Leviathan (orig. Левиафан) [2014]

MPAA (R)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing

KinoNews.ru listing*    KinoPoisk.ru listing*
Kino-teatr.ru listing*     Kritikanstvo.ru listing*
Megacritic.ru listing*

Gazeta.ru (V. Lyaschenko) review*
TheHollywoodReporter.ru (N. Karcev) review*
NovayaGazeta.ru (L. Malyukova) review*
RossiyskayaGazeta.ru (V. Kitchin) review*

ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
Cine Para Leer review*
CineVue (J. Bleasdale) review
EyeForFilm.co.uk (A.W. Murray) review
Slant Magazine (C. Bowen) review
Variety (P. DeBruge) review

Leviathan (orig. Левиафан) [2014]  [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KP.ru]*[KT.ru]* (directed and cowritten by  Andrey Zvyagintsev [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KP.ru]*[KT.ru]* along with Oleg Negin [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KP.ru]*[KT.ru]*) promises to be an absolute darling to Western Liberals.

Yes, the story set in a small picturesque Russian town somewhere on the Arctic coast (and yes, the scenery is often breathtaking) is at least initially about corruption in contemporary Russia:

A lowly fisherman / auto-mechanic named Nicolay (played by Aleksey Serebryakov [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KT.ru]*) with a simple fisherman's house that he inherited from his father, finds to his horror that the local mayor (played by Roman Madyanov [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KT.ru]*) has come to covet said house for the only covetable quality that is has -- a view.  So he's decided to use the power of the local government force lowly Nicolay to relinquish said house for an obsenely low price, nominally to allow a "communications center" to be built there (but nobody seriously believes that.  The local mayor just wants to build his own house there).

Now Nicolay isn't completely without friends or resources.  So at the beginning of the film he has his old army buddy, now a hotshot Moscow lawyer, named Dmitri (played by Vladimir Vdovichenkov [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KT.ru]*) come up to challenge the confiscation of the house.  Dmitri is, in fact, not naive.  He comes up to the town not only with a legal case to defend Nicolay's claim on the property (or at least that he'd be compensated appropriately), but he ALSO comes with a dossier of dirt collected about the Mayor.  To no one's surprise, Dmitri loses the appeal for Nicolay.  HOWEVER Dmitri's dossier on the mayor does grab the mayor's attention.

What to do?  Well, the mayor goes _to the local Orthodox priest_ for advice.  AND THE ADVICE THAT HE GETS FROM SAID PRIEST IS (I'm not kidding): "Don't be such a baby!  All power comes from God, USE IT."   And so WITH THE PRIEST'S MAFIA-LIKE BLESSING, that's what the mayor does: He gets his thugs together, they pay a visit to the lawyer, drive him out of town and ...

Now tragically before being "driven out of town," the lawyer manages to seduce Nicolay's wife Lilya (played by Elena Lyadova [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KT.ru]*) -- Why would he do that?  Were there not enough women in Moscow to sleep with, and Nicolay was supposed to be his friend ... -- which after he "disappears from the scene" causes continued problems between Nicolay and his wife.  Those problems come to provide the Mayor a final / definitive means to simply get rid of Nicolay.

Wonderful, the director himself has stated that his film was inspired by the Biblical Job and the Thomas Hobbes' treatise Leviathan (a giant sea-monster that actually appears at the end of the Biblical Book of Job but in the Hobbesian conception it also represents the Power of the State).

So what's there to object to?  After all, this is (on the surface) a quite brave denunciation of the state of corruption in Russia today.  HOWEVER, note here that ultimate blame for said corruption doesn't fall on the thuggish mayor of the town, BUT ... ON THE ORTHODOX PRIEST (who arguably was just missing a tail and horns in the film).

So this is just catnip for both Western Liberals and perhaps a remnant of the ATHEIST Russian "Old Guard" still pining for the "Law and Order" that existed back in the "Good Old Days" of the Soviet Gulag.  Hence a film nominally about State corruption nonetheless gets funded by the Russian "Ministry of Culture." ;-)

Hmm... There's even a reference to Pussy Riot in the film.  What's going on here? 

I suppose that the question that the film asks is: To what extent is the Russian Orthodox Church complicit in the corruption that exists in Russian society today? 

HOW CAN AN HONEST WESTERNER POSSIBLY SEEK AN ANSWER TO THAT QUESTION?

Well a search of the term коррупция (corruption)* on the Moscow Patriarchate's official website* indicates quite that the challenge of corruption in contemporary Russian society is certainly not "off the radar" or even somehow a "verboten" subject in the life of the Russian Orthodox Church today.  And this really should not surprise anyone (unless one simply insisted on BEGINNING with the assumption that the Russian Orthodox Church, or the Church in general, Christianity and/or Religion in general simply HAD TO BE "EVIL").

Now how well is the Russian Orthodox Church doing in voicing opposition to corruption in Russian society today?  Well that is a fair question and I simply do not know enough about Russia or the actual workings of the Russian Orthodox Church to answer that.  However, let me offer a suggestion:

While there are fanatical groups like SNAP ("Survivors' Network for those Abused by Priests") in the United States who don't seem to recognize _even the possibility_ of a "good Catholic priest" in the United States today (just those who are "guilty" and those who are in "denial"), the National Catholic Reporter has for decades served as a "watch dog" / independent voice seeking to keep the Catholic Church in the United States honest not only with regard to the various priestly sexual abuse scandals but also with regards to its (obviously) FAR LARGER MISSION, notably to "bring good news to the poor."

There is no reason why such a newspaper of website could not exist (or come to exist, IF IT DOES NOT ALREADY, perhaps if need be OUTSIDE OF RUSSIA) that would seek to keep the Russian Orthodox Church accountable in its role as "the conscience of Russian society."  I have personally known plenty of good (AND EDUCATED) Russian Orthodox believers (My own grandfather was Russian Orthodox).  I simply do not believe that a "(Russian) National Orthodox Reporter" would be impossible to create (if it does not de facto exist already).

Would it be enough?  Well the National Catholic Reporter certainly did not prevent the sexual abuse crimes to occur in the United States.  But it did and does remind everyone willing to listen that there are American Catholics who _do actually believe_ and do actually want a Church that's accountable for its actions here on earth.

The Russian Orthodox Church may be being tempted by the same Devil's Bargain that the Catholic Church in the United States has been tempted by the American Right in these years after the sexual abuse scandals:  "We'll support you on such 'beside the point' matters as 'Gays,' just don't say a word anymore about the Economic Justice (or Corruption)."  The problem with that bargain is, of course, if the Church does not stand for the poor and oppressed then its other "teachings" become _meaningless_.    The Church's Power comes from standing-up for the weak:

You shall not oppress or molest a stranger, for you were once strangers residing in the land of Egypt.  You shall not wrong any widow or orphan. If ever you wrong them and they cry out to me, I will surely listen to their cry. My wrath will flare up, and I will kill you with the sword; then your own wives will be widows, and your children orphans.  -- Ex 22:20-23

So one could dismiss this film (and in fact the _provocative_ actions of Pussy Riot) as simply a "diatribe against the (Russian Orthodox) Church"  OR ... one could see it as a challenge to the (Russian Orthodox) Church stand-up and FULFILL its job to TRULY BE "The Nation's Conscience."  It seems obvious to me that the more useful / constructive interpretation would be the second one.


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

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Taken 3 [2014]

MPAA (PG-13)  ChiTribune/Variety (1 1/2 Stars)  Fr. Dennis (2 Stars)

IMDb listing
ChicagoTribune/Variety (M. Lee) review

Taken 3 [2014] (directed by Olivier Megaton, screenplay by Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen) continues, IMHO quite unsatisfactorily, the Taken franchise through its third installment: 

Perhaps it was just that everyone involved in the story, especially lead actor Liam Neeson coming back, _again_ as _retired_, (presumed) _former_ CIA assassin Bryan Mills, seemed tired. (Hey, generally people don't "retire" for nothing ... they retire because they're "gettin' old for this sort of stuff ...");

Perhaps the story was beginning to "run out of places to go." (In the first installment, the story "shot itself out" in Paris, in the second in Istanbul, this time simply "just a few blocks down-the-street from the studio" in (presumably) the "Mills' Southern California");

Or perhaps simply this installment finally "just got sloppy" revealing just how improbable the whole franchise story always was ...

In any case, the story just felt flat, with key characters like Mills' ex-wife Lenore (played by Famke Jansson) being killed off (_she_ won't be coming back again) and the rest of the cast largely going through the motions.

The installment begins, quite endearingly, as the previous ones did (that's part of the franchise's schtick), with the Mills' each trying focus on their "regular lives."  Mills is shown busily trying to buy something for daughter Kim's (played by Maggie Grace) birthday.  She's in college now, apparently living with her boyfriend (worried actually that she may be pregnant), but she's still "his little girl."  So he settles on buying her a big stuffed panda and a bottle of champagne.   Mills' ex (and Kim's mother) is apparently having trouble with her second husband, but is trying "really hard" to make at least that second marriage work, and Mills is as "supportive" as a first (former) husband could be in a situation like that.  He DOESN'T try to "take advantage" but almost certainly he's smiling inside (thinking no doubt "I always knew it wasn't _simply_ me" ;-).  The second husband (played by Dugray Scott) even comes over, early on in the story to ask Mills to "keep out of the(ir) mess."  And Mills, gently, nonthreateningly (in as much as a _former CIA assassin_ could be "nonthreatening") assures him that he _doesn't_ want to get involved.

But becoming involved he must ... as a few days later Mills gets a text from Lenore asking him to stop at some neighborhood coffee shop "get some bagels" and come home to his apartment because, presumably, "she wants to talk."  Well, he gets the bagels, comes home and ... finds Lenore dead, in his bed.

What the heck happened?  He doesn't have a whole lot of time to ponder this because a few seconds later the LAPD is there (called apparently by SOMEBODY ...) yelling at him to "put his hands up."  Still not understanding what had just happened, but expecting that he wasn't gonna be able to figure things out as easily in a police lockup, he (former special forces, a former CIA assassin) decides "to make a run of it" ... does ... and the rest of the installment follows...

Of course, in the course of his running away from the cops (led by a LAPD inspector played by Forrest Whitaker) and later by his slinking / running around Los Angeles, there's _a lot_ of shooting, "glass breaking," and a fair number of "high speed chases."  And of course, (not much of a SPOILER here) ... EVENTUALLY he has to clear his name.

BUT ... while SOMEHOW (and in retrospect, with some embarrassment) these "shoot 'em up / chase scenes" seemed to "work for me" when the story was set in Paris or Istanbul, I FOUND THEM UTTERLY BELIEVABLE NOW THAT THEY WERE SET IN L.A.

Say what?  Don't these kind of scenes play-out in all kinds of Hollywood crime dramas set in Los Angeles?  Yes, but USUALLY these scenes involve chasing a "bad guy," not a "good guy trying to clear his name."

There's a scene in this film with the Police still chasing Mills as their prime suspect in which all kinds of "civilian cars" and even a huge semi-truck are wrecked on a freeway.  I simply can't imagine Mills, EVEN IF INNOCENT OF THE ORIGINAL CRIME (the death of his ex-wife) "WALKING AWAY" INNOCENT after CAUSING SO MUCH CARNAGE _RESISTING / FLEEING ARREST_.  At least SOME of those innocents crushed in some of those cars would have relatives WITH LAWYERS who would sue the LAPD (at minimum) "for compensation" and ASK QUESTIONS about "what the heck was that chase about?"  

Just IMAGINE even one of presumably MANY court cases that would follow that high speed chase:

My client's wife Molly was driving their 18-month year old toddler Jenny (look at my Molly's and my client's wedding pictures ... they got married in Santa Barbara, went to Oahu for their honeymoon ... ) to her mother's before heading off to work (Molly worked second shift at a Bob's Big Boy off of the 210 in Glendale, and look at all the pictures of their little Jenny playing with her little ducky in the bathtub at grandma's ...) when OUT OF NOWHERE THEIR CAR WAS CRUSHED BY A SEMI THAT SPUN OUT OF CONTROL AS A RESULT OF A HIGH SPEED POLICE ACTION with LAPD chasing some "shadowy figure" named Bryan Mills (it's all on the transcripts of the Police Radio of the time) who LAPD now maintains "committed NO CRIME."   My client's beautiful wife and 18-month-old toddler -- again look at all the lovely family pictures  -- ARE DEAD and LAPD and the District Attorney are NOW SAYING that Mills is "innocent."  HUH????   If he didn't resist arrest, my client's wife and kid would be alive today...

So at least this installment in the story seemed to me completely ridiculous (and with some embarrassment, I have to admit now that the two other installments set in Paris and Istanbul pretty much _had to be ridiculous_ as well).

Sigh ... it was a good run ... for a while ...


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Top Five [2014]

MPAA (R)  CNS/USCCB (O)  ChicagoTribune (3 Stars)  RogerEbert.com (3 Stars)  AVClub (B-)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RogerEbert.com (S. Wloszczyna) review
AVClub (I. Vishnevetsky) review

BET coverage
Ebony coverage
Essence.com interview
TheSource.com coverage

Top Five [2014] (written, directed and starring Chris Rock) is an appropriately R-rated, often quite funny (and in my position often quite frustrating to review) film about "a(n important) day in the life" of Andre Allen (played by Chris Rock), a (black) comedian trying to be taken as _more_ than "just a comedian."  (Arguably, the film covers similar ground as the Michael Keaton starring Birdman [2014] ;-)

So Andre Allen's portrayed in this film as having written, directed and starred in a _deathly serious_ 12 Years a Slave [2013] like Epic called "Upri^se" about Haiti's War for Independence, the largest and most successful Slave Uprising (the slaves _won_) in history since Spartacus or The Exodus.  This "important day in the life" of Allen was the day in which this film was to have been released to the theaters ... But was a film about a vast number of very upset, machete wielding black people putting-down / slaughtering thousands upon thousands of terrified white people really gonna be a "big draw" in the United States today ...? ;-) -- think Apartheid-era Zulu [1964] in reverse ;-)

THIS WAS PART of what 's on Andre's mind on this, very important, day.  The OTHER part was the, a few days hence, the "reality show wedding" that he's consented to do with his reality show star / fiancee' Erica Long (played by Gabrielle Union). 

But the reality show wedding IS "a few days hence" (though at the end of the day he has to "drop by" a (scripted?) "reality show bachelor party" - with friends / comedians Adam Sandler, Jerry Seinfeld and Whoopi Goldberg expected "to be present").  IMMEDIATELY before him was an interview with New York Times whose reviewer had previously HATED Allen's STUPID but INCREDIBLY SUCCESSFUL Allen in a head-to-toes-bear-suit "Hammy the Bear Superhero / Comedy" films.

To Allen's relief, the NYT reporter who steps out of the cab to meet him was not the 50+ year old white-anglo-male-patrician blowhard that he expected but a young/earnest African-American reporter named "Chelsey Brown" (still a very anglo name, but less threatening ... played by Rosario Dawson).  She asks if she could "shadow him" for the rest of the day so that she could write her piece about him at the end.  Having no particular reason to reject someone who was both attractive and seemed to be someone who probably would give him a fair-shake, Andre consents to this "shadowing-style interview."

The rest of the movie ... that (as per rogerebert.com reviewer Susan Wloszczyna) _does_ feel A LOT like the "Before Midnight" series of films (great insight there!) ... ensues.

The banter / conversation between the two, often more sexually graphic than it needed to be (again, the R-rating is certainly deserved as are the CNS/USCCB reviewer's concerns), is nevertheless often very, very good and both of the characters seem quite real.  But then, what exactly is "reality" here?

"Chelsey" turns out to be a young, hustling African American woman (of Latin American, hence Catholic heritage), a once teenage now still unwed mother and recovering alcoholic, who's still having all kinds of trouble with men, writing (quite successfully actually) for all kinds of magazines (amusingly from "Cosmo" to "the NYT" ;-) though under _all kinds of pen-names_.  (When was _she_ going to be able to "step-out" into the world under HER OWN IDENTITY?)

Allen began his life "in the projects" (there's a scene where his dad shakes him down for money) who had succeeded in first becoming a stand-up comedian, then a comedic actor (even if he had to _cover his own face_ to do so ...) and now was trying _really hard_ to become a serious actor even as he's getting married to a "reality show" star WHO HE ACTUALLY DID FEEL SOMETHING-FOR BECAUSE SHE _DID_ ACTUALLY HELP GIVE HIM DIRECTION EARLIER IN HIS LIFE WHEN HE WAS "LOST".

So portrayed is an intriguing and often quite honest-looking, multi-dimensional "mess" and truth be told, a story whose elements are not altogether far from what one continues to hear in the Confessional ;-).

So while I do wish that some of the dialogue and _some of the situations_ were "a little bit cleaner," nevertheless I do think that the film is quite good and deserving of many of the critical accolades that it has received.  So over all, good job folks, good job!

And I'd like to END BY THANKING Rosario Dawson for first _keeping her stage name_ ROSARIO and then allowing her character in this film to remain Catholic.  Yes, her character still had some "issues" (don't we all...).  BUT IT WAS NICE TO SEE that in her character's quite orderly (4 years in AA) apartment a Crucifix and a statue of Mary in places where one would expect them to be in a nice orderly Catholic home of today.  This may seem like "a little detail," but I certainly caught it AND APPRECIATED IT.  So again, good job there Rosario, good job! 


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The Gambler [2014]

MPAA (R)  CNS/USCCB (L)  ChicagoTribune (2 Stars)  RogerEbert.com (2 Stars)  AVClub (B-)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
ChicagoTribune (R. Moore) review
RogerEbert.com (O. Henderson) review
AVClub (A.A. Dowd) review  

Anyone who's played a little Blackjack in his/her life (HOPEFULLY for FAR, FAR LOWER STAKES THAN IN THIS FILM) will find the opening sequence in The Gambler [2014] (directed by Rupert Wyatt, screenplay by William Monahan based on the screenplay for the 1974 film by James Toback) PAINFUL:

Still looking somewhat rich, if disheveled, 30-something Jim Bennett (played by a surprising and impressive Mark Wahlberg) walks into a late night seaside Southern California illegal gambling establishment with a wad of big bills, asks for several tens of thousands of dollars of chips, gets them, proceeds to a blackjack table, places a $10,000 chip on the table and ... wins.  Then, HE KEEPS THE $10,000 there along with his $10,000 winnings and plays again ... and ... wins again.  Then keeping his bet and his winnings on the table again (now up to $40,000 (!)) ... and ... dealer looking toward his supervisor for advice (who nods to give the okay) ... plays again ... and ... wins again.  KEEPING NOW $80,000 on the table he asks to play again ... gets his cards and ... loses it all.  A few hands later, he's LOST EVERYTHING that he's come to the Establishment with.

OMG ... this guy is insane.  There's NO "SYSTEM" to his playing.  HE JUST "PLAYS" UNTIL HE LOSES _EVERYTHING_.

And to make the point, after insulting a smiling, immaculately dressed, shaking-his-head (at Bennett's recklessness) African-American loan-shark named Neville Baraka (played by Michael Kenneth Williams) and after being reminded by the illegal gambling establishment's owner "Lee" (played with magnificent understated "east Asian mafia fashion" by Alvin Ing) that Bennett owes the Establishment $240K and "someday" (soon ...) he's gonna have to pay that back, Bennett goes back to said still smiling, still-shaking-his-head loan-shark to loan him $50,000.  Now grinning-from-ear-to-ear over the insanity of it all, Baraka explains to him that he'd expect full payment plus 2 points ($20,000) in a week.  Bennett agrees, takes the $50,000 and proceeds to lose those $50,000 IN  EXACTLY THE SAME WAY THAT HE LOST THE $50K that he walked-in with.

Honestly WT(F) ??   Honestly, WHO PLAYS LIKE THIS?  An "ADDICT"?   No, someone with a death wish.  But why?

Well that's the rest of the film.

Now (of course) there are people (enablers??) who despite hating him / fearing him / fearing what his "problem/predicament" could DO TO THEM remain ARGUABLY FASCINATED by him (or just want to "help" him) -- his mother (played by Jessica Lange), a student of his (played by Brie Larson) and a THIRD "underworld figure" (played by John Goodman).

But can one really help someone who seems to be dead set on dying (and apparently insisting on doing so in "dramatic fashion")?  The police know a similar phenomenon quite well: "Suicide by cop..."

This all said, there's ANOTHER MORE "STRUCTURAL" DILEMMA: This is a "Hollywood movie" after all and "Hollywood" prefers that its films "end well."  So what does Hollywood / the filmmakers do with a story like this?  Do the filmmakers THEMSELVES pull their lead character out of his predicament ... or ... do they allow the film to run its more natural / inevitable course a la Nicolas Cage in Leaving Las Vegas [1995]? 

I'm not going to tell you ;-) ... but in any case this is a film that DEMANDS to be discussed after it's over.  And in that sense, Great job!


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The Celestial Wives of the Meadow Mari (orig. небесные жены луговых мари) [2012]

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

IMDb listing

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

E-Kazan.ru coverage*  Filmz.ru interview with director*

MariUver.ru (S. Nikitin) review*

Argumenty-i-Fakty (A. Rogova) review* (5/10)
Argumenty-i-Fatky (M. Mamona) review* (8/10)
Kino-teatr.ru (E. Tkachev) review*
Pravda.ru (A. Evseev) review*
RIA-Novosti.ru (G. Olkhovoy) review*
RusKino.ru (S. Stepnova) review* (8/10)
Vedomosti.ru (O. Zintsov) review*

CineVue (P. Gamble) review (3/5)
EastEurFilmBulletin (M. Pfeifer) review
EyeForFilm.co.uk (A. Robertson) review (4/5)
Sound on Sight (R. Dickie) review

The Celestial Wives of the Meadow Mari (orig. небесные жены луговых мари) [2012] [IMDb] [en.wikip] [ru.wikip]*[KN.ru]*[KP.ru]*[KT.ru]* (directed by Aleksey Fedorchenko [IMDb] [en.wikip] [ru.wikip]*[KN.ru]*[KP.ru]*[KT.ru]* screenplay by Denis Osokin  [IMDb] [ru.wikip]*[KN.ru]*[KP.ru]*[KT.ru]* based his book [GR] [WCat] [Amzn] by the same name) is EXACTLY the kind of "indie" / "insurgent" (in the best sense of the word) film that I largely created my blog to help make better known to the world.

The film did play some of the festival circuit in 2013 including the 2013 New York Film Week (whose films for the sake of "better understanding among nations" I've decided to look-up and review here) before returning back into obscurity.  I do actually hope that blogs like this one will keep at least the filmmaker and author as well as the Mari [en.wikip] people's folk-tales and practices (which make up the subject matter of much of their works) in the "collective consciousness" of the world because I do believe that their work is important and THE MARI CAN HELP ALL OF US, ESPECIALLY THOSE OF US OF (ANY) EUROPEAN DESCENT BETTER UNDERSTAND OURSELVES AND WHERE WE CAME FROM.

I write this because, the Meadow Maris (to distinguish them from the Mountain and Eastern Maris ;-) a Finno-Ugric people (hence related to the Finns/Estonians and Hungarians but lets not forget the Moldavs or Karelians either :-) still live-in and call-home the central Volga / Ural region (in a Russian administrative region called Mari-El [en.wikip] [ru.wikip] ) that was (probably) the Finno-Ugric peoples' original home.    

Further, the Maris are often called now "The Last Authentic Pagans of Europe" (the current film shows some of the characters praying / lighting candles at various traditional birch tree shrines) and hence knowing of / understanding their traditional beliefs / practices can help all people of European descent better know our (or their) own roots as well. 

This is not the first collaboration between filmmaker Aleksey Fedorchenko [IMDb] [en.wikip] [ru.wikip]*[KN.ru]*[KP.ru]*[KT.ru]* and Denis Osokin  [IMDb] [ru.wikip]*[KN.ru]*[KP.ru]*[KT.ru]* both apparently from the region.  Previously, they had collaborated on a film called Silent Souls (orig. Овсянки) [2010] [IMDb] [KP.ru]*[KT.ru]* which featured some of the funerary traditions of the Mari people.  The current film is about some of the Meadow Maris' beliefs and somewhat (to us) odd if generally simply quite "earthy" practices regarding fertility / sexuality.

However, it should be noted that the form that the film-maker / writer use here to inform the viewer of these traditional Mari beliefs and practices is NOT that of a strict documentary.  (Actually, an excellent if far-more-formal-in-structure documentary about beliefs and practices of the Mari is a 20 minute English language documentary segment produced by Russian Television entitled "Europe's Last Pagans" available on both its website and the Maris' own YouTube channel).   Instead, the filmmaker / writer express the Maris' traditional beliefs / practices in the course of the playing out of a drama (as in the case of Silent Souls (orig. Овсянки) [2010] [IMDb] [KP.ru]*[KT.ru]*) and/or the dramatization of the Maris' own folktales (as in the case of the current film).  The effect is certainly a livelier (and more authentic/lived-out-in-practice) presentation.
 

Now in fairness it should be noted here that "small" indigenous peoples all across the globe have during the course of history found themselves under various pressures to assimilate to the dominant or even occupying nation / culture.

The case of the Maris is no different.  From the time of the Czars, through the Soviet Era ("progressive" and "internationalist" in ideology but "if we're all 'internationalists' why hold on to one's 'particular culture...' especially if it is 'traditional' (meaning) 'backward'..."), to the era of the current Russian Federation (or "Federation"), the Maris have been under similar pressure to "Russify."

So the recent (apparently ethnic Russian) leader of the "Republic of Mari El" has apparently closed a number of Mari language newspapers in the region [en.wikip].  But then films like this are made and a Mari-run websites like MariUver and even Mari-run YouTube channels are created as well. 

Being an ethnic minority in a larger country is always a challenge, everywhere.  But the case of the Maris actually helps us to appreciate the value of respecting the _continued life_ and _vitality_ of indigenous peoples like the Mari.  THEY CAN HELP US UNDERSTAND WHO WE ARE AND WHERE WE CAME FROM.

GREAT FILM!  And I do hope that filmmaker Aleksey Fedorchenko [IMDb] and writer Denis Osokin  [IMDb] get to travel far-and-wide with their future works and that writer Denis Osokin's [GR] works get translated into English soon.


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

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Mr. Turner [2014]

MPAA (R)  ChicagoTribune (4 Stars)  RogerEbert.com (3 1/2 Stars)  AVClub (B+)  Fr. Dennis (2 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RogerEbert.com (M. Zoller Seitz) review
AVClub (A.A. Dowd) review  

CineVue-Cannes (J. Bleasedale) review (4/5)
CineVeu (C.Williams) review (5/5)
EyeForFilm (R. Mowe) review (4/5)
Independent.co.uk review (5/5)
SlantMagazine (C. Cabin) review (3.5/4)

To be truthful, I was not overly impressed by Mr. Turner [2014] (written and directed by Michael Leigh) a British bio-pic about 19th century artist J.M.W. Turner (played in the film by Timothy Spall).  To be sure, THE CINEMATOGRAPHY was often stunning producing still or lingering panoramic shots that replicate the dewy shimmering tones, often facing into an afternoon sun, of the landscape paintings for which the artist was famous.  Anyone with some experience with a camera would appreciate the difficulty of these kind of shots ... to get the tones just right, remarkable!

But if Mr Turner "had an eye" for the subtleties of light, in other aspects, he was portrayed in the film as a veritable Neanderthal.  As portrayed, he grunted most of his speech, and when he made the occasional sexual advance on some poor woman that he had become fond of (he apparently considered himself "entitled" to that sort of thing...), the portrayal truly left me speechless.  By midway through the movie, I was wondering: "Couldn't they have just put a club in his hands?"  As presented, his "M.O." was just that appalling ;-)

So what to make of a film like this?  The "Masterpiece Theater" / Downton Abbey [2010-] crowd would probably eat this film up.  However, with the exception of some of the often stunning outdoor cinematography, I found myself "rolling my eyes" at Turner's "cave man" demeanor and glancing at my watch (a lot ...) looking forward to the film's eventual end. 

So cinematography aside, this film is certainly not for everyone.



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The Homesman [2014]

MPAA (R) ChicagoTribune (2 1/2 Stars)  RogerEbert.com (3 1/2 Stars)  AVClub (B-)  Fr. Dennis (3 place)

IMDb listing
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RogerEbert.com (S. O'Malley) review
AVClub (I. Vishnevetsky) review  

The Homesman [2014] (directed and screenplay cowritten by Tommy Lee Jones along with Kieran Fitzgerald and Wesley A. Oliver based on the novel by Glendon Swarthout [IMDb]) is something of a subversive / "revisionist" or perhaps "corrective" Western.  (Since there have been _so many_ Westerns made over the years, film-makers (and actors / actresses) do, with due fairness to their crafts, look for fresh approaches to the genre).

So the approach taken in this story was to take a look at the "Old West" from the perspective of the women that went out West -- with their parents, with their husbands, and even with fiances the they barely knew.  Approached from this angle, "the Frontier" wasn't exactly an awesome place to go.

Indeed, the story presented in this film reminds me of the stories recounted to me by our church secretary in a parish that we used to have in Milwaukie, OR (just outside of Portland) where I had served my diaconate.  Having a couple of young daughters, she had gotten involved in the various commemorations of a fairly big anniversary of the Oregon Trail.  One of the insights that she shared from the experience was that _pregnancy_ was one of the main realities for the wives who traversed the Trail with their husbands and families back in the 1840s: Either they were already pregnant when they started the journey or became pregnant during it.  In any case, however, the challenge for people today trying to appreciate the hardships of making the then almost 6 month journey was to imagine doing it, pregnant, sitting in (or when things got really bad, laying in) a wagon that was going albeit slowly but nevertheless up-and-down-and-all-around as it was traversing a well-worn and not particularly well-maintained dirt path that was the Oregon Trail -- from Independence, Missouri all the way to Willamette Valley in Oregon.

The current film set in the rather endless short-grass prairie of Nebraska is largely about three young wives who went crazy out there in the middle of the endless "nowhere" (seriously some of the very evocative and (to make the point) necessarily _depressing_ panoramic shots in the film make the Nebraska of the mid-1800s look like the "sand planet" where "Luke" would have "grown-up" in the first Star Wars [1977] movie).  A fourth woman, Mary Bee Cuddy (played with Oscar Nomination worthiness by Hillary Swank) is tasked by her local Pastor (played by John Lithgow) to take the women back to Iowa where another Pastor friend and his wife would take care of them and perhaps send them back to their original families.  Again, this is not exactly the "American frontier story" that we're generally acquainted with...

Since Mary Bee Cuddy, tough, competent as the rest, perhaps _more competent_ than most of the local men (several of whose wives she was being tasked to "take home to their original families") was nevertheless "a woman" ... she's encouraged to find a man, really _any man_ to serve as a "homesman" (the title of the story) to "help her" with this sad and difficult task.  The ONLY man that she finds who could help her was a small-time drunk / scoundrel, arguably a "sorry excuse for a man" (played in the film, certainly with some delight by the director Tommy Lee Jones himself).

So then, there's the story's set up:  The honest and tough, perhaps tragically "too tough" for her own good Mary Bee Cuddy, sets off with three crazy women in tow and a not altogether sane male drifter who's supposed to "help her" in her task to bring the said "crazy women" back home somewhere "back East" Iowa-way.  Much, often quite sad / sometimes quite poignant ensues ...


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