego Peretti [IMDb] [CN.ar]*) something of a craftsman (a doll maker) is more-or-less obviously "put-off" by the German (and perhaps even "suspected haven to War Criminals") vibes that the town and the townspeople give off.  BUT ... HER WIFE JUST INHERITED A BEAUTIFUL, WELL MAINTAINED, LAKESIDE HOTEL ... So IF YOU were IN HIS PLACE, would you not want to at least see what his wife had just inherited and perhaps seek "to find a way" to "make this work" for you and your family?  So at the beginning of the film, Eva, pregnant, with twins soon find out, Enzo and their "short for her age" 12 year old daughter Lilith (played by Florencia Bado [IMDb] [CN.ar]*) are shown driving to this out-of-the-way Patagonian town at the Eastern slopes of the Andes Mountains to claim the hotel left to them by Eva's parents.

On the drive to San Carlos de Baroliche [en.wikip] [es.wikip]*, they come across a somewhat standoffish German Doctor (played by Álex Brendemühl [IMDb] [CN.ar]*) who is ALSO heading to the same town but isn't quite sure how to get there.  Being friendly and NOT suspecting anything particularly out-of-order, after all Eva herself is of German descent, the family tells him to just follow them.  And so it is that this "German Doctor" makes it to San Carlos de Baroliche [en.wikip] [es.wikip]*.

Now the town is portrayed as being quite dominated, culturally anyway, by Germans -- again this is 1960 -- to the obvious discomfort of Argentinian husband/father Enzo who feels "like a stranger in his own country."  But Eva does feel "at home."  After all, she grew-up there.  Yes, her school pictures from "back in the day" shows the entire school assembly in Hitler Jugend-like uniforms "Sieg Heil-ing" with the Nazi salute.  But that was the childhood that she knew.

Soon, Eva and Enzo have their 12-year-old Lileth enrolled in the German school.  It's a "little less Nazi" than it was in the 1940s (after-all it's 15 years after the war).  Still there are two problems: (1) Lileth knows little German.  No matter, the school is prepared to teach her and other Argentinian students of German descent like her the language so that she can fully catch-up with the rest of the students in due time.  But (2) she _is_ also "short for her age."  So the school lets her enter, but the kids, versed in race/genetics-based "ideals" quickly make fun of her, calling her a "midget" / "dwarf."

Re-enter the quiet, standoffish German Doctor.  Noting also Lileth's "shortness" for her age, he suggests to the parents a "hormone therapy" that he claims go get her height corrected in due time.  He ALSO becomes intrigued when he finds that Eva's expecting twins ...

Now good and utterly non-German/Nazi Enzo finds the German Doctor a creep and doesn't want him anywhere near his family, much less treating his daughter or wife.  Eva on the other hand wants her daughter to be happy at school.  So Eva does have Lileth treated by this German Doctor "quietly" (on the side) without her husband knowing.

Of course, it's not too much of a surprise to the Viewer (or Reader here) who "The German Doctor" really is.  And indeed, during the film, there are numerous references of a paranoia settling into the German community of San Carlos de Baroliche [en.wikip] [es.wikip]* with rumors of "Israeli spies" infiltrating the community, looking for former Nazis.  And when news of Eichmann's capture in Buenos Aires reaches town, well ... guess who has to flee (again) ...

It's all a fascinating story and the author claims that it's largely true ... the family portrayed is fictionalized, but Joseph Mengele's presence in the town of San Carlos de Baroliche [en.wikip] [es.wikip]* at that time, was not.

This is not a fast-moving action film.  Indeed, its power comes actually from its rather slow-moving ordinariness.  And I have to say that after four years of writing my blog, this is the kind of film that I've come to most appreciate -- a historically based film made by people (in this case Argentinians) who were closest to the story.  Great job Ms. Puenzo [IMDb] [CN.ar]* great job!


ADDENDUM: This film, which passed through briefly in Chicago in August 2014, is available now on DVD or streaming on services like Amazon Instant Video.


* Reasonably good (sense) translations of non-English webpages can be found by viewing them through Google's Chrome browser.

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The Fool (orig. дурак) [2014]

MPAA (UR would be R)  KinoNews.Ru (6.5/10)  Fr. Dennis (4+ Stars)

IMDb listing

KinoNews.ru listing*
Kino-teatr.ru listing*

Izvestia.ru interview w. director*

The Fool (orig. дурак) [2014]  [IMDb] [KN.ru]* [KT.ru]* (written and directed by Yurij Bykov [IMDb] [KN.ru]* [KT.ru]*) flows like a Russian feet-on-the-ground bricks-and-mortar rendition of the recent Hollywood post-2008 Financial Crisis Wall Street thriller Margin Call [2011].  The film played recently at the 50th Annual Chicago International Film Festival.

The world's financial system may not be about to come down in Yurij Bykov [IMDb] [KN.ru]* [KT.ru]*'s film.  However, as in the earlier American film, it's a "young upstart" who discovers that something is deeply wrong.  Dmitri "Dimi" Nikitin (played by Artyom Bystrov [IMDb] [KN.ru]* [KT.ru]*) a young maintenance man living with his parents (played by Nina Antyuhova [IMDb] [KT.ru]* and Nikolay Bendera [IMDb] [KT.ru]*) and his nice young wife (played by Darya Moroz [IMDb] [KT.ru]*) and kid in a regional town somewhere in the vastness of Russia is called one night on a seemingly innocuous job to repair a broken steam pipe in one of the tenement buildings that he and his team service.

There had been a domestic disturbance in one of the tenement's apartments that night, and it came to an abrupt end when the steam pipe had cracked in two scalding a random drug-addicted man who had been in the process of beating-up his wife teenage daughter over ... money.  Lovely.  However, after Dimi and his coworkers arrive at the tenement building, Dimi who's been studying in "night school" to improve himself and get a degree in "structural engineering" quickly realizes that the steam pipe wasn't broken as a result of the domestic altercation.  Instead, the pipe broke because the whole building, built quickly (and shoddily) during the latter years of the Communist Era and _never, ever_ properly maintained since, was shifting.  A deep crack in the concrete supporting wall, which the pipe crossed and to which it had been attached, ran from the floor to the ceiling of the apartment to which Dimi and his coworkers had been called.  When Dimi decides to go outside to inspect the wall from there, he finds that the same crack extended from the foundation to the rooftop of the building.  Walking then around the building, he finds that another of the supporting walls of the building cracked (from foundation to rooftop) as well.  Finally, as a tram passes by, he notices that a corner of the building had already been torn from its foundation and pieces of brick falling from the detached corner of the bulding as a result of the passing tram's vibrations.

OMG, this building was in immediate danger of collapsing.  How many people lived there?  Oh, about 800.

What the heck to do?  Well Dimi knows that the head of the maintenance department of his town, Foederov (played by Boris Nevzorov [IMDb] [KN.ru]* [KT.ru]*) was a crook, having been diverting funds allocated for the maintenance of buildings such as this one for years.  His mother knew someone in the municipal central accounting office, but she had just lectured Dimi and his dad / her husband at dinner about how stupid they've been in being honest their during whole lives:  "Everyone's been stealing for the sake of their families, and YOUR HONESTY, WHAT EXACTLY HAS IT GIVEN US?"  Still, here was Dimi coming home with presumably the "poster child case" for honesty ... an entire building with 800 residents was in danger of collapsing because of the endemic (and "victimless") theft that mom had been praising at dinner.  So mom, chastened, makes the call on behalf of her son.

It turns out that the ENTIRE MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IS OUT AT A LOCAL HOTEL CELEBRATING THE MAYOR'S 50th BIRTHDAY.  "Great," Dimi says, "At least they'll ALL BE THERE."  And Dimi heads out to "crash" the Mayor's party with this news ...

The Reader here could begin to imagine then how this is going to go ...

Dimi, comes to the banquet hall entrance, uninvited, BUT (1) this is still a reasonably small town, so there's _some_ familiarity present at the door and so Dimi isn't simply told "to get lost" right then and there, plus (2) Dimi looks the part, looking pretty damned certain of his news that he needed to report to the Mayor (played remarkably well by Natalya Surkova [IMDb] [KN.ru]* [KT.ru]*) a woman, turning, of course, 50, quite beloved actually in town and whose nickname about town was "Mat'" ("mom").

Yes, it was her birthday, but it's also her 50th, so it was "milestone" and one that most people and perhaps particularly most women would be rather ambivalent in celebrating.  So though she's "there" at her "party" and is shown both dancing and graciously thanking the various guests for their presence, she's also actually somewhat "happy" to be given an excuse "to get away" from this reminder that like everybody else, she was "getting old."

Dimi comes with his urgent news, and asks the Mayor to quickly get the various municipal engineering and as well as first responder officials together in a room.  "Why?"  asks the Mayor "You'll all certainly find out," Dimi tells her again with a determination that makes her sense that he's deathly serious.  (This scene and the one that follows again very much resembles the "emergency meeting" scenes in the above mentioned film Margin Call [2011] even if "decorum" was more-easily preserved in the "statelier" Wall Street "epic").

The officials, most quite drunk, are plucked from the party and gathered together in a next-door conference room.  There Dimi reports to them who he is (a maintenance man for the city), where he's been (at one of the city's tenement parks) and what he's reporting (that at least one of the buildings in the tenement park is in IMMEDIATE DANGER of collapsing -- that two of the building's loadbearing walls were cracked straight through from the foundation to the rooftop, that one of the corners of the building seemed completely detached from the foundation and the building was clearly tilting in that direction beyond anything that would be remotely considered safe).  He advises an IMMEDIATE EVACUATION.

"Whoa?  Who the heck are you?" asks Dimi's drunk (and corrupt) superior, "Evacuate 800 people in the dead of night, without a even an inspection?"
      "There's no time to bring in 'inspectors.'  Besides, you of all people know that they're corrupt.  They'll tell you whatever they're paid to report."
      "Even if you're right," asks the Mayor, "Where are we going to evacuate 800 people to, in the middle of the night, in winter?"
      "That's why I called all of you together," responds Dimi, "But I'm telling you even the most cursory inspection will tell ANYONE that the building is coming down."

What immediately follows is an absolutely hilarious (in a simultaneously weary and yet sordid sort of way) "round table discussion" where all present go through a litany of how much each and everyone one of them had stolen from the "public troth" over the years making this "dead-of-night reckoning" possible (and indeed perhaps inevitable).  But be all that as it probably was, a response to Dimi's horrific news had to be made.  So ...

The decision is made for Dimi, his superior and the fire chief to go to the tenement building to make sure it's as Dimi says that it is, while the the rest, mostly the first responders and the mayor remained to figure out what to do if an immediate evacuation was indeed necessary.

To Dimi's superior's horror, he immediately recognizes that Dimi was right.  The building was in immediate danger of collapsing.  But what now?

The Mayor tries to find _fairly long-term lodgings_ for 800 (!!) people.  She makes a visitto  a "contractor" who the city's given various permits over the years to build LUXURY HOUSING in another part of the city.  Could HE at least temporarily help?  He laughs at her (THE MAYOR) telling her that his "investors" WOULD KILL HIM.  Who's one of his investors?  THE MAYOR'S OWN HUSBAND (played in marvelous, soft-spoken but nobody would have any doubt what he means, mafia-like fashion by Yuri Tsurilo [IMDb] [KN.ru]* [KT.ru]*).  He explains to HIS WIFE (THE MAYOR) that, yes, she is HIS WIFE, but that HE (and THOSE BEHIND HIM) "made her" and that HE has "Others" BEHIND HIM who HE has to "answer to."  (This image of the Mayor truly "in bed" with the Mob is just stunningly presented here).

So immediate evacuation of the falling tenement building is _out of the question_ but NOT because there would be no place to put the residents.  Rather, the Mob would get upset if THE CITY used THEIR LODGINGS TO SAVE THE POTENTIAL VICTIMS...  Another plan has to be cobbled together.

Describing this "other plan" gets into SPOILER TERRITORY.  So Readers who plan to see (or have hope of seeing) this movie, DON'T read on.

 However, since this is a "Festival Film" that _probably_ won't be easy to find, I continue ... (SPOILER ALERT) The plan that the Mayor ("mom") and her (mafia-connected) husband come-up with is: (1) eliminate the guilty -- Dimi's corrupt supervisor and a couple of other "super corrupt" officials, (2) shut-up the "whistle blower" (a stronger term is used in the film) -- telling Dimi to get his family together, IN THE DEAD OF NIGHT, and hastily "leave town..." and (3) take their chances about the building standing or falling.  If there's time, perhaps fix it.  If the building falls, at least they could report that "the guilty" have been "dealt with ..." (with proverbial bullets in their heads ...)

This is one heck of a film, right? ;-)

The film, while apparently "released" in Russia (presumably at Moscow's International Film Festival in June) has been on the (outside) "Festival Circuit" since, where it has (more or less obviously) won recognition and awards.

It's scheduled to be released for general distribution in Russia in late November [KN.ru].*  However, _already_ the director has had to dutifully explain in an interview in the Russian daily Izvestia (link above)* that "He wouldn't want the West to think that his film is only about Russia," that it's "about corruption in general," and that he is, of course, "a patriot who loves his country." 

A great (and BRAVE) movie here Yurij Bykov [IMDb] [KN.ru]* [KT.ru]*.  But honestly welcome to "Oliver Stone" JFK [1991] territory [IMDb] [Amnesty International - if unfortunately it becomes necessary]. 


* Reasonably good (sense) translations of non-English webpages can be found by viewing them through Google's Chrome browser.

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Dracula Untold [2014]

MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB (A-III)  ChiTrib/Variety (2 Stars)  RE.com (2 1/2 Stars)  AVClub (C)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
ChicagoTribune/Variety (S. Foundas) review
RE.com (S. Abrams) review
AVClub (A.A. Dowd) review


Dracula Untold [2014] (directed by Gray Shore, screenplay by Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpeless) tells the story in PG-13-ified "300" / "Game of Thornes" fashion of the 15th century Romanian (Wallachian) prince Vlad III whose legendary cruelty in the desperate fight against Ottoman Turk invaders gave him the moniker of Vlad the Impaler.

Vlad III's father had belonged to an ad hoc "coalition" of Christian kings calling itself "The Order of the Dragon" that had sworn itself to defend Christian Europe from the invading (Muslim) Turks.  Dragon in Romanian is Drăculea from hence derives ... Dracula.  Whether or not local (Transylvanian) storytellers had already conflated Prince Vlad the Impaler (a.k.a. Dracula) with local (Transylvanian) vampire legends, I am not sure.  However, a centuries-old Transylvanian vampire named "Count Dracula" became the title character in Bram Stoker's (hailing from "the Isles") "gothic novel" by that name [wikip] [Amzn] [GR] inspiring countless further often Anglo / German literary and cinematic  explorations [IMDb] of the character "unearthed" and "dragged west" from his Transylvanian home, where "in the West" he's come to be considered (and perhaps dismissed ...) as a classic horror-story / monstrous archetype.

So in truth I'm kinda happy to see the Dracula legend be brought back in this film to its 15th century Balkan / Romanian / Wallachian roots even if most domestic (American) reviewers appear disappointed (see links above) that there's more "impaling" than "bloodsucking" going on.

Indeed, the central question of the current film DOES NOT INVOLVE in any way "exploring" the boundaries of repressed and uninhibited sexual desire, a theme that clearly preoccupied the famously sexually repressed 19th century English (Victorian) and German speaking worlds (IMHO it's no surprise at all that modern psychology - Freud, Jung, Adler, etc - was born in the German speaking world, which was SO TIGHTLY WOUND prior to WW II that it produced Hitler and the Nazis as well), so much so that explorations of sexual desire had to be moved EVEN IN LITERATURE "far away" to "exotic" locales LIKE TRANSYLVANIA (Stoker's Dracula), ARABIA (Sir Richard Francis Burton's famously awful and arguably pornographic English "translation" of the collection of centuries-old Middle Eastern _folktales_ known as The Thousand and One Nights), and INDIA (with Victorian England's arguably purient fascination with India's Kama Sutra).

Instead, the current film concerns itself with another very basic question and one that was probably closer to the concerns of the Balkan / Transylvanian storytellers originally telling the tale:  How far would you go to defend your People and even your Family from Harm (attackers / invaders / etc)? 

For the 15th-16th century Balkans were "Ground Zero" of Christian-Muslim Holy War that finally began to turn with the defeat of the Ottoman Turks AT THE GATES OF VIENNA.  Indeed, many of the conflicts in the Balkans during the 20th century (including the start of World War I and then the awful, indeed genocidal, conflicts that raged across former Yugoslavia in the 1990s) had their roots in the desperate fighting of the 14th-15th centuries that gave Vlad III his "Impaler" moniker to begin with. It was a desperate region that left its psychic scars arguably to this day.

So what would have made Prince Vlad an "impaler" and (by legend) even a vampire?   Well that's what the film is about.

In the frozen / stylized with voice-over sequence that begins of the film, we're told that when Prince Vlad was young, he had been part of a group of a 1,000 Romanian boys who been handed over to the Ottoman Turks by Vlad's father as tribute.  The boys, young as they were, were then trained to be fanatical warriors for the Sultan concerned neither for their own lives nor for the lives of those that they were asked to kill.  Surviving his term of service, Vlad (played by an ever somber, but what else could he be, Luke Evans) returns to his kingdom with a few fellow survivors to take his precarious place as a (Turkish) vassal King. 

When the Turks come on Easter to demand the annual tribute in silver "early" as well as another "tribute in boys" including Vlad's own son Ingeras (played by Art Parkinson), this proves too much to bear.  So Vlad promises his beautiful wife Mirena (played by Sarah Gadon), his son and his people that he will TRULY DO ANYTHING to protect his people from this continued unbearable enslavement.  TRULY ANYTHING comes to mean Vlad going off to climb the very foreboding / creepy looking "Broken Tooth Mountain" where in the cave, he once had a brush with an unspeakable Evil (vampire played by Charles Dance).

Basically like Faust of later centuries Vlad makes a "deal with the Devil" but UNLIKE FAUST he does it NOT for purient reasons of self-engrandisement but rather to try to save his people from the Turks.  Indeed, the perhaps millenia-old vampire living in the cave proves somewhat confused by Vlad's request and arguably tries to offer him a way to soften the deal.  But Vlad chooses what he does ... and the rest is (legendary) history.

I found the movie surprising but also probably pretty close to the original Transylvanian legend before it got abducted by "WASPS/Aryans" for other, IMHO far more trivial, purposes.

Was Vlad's choice "good"?  Were the more historical choices of the actual "Vlad the Impaler" "good"?  But what would _you_ do if some armed group was taking _your children_ away? 

I'd add here that while the crimes of the Ottoman Turks presented in the film are of historical record -- as are the "impaling" crimes of the historical Vlad -- Turkey today is NOT the same country that it was 3-4-5 centuries ago.  I've known about 20 people of Turkish descent in my life and to a person they've been among the most gentle people I've ever known.  But yes, tell that to an Armenian, Greek or Serb who remembers the stories of the horrors of yesteryear.  

This is a very tormented film about a very tormented character whose pain reaches into people of the region today.  Still Christians perhaps more than any group are asked from their very beginnings to let go and FORGIVE.  "Father forgive them for they do not know what they do." -- Luke 23:34.


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Annabelle [2014]

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

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (K. Jensen) review
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RE.com (B. Tallerico) review
AVClub (A.A. Dowd) review


Annabelle [2014] (directed by John R. Lionetti, screenplay by Gary Dauberman) was probably inevitable, viewers / fans of The Conjuring [2013] would agree.  The opening sequence of that previous film, inspired by the real life exploits of lay-Catholic demonologists Ed and Lorraine Warren, featured a really creepy apparently demonically animated doll that just SCREAMED (pun kinda intended) for a movie of her own ;-).

Further, a note to parents: The current film, like the arguably scarier one that preceded it, while giving little kids an appropriate level of fright that they probably won't be pestering you to be allowed to watch properly R-rated horror films any time soon, at least won't render your kids "brain damaged" at a result.  The current film just scare them into being more "careful in what they wish for" next time ;-).

So this is really a rather straight-forward horror movie about a doll that nobody in his/her right mind would ever want to buy.  As the Chicago Tribune's movie critic Mike Phillips notes (review above) one look at the creepy looking doll would be sufficient to convince most people that it wreaks of Evil.

But alas, where would modern horror movies be if they didn't feature people making REALLY, REALLY BAD DECISIONS?  So evidently really, really smart but also quite clueless when it comes to gift-buying soon-to-be-M.D. John (played by Ward Horton) buys his expecting wife Mia (played by Annabelle Willis) the really, really creepy-looking "vintage doll" because ... he thinks that she'd like it.  And because Mia's nice and/or clueless herself (the doll looks like something that could have been used as "Exhibit A" at the Salem Witch Trials to hang somebody), she tells him that she does ("like it") and puts it in a place of honor among her collection of other often creepy-looking "vintage dolls."  (As an aside, I shake my head, thinking about this, even as I'm typing it.  Once as a grad-student, looking for a place to live near campus, I walked into a house where the owner, renting a room "upstairs," had an ENORMOUS COLLECTION of really weird-looking dolls, all "dressed-up" and starring in the direction the doorway.  I took one look at strange collection of dolls and told the landlady that I honestly needed "to look elsewhere" ;-).  I left, happy that (I think, I hope :-) that she didn't get a lock of hair of mine or something ... ;-) 

But back to the story ... :-)  All would have continued to be "fine" (sort of) in the lives of John / Mia and their soon to arrive daughter, if not for their neighbors' crazy 20-something daughter Annabelle (played by Keira Daniels) who after joining a Charles Manson-like "cult of the Ram" ("PC" for Satan ...) who came home one evening to murder her parents and then headed over to John and Mia's to kill a pregnant woman to boot ... The police came just in time shoot Annabelle before she could finish-off stabbing Mia in the stomach (both mother and child survive to be okay ...).  BUT a drop of blood from the Satan-worshipping Annabelle fell into and behind the eye of the already really creepy-looking doll and ... the rest of the movie follows ;-).

Again, it's a pretty straight-forward story ... with a fair number of rather conventional (if surprisingly effective) misdirections and frights: Another "hobby" that Mia enjoyed was sewing ... and one just waits _through the whole movie_ for her to become "suddenly distracted" with her fingers be run through the sewing machine ... Good, suspenseful, if rather conventionally "scary" stuff ;-)

The story's set in the early 1970s, about  Rosemary's Baby [1968] / The Exorcist [1973]  time.  So there is a Catholic priest, Fr. Perez (played by Tony Amendola) in the story.  He's not particularly effective -- speaks mostly in cliches and aphorisms -- but at least he's not portrayed as Evil as well.  There's also a mysterious darker-skinned (African American) woman named Evelyn (played by Alfre Woodard) who thankfully ALSO doesn't come out as Evil.  Who are portrayed as Evil are the crazed cultists who apparently kill people _that they should love_ "for Satan," and then the doll, which comes to be tinged with the blood of one of these deranged cultists.  (Let us remember that in these months, we've all, of course, witnessed the emergence of the ghastly (AND APPARENTLY PROUD OF IT) Islamic cult "ISIS" out there in Iraq and Syria who seem to "find value" in beheading innocents and putting videos of their actions on YouTube.  Yes, Virginia, there is Evil in the world ...).

So while I would NOT recommend this film to children (I do believe the R-rating is definitely appropriate) ... I do think that the film is straight-forward enough that aside from scaring kids who "didn't want to listen to their parents" _this time_ from wanting see another movie like this for a while ... the film could also serve as an opportunity for parents to discuss with their kids the reality of evil in our world.  Today those crazy cultists out there in Iraq / Syria are doing terrible things to innocent people ... in the late 1960s there were crazy cultists doing similarly ghastly deeds in the States.

Evil does, in fact, seem exist in this world my friends ...


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