Under Electric Clouds (orig. Под электрическими облаками / Pod elektricheskimi oblakami) [2015]

MPAA (UR would be PG-13)  Megacritic.ru (28/100)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

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

Forbes.ru (Y. Gladilschikov) review*
Gazeta.ru (J. Zabaluev) review*
Izvestia.ru (N. Kornatsky) review*
Kino-teatr.ru (A. Filippov) review*
KinoAfisha.info (S. Ternovskiy) review*
Kinohod.ru (M. Makedonsky) review*
RBC.ru (G. Ustiyan) review*
Vedomosti.ru (O. Shakina) review*
Vozduh.ru (N. Golman) review*

EEFB (K. Kuzma) review

Kino-teatr.ru (M. Timofeeva) interview w. director*


Under Electric Clouds (orig. Под электрическими облаками / Pod elektricheskimi oblakami) [2015] [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KP.ru]*[KT.ru]* (written and directed by Aleksey German, Jr [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KP.ru]*[KT.ru]*) is a quite dense film.  It played recently at the 2015 (51st Annual) Chicago International Film Festival.

It's NOT FOR EVERYBODY, but those who'll "get it" will probably enjoy it ... A LOT.   For the film is basically a surreal, near-future sci-fi-ish allegory about contemporary Russia ... approaching twenty-five years after the fall of the Communism.

Further the film itself is already an artifact: A RUSSIAN, UKRAINIAN and POLISH co-production, virtually all reviewers have noted that this will probably be "the last" of this kind of artistic collaboration between the three countries "for a while."

Set in 2017, 100 years after the Russian Revolution [en.wikip] [ru.wikip]*, it's winter / it's COLD and the principal "investor" / "visionary" behind the construction of a grand-futuristic skyscraper standing by a thoroughly frozen / wind-swept beach ... has died.  Only a vague skeletal outline of the bottom portion of the quite avant-garde-ish skyscraper appears to have been completed.  Yet it does extend into the low-lying clouds onto which (the clouds) advertisements are sometimes projected (hence the film's title "Under Electric Clouds").

Well, with the principal "investor" / "visionary" behind the project DEAD, what now?  That's indeed, the story, told in seven interlocking segments, each featuring various persons effected (or NOT effected, or simply NOT concerned) by the demise of the project.

The first segment features a poor Kyrgyz laborer named Karim (played by Karim Pakachakov [IMDb] [KT.ru]*) who came to the frozen construction site to help build monstrosity and now stood to lose his job.  We see him spending the night covered by simply a clear plastic tarp, sleeping on the frozen beach... What's HE gonna do?  And does ANYBODY care?

The second segment features "the heirs" to the "investor" / "visionary" who died -- Danya (played by Viktor Bukanov [IMDb] [KT.ru]* and Sasha (played by Viktoriya Korotkova [IMDb] [KT.ru]*) -- who really don't seem to care much about their Father's project.  They just seem to enjoy his "oligarch worthy" wealth.  They have a R2D2 like ELECTRONIC SERVANT - who, fitted with a camera, may actually be spying on them (!) - who does the kind of work that the HUMAN BEING Karim (of the first segment) would have probably loved to have been able to do rather spending his nights sleeping on the frozen beach covered only by that clear plastic tarp...).  Sasha also seems to find it funny that "dad's architect" upon hearing of his death tried to "set himself on fire" but "the matches proved to wet ..."  However, Danya and Sasha seem genuinely surprised to find themselves arrested and interrogated (still nicely ... they still have a lot of money) by the authorities for their father's alleged embezzlement.

In subsequent segments, we do get to meet the architect Petr (played by Louis Frank [IMDb] [KT.ru]*) who is indeed distraught that his building will probably never be completed.  And even if those matches were "wet" that time when he tried to set himself on fire, he does eventually prove "resourceful" in ending his life in despair.

But before he does so, we're also introduced to his friend, a historian Nicolai (played by Merab Ninidze [IMDb] [KT.ru]*) who actually is probably the main character of the story:

Nicolai was actually "a hero" back in 1991 when as a student he stood there (with other students) along with the then "rising star" President of the then R.F.S.S.R. Boris Yeltsin [en.wikip] protecting the Russian "White House" (the Russian Federation's parliament building) when coup plotters seeking to overthrow then Soviet Premier Gorbachev [en.wikip] sent tanks that way.  (A few years later, Yeltsin sent similar tanks to shell the same Russian Parliament building when it was taken-over by another set of coup plotters, bent on over-throwing him).

Anyway, Nicolai was "a hero" back 1991 and eventually finished his PhD in history, only to reduced to being "a tour guide" at a museum threatened to be knocked down to make way for the tower complex of this story.

Interestingly enough, Nicolai's thoughts/feelings about this are quite ambivalent: (1) He resents being reduced to a tour-guide at a museum, period. (2) If the museum gets razed, he stands to lose even the "little job" that he has. (3) He's actually friends (since college days) with Petr the architect of the tower to be built, liking to talk to him "about laptops." (4) The tower would actually "make history" (even if it would cost him, a historian, his job ...).  And (5) THE YOUNG PEOPLE OF 2017 DON'T SEEM TO CARE MUCH ABOUT HISTORY ANYWAY.

We already met two of these "care free" / "frivolous" YOUNG PEOPLE (the adult children of the Oligarch commissioned the building of the tower to begin with).  But there are others including an eminently CHARMING / ever-smiling 20/30-something Greta Gerwig-looking character (played by Anna Ekaterininskaya [KT.ru]*) who leads a bunch of nerdy 20/30-something Russian males in  Tolkien-esque role-playing battles.  And the ever-smiling  "Greta Gerwig" character also spews all sorts of historical nonsense (that no doubt she's "learned on the internet") like (a) people under Stalin were happy, and (b) Hitler wasn't really that bad.  And this makes once serious PhD historian now soon-to-be-possibly-unemployed museum-tour-guide Nicolai cringe, but he appears powerless to do anything about it.


So the world / Russia portrayed is one where actual work, creation, history or even matter does not matter.  Instead everything is fungible, ethereal and _fantasy_ ... like electronic projections of advertisements onto clouds.

Again, this is a rather dense film is NOT necessarily for everybody.  Indeed, EVEN IN RUSSIA the film got only a 28% positive rating from readers on Megacritic.ru (basically Russia's version of RottenTomatoes.com).  Even in Russia, there are FAR MORE POPULAR / ACCESSIBLE FILMS than this.  I recently viewed and reviewed several [1] [2] [3] [4].   Nevertheless, for those who get this film, it's certainly a thought provoking one.  Good job!


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

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Orphans of Eldorado (orig. Órfãos do Eldorado) [2015]

MPAA (UR would be R)  Fr. Dennis (4+ Stars)

IMDb listing
AdoroCinema.com listing*

AdoroCinema (F. Russo) review*
CineFestivais.com.br (A. Garrett) review*
Papo de Cinema (E. Fernandes) review*
Take 148.net (A.C. Nicholas) review*


Orphans of Eldorado (orig. Órfãos do Eldorado) [2015] [IMDb] [AC]* (directed and cowritten by Guilherme Coelho [IMDb] [AC]* along with Marcelo Gomes [IMDb] [AC]* and Hilton Lacerda [IMDb] [AC]* inspired by the celebrated novel Orphans of Eldorado [GR] [WCat] [Amzn] (orig. Órfãos do Eldorado [GR]*[WCat]* [Amzn]*) by Milton Hatoum [en.wikip] [pt.wikip]*[GR]*[WCat] [Amzn] [IMDb] [AC]*) is a quite steamy Brazilian romance / erotic thriller set in the Amazon that played recently at the 2015 (51st Annual) Chicago International Film Festival.

Thirty-something "prodigal son" Arminto Cordovil (played by Daniel de Oliveira [IMDb] [AC]*) returns after many years back to the bustling mid-sized riverside town on the banks of the Amazon where he was born.  His father (played by Henrique da Paz [IMDb] [AC]*) had made his fortune in the ship building business.  But that was pedestrian for Arminto, so he ditched that way of life fifteen years back for a more "bohemian" one, playing guitar at small river-side barzinhos (literally "little bars", I DO LOVE PORTUGUESE DIMINUTIVES ;-) up and down the river.   But, alas, at some point, he started to realize that this was not exactly going anywhere.

So he was returning, not penniless, but also not exactly repentant either.  He appeared to be just "turning a page" in his life, without really knowing (or particularly caring) what that next page was going to look like.

When he returns to his childhood home, a rather (but not super)impressive fenced-in mansion (in Brazil, where there are rich people there are _always_ fences ...) he's greeted at the door by his father's maid, late-ish 40-something, Florita (played by Dira Paes [IMDb] [AC]*).  She had been writing Arminto to come home, as his father, an old man by now, was not doing well.  But it IMMEDIATELY becomes clear that things are, well, "complicated."  Florita, perhaps 8, 10, 12 years older than Arminto, had been the one who gave Arminto his first sexual experiences.  YET, one gets the sense that a good part of the reason why Arminto had packed-up his guitar, in part in anger, in part in disappointment, in part in disgust, was that Florita (at that time in her mid-perhaps late 20s) was / had become his father's lover after his mother died.  (Readers, I told / warned you that this was "a quite steamy erotic thriller / romance" ... ;-).  Indeed, Arminto shakes his head with again part anger / disappointment / disgust when it comes to him: "Ah, so you were writing me because 'the old man' is dying (and you need me now to keep your lifestyle)."

Well, Arminto, heads over to one of those river-side barzinhos to try to sort his head out, and runs-into a younger, 20-ish singer on stage, (played by Mariana Rios [IMDb] [AC]*), who even looks like a younger Florita, and is absolutely enamorado (smitten / enchanted / taken aback) by her.  The next several days become a drunken, sexual haze.

When he does make it home, he declares to a somewhat jealous Florita that he's found someone who (in contrast to her ...) will truly be his own. ... 'cept (and Florita here laughs ;-) ... after a three, four, five day (or simply extended) haze with the singer HE DOES NOT REMEMBER HER NAME ;-).  Again, Florita laughs, and tells him "Don't worry my menino (little one) I'll make inquiries."  A few days later, she informs him that she's found who she was a certain Dinaura, and, again, laughing, tells him that he'll never find her...

This sets up the rest of the story, Arminto, leaves everything (again) and spends the next 8 years, going-up and down the rivers of the Amazon, the Purus, the Negro, the Branco, searching in every dive that he could find this fabulous, fantastic, becoming more legendary, mythic by the drunken day ... Dinaura.  It leads him to a river town somewhere on / off the Purus called "Paraiso" where "all is light and bright" but is inhabited only "by the blind" (when he gets there, he comes to "understand" ... the little river town was inhabited by former rubber workers, who were blinded the rubbery compounds boiling off the latex they collected from the Amazon's rubber trees, as they processed them into transportable rubber bricks).

Does he find the fabulous Dinaura? ... I'm not going to say ;-) ... Go see the movie (I DO HOPE IT COMES BACK IN AT LEAST LIMITED RELEASE IN THE U.S. ;-) or at least read the book [GR] [WCat] [Amzn].

I found the admittedly R-rated story WONDERFUL / FASCINATING in good part because I KNOW SOMETHING OF THE AMAZON.  My religious Order, the Servants of Mary, has operated a Mission out in Acre, Brazil since the 1920s.  I visited it three times [1] [2] [3] [4].  I even helped translate a book "The Amazonia That We Do Not Know" originally by Brazilian author Milton Claro about the people of the Amazon and their stories:

The Dinaura character is inspired by the Legend of Iara, basically a Siren of the Amazon.

Then TOWNS like the PARAISO of the film/story above ACTUALLY EXIST in the Amazon.  Indeed, the Servites first came to Acre to help minister to a Leper Colony already existing there along the banks of the Rio Branco near the Brazilian / Peruvian border.

EVEN the story of the "blinded rubber workers" IS ALSO BASED ON TRUTH.  During World War II, after the Japanese took-over Malaysia and with it 90% of the world's rubber industry, the Brazilian army REALLY DID send thousands upon thousands of poor people from the downstream States of the Amazon (like Pará where this movie was filmed) up to Acre along the Purus and Branco Rivers, TO COLLECT LATEX from the NATURALLY OCCURRING RUBBER TREES OF ACRE.  And the latex from the rubber trees would be cooked to rubberize it and form it into more easily tranportable rubber bricks / balls.

The human rights activist Chico Mendes [en.wikip] [pt.wikip]* of Acre, Brazil WHO THE SERVITES KNEW VERY, VERY WELL (as we were the priests and religious in the area where he lived / organized) sought to organize these rubber tappers (seringueros) and lost his life in defense of them.

So THIS IS A PART OF THE WORLD THAT I DO KNOW SOMETHING ABOUT and can testify to.  The Amazon is one fascinating place.  And one can, in fact, appreciate why the Portuguese, a sea-faring people after all, would also have become so utterly enchanted by it.  Let me put it this way: Even in the U.S., the Louisiana Bayou has been the source of disproportionate amount of American stories and culture.  The Amazon basin is several hundred times larger than the Louisiana Bayou and is, again, chock filled with stories upon stories to tell.

GREAT, GREAT JOB! 


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

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Tag (orig. Riaru onigokko) [2015]

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

IMDb listing
AsianWiki listing

IndieWire.com (K. Jagernauth) review
The Hollywood Reporter (C. Tsui) review

Tag (orig. Riaru onigokko) [2015] [IMDb] [AW] (screenplay and directed by Sion Sono [IMDb] [AW], based on the novel [GR]*[WCat]*[Amzn]* by Yûsuke Yamada [ja.wikip]* [GR] [Amzn] [IMDb] [AW]) is a Japanese "high school girl" splatter / horror film that played recently at the 2015 (51st Annual) Chicago International Film Festival.

Teenage Matsuko (played by Reina Triendl [IMDb] [AW]) thinks that she's heading with her classmates on a bus trip.  Perhaps just-a-little-bit nerdier than her classmates, she's writing some sort of a poem / haiku her little journal, when one of her classmates, teasing her, knocks it to the floor.  As bends down to reach for it, some sort of a giant invisible samurai with seemingly a giant invisible sword slices off the top third of bus, slicing-in-half every single one of the people on the bus, the bus driver, Matsuko's teachers, classmates, save Matsuko herself.  WT... happened? ;-)  Much ensues ;-)

What ensues, of course, is very strange.  As Matsuko, covered in the blood from her suddenly splattered classmates runs from the bus, she seems to be pursued by said giant monstrous invisible samurai.  But every time the invisible monster appears to reach her, she ducks and he just slices in half whatever bystanders seem to be around, who after a while, one starts to realize are ALWAYS women, usually teenage / otherwise quite young women.  Hmm...

She makes it back to her school after washing the blood off of herself in a creek and borrowing an apparently unsplattered uniform from one of the many teenage school girls who were decapitated or otherwise sliced in half by the invisible monster with his giant invisible samurai sword. 

However, when she comes to the school (of course, an all girls' school), she finds all her classmates there.  Weren't they just slashed in two a few minutes before??  But there they are, AND _they_ wonder why she's disheveled, all wet and so upset.  Again, WT ...?

They all arrive at school.  Since obviously Matsuko "has a story to tell", four of them, including Matsuko's BFF Aki (played by Yuki Sakurai [IMDb] [AW]) and the class "rebel" Jun (played by Maryjun Takahashi [IMDb] [AW]) decide to ditch first period to give Matsuko to tell her tale ... After hearing her story, Aki, as her BFF, is ever supportive but it is Jun who seems to understand: "The world is surreal.  If you want to change it, you have to do something unexpected, and then it will change."

Well when they come back to school after having ditched first period, all seems to go normally, until ... suddenly out of nowhere, the teachers (apparently resentful that the four teens ditched class) pull out gigantic machine guns and start shooting up the students.  Once more, WT ...?

Matsuko and her friends start running ... and they run into town.  There Matsuko runs into someone who she doesn't know _but who recognizes her_ as "Keiko" and the lead is now transferred to her (played by Mariko Shinoda [IMDb] [AW]).  It turns out that "getting married" ... and a whole new chapter in the story begins.

Then ... just as the wedding scenario is about to play-out ... Matsuko, er Keiko finds herself running away again, but now, suddenly she's in a runner's uniform, a number on her chest, in the middle of a race and being cheered by fans as "Isumo."  The lead role now seems transferred to her (played by Erina Mano [IMDb] [AW]).  One begins to understand why the film's name was tranlated to signify the children's game "Tag/"

Throughout it all, however, "Keiko" and "Isumo" flash back to being Matsuko, and Matsuko's friends Aki and Jun seem to be showing up as well.  Again, WHAT'S GOING ON??

Well, there's an explanation, and there's even an explanation of why ALL THREE SCENARIOS appear to be populated ENTIRELY by teenage girls and otherwise rather attractive young women. 

It's all QUITE "sophomoric" BUT _THAT_ appears to be part of "The Point" ...

Anyway, Matsuko appears to figure out a (quite Japanese) way to "Escape" these rather strange and often blood splattering scenarios ... coming to understand, in part, the advice of her "rebel friend" Jun.

Okay, ONE of the reviewers above wondered, no doubt _half jokingly_ WHY director Sion Sono [IMDb] [AW] films (5 this year) "never get submitted to Cannes" ;-) ;-).  Yet, I have to say that as "stupid" (and often, thankfully, PG-13 level SEXIST) as the movie was, it did "hold one's attention," and the _arguably_ the film's sexism was intentional and _intended as a protest_ against such sexism in Japan's pop culture.  I'M POSITIVE that many feminists both in Japan and here WOULD NOT BUY THIS (and I'd agree with the feminists).

But I don't want to condemn the movie completely because I was happy to this rather exuberant and unapologetic example of contemporary Japanese pop-culture.  And one could imagine that with a few obvious "edits" and a plot fix-or-two, a film like this could actually "pass muster" with the feminist community at least one that would want to engage with young people as well (because the "over the top splattering" in the film would probably fascinate young people of both sexes, as of course do zombies in the States).
 

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

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Song of Songs (orig. Песнь Песней / Pesn pesney) [2015]

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

IMDb listing
Kino-teatr.ua listing*
KinoPoisk.ru listing*

APUM.com (E. Luna) review*
Variety (G. Lodge) review

Song of Songs (orig. Песнь Песней / Pesn pesney) [2015] [IMDb] [KT.ua]*[KP.ru]* (directed and screenplay written by Eva Neymann [IMDb] [uk.wikip]*[ru.wikip]*[KP.ru]* based on the stories of the Ukrainian-born Yiddish writer Sholem Aleichem [wikip] [GR] [WCat] [Amzn] [IMDb] [FrDatM]) played recently at the 2015 (51st Annual) Chicago International Film Festival after premiering in 2015 film festival in Karlovy Vary in the Czech Republic.

It is a lovely work, but it also felt to me like a Central European (Polish / Belorussian / Ukrainian / Russian) "Dances With Wolves [1990]" as the world of the rural Jewish shtetl (village) of that part of the world (and of which Sholem Aleichem wrote about) has been decimated many times over during the past 100 years.  Some of this perhaps would have been inevitable with the more-or-less natural processes of urbanization, industrialization and economically driven emigration.  But this is the region of Czarist and post-WW I pogroms, Soviet (Stalin)-Era forced collectivization, finally where the Nazi Einsatzgruppen death squads rampaged during the first phase of the Holocaust before it was "industrialized" at the Extermination Camps like Auschwitz, Treblinka and Belzec and Sobibor.

For me, the saddest manifestation of this both human and cultural decimation in the film was that this film's spoken language was almost entirely Russian/Ukrainian whereas the language of most of the Jewish residents of the time (and certainly in Sholem Aleichem's stories) would have Yiddish, hence my characterization of the film as a Ukrainian/Russian "Dances With Wolves" which was an American film which _also_ treated the Cheyenne and Sioux Indians of the Great Plains with a lyricism that betrayed the reality that most of them, to say nothing of their way of life, have been wiped out as well).

THIS ALL SAID, this is A LOVELY FILM and perhaps even more poignantly than the American (English language...) musical Fiddler on the Roof [1971] (ALSO based on Sholem Aleichem's stories) it offers Viewers a sense of THE ENORMITY OF THE CRIME that the DECIMATION of Jewish life (both rural and urban) in Central and Eastern Europe was and THE ENORMOUS CULTURAL IMPOVERISHMENT that resulted.  Yes, at the turn of the 20th, MUCH of Central-Eastern Europe was "still Medieval," but it was ALSO STILL BURGEONING with an ENORMOUS AMOUNT OF LIFE.  ALL KINDS OF PEOPLE (and PEOPLES...) LIVED SIDE BY SIDE (and LEARNED FROM EACH OTHER, ATE EACH OTHERS FOODS, SANG EACH OTHERS SONGS, TOLD EACH OTHERS STORIES, DANCED EACH OTHERS DANCES ...).  By century's end, the same region was largely "sorted out" into "rationalized" ethnically-based mini-states with each ethnically based mini-state's ethnic minorities having been largely expelled or worse ... murdered.  This does (perhaps...) make for "simpler map-making" but the whole region has suffered enormously as a result. And which nations have become the world's superpowers?  The multi-ethnic states like the United States, the (still) Russian Federation and China (with India not far behind).  And after a century of "setting down borders" what's Europe doing now?  Seeking to erase them and become _once more_ a multi-ethnic melting pot.  Go figure ...

To the film ... set in the rural shtetl world of Sholem Aleichem's stories it basically follows the trajectory of the Bible's Song of Songs.  There's "a bride and a groom", here "a prince and a princess" Šimek and Buzya (played by Yevheniy Kogan [IMDb] and Milena Tsibulskaya [IMDb] as children and by Arsenity Semenov [IMDb] and Arina Postolova [IMDb]).  Of course, neither Šimek and Buzya are "royalty."  Instead, they grow up as neighbors in a tiny Central European, probably Ukrainian, shtetl (village).  But the Bible's Song of Songs was not intended for merely royalty (and was certainly appropriated) by all since.  And there is a verdant beauty to the Central European country-side that suits the Song of Songs well, and the flirtations between children growing-up as neighbors with the ebb-and-flow of different stages of life suits this Book of Scripture well as well.

All in all, this is a lovely poetic work, like both Aleichem's stories and the Song of Songs.  Yet, underlying it is a profound sadness asking, even crying: How could a world that WAS _so beautiful_ have died SO AWFULLY / TRAGICALLY in the century past?  We know how, and we (or at least most of us) should be ashamed (asking forgiveness...).  Excellent film.


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

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Time Suspended (orig. Tiempo Suspendido) [2015]

MPAA (UR w.b. PG-13)  Fr. Dennis (4 Stars)

IMDb listing
CineNational.com listing*
FilmAffinity.com/es listing*

CorreCamera.co.mx (J. Tapia Sierra) review*
Informador.co.mx (I. Martínez) review*

About Laura Bonaparte
LaPrensa.com.ar () obituary*
LaJornada.co.mx (S. Calloni) obituary*
 
Time Suspended (orig. Tiempo Suspendido) [2015] [IMDb] [FA.es]*(written and directed by Natalia Bruschtein [IMDb] [FA.es]*) is a poignant and powerful documentary that played recently at the 51st (2015) Chicago International Film Festival about the director's grandmother, Laura Bonaparte [1]*[2]* one of the founders of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo [en.wikip] [es.wikip]* movement in Argentina on behalf of Los Desaparecidos (The Disappeared) [en.wikip] [es.wikip]* during the period of Argentina's "Dirty War" [en.wikip] [es.wikip]*

Laura Bonaparte, an Argentine psychoanalyst and activist, lost three of her four of her children, a well as a son-in-law, daughter-in-law and her ex-husband during the "Dirty War," ALL "Disappeared," each suffering widely-different yet always-fatal ends:

Her oldest Nani, an activist in the Provinces at the beginning of the Dirty War (still under the nominal Presidency of Isabel Peron, before the ascent of the outright military dictatorship) was buried in a mass unmarked grave in an Argentine cemetery.  After filing suit against President Peron, Laura was initially given her daughter's severed hands in a bag, and when she refused to accept them in lieu of _the rest of her daughter's body_, she was finally simply given _the rough coordinates_ of the _general area_ in the mass grave at the edge of a (Buenos Aires?) cemetery where she was _probably buried_.  No exhumation was done because presumably there were dozens to hundreds of other bodies buried there as well.

Later when Laura was already in exile in Mexico, her ex-husband was taken one early morning by the military out his apartment, shot and then set on fire along with others in an alley behind the building.  In an earlier recorded interview presented in the current documentary, Laura related that "since it was cold and there was snow on the ground, _a side of his face_ was preserved from the flames."

Finally, her son Victor along with his wife were dragged-out of their apartment, again by the authorities, their two children, one three y.o., the other one y.o., WERE LEFT SIMPLY AT THE APARTMENT BUILDING'S "FRONT DESK" WITH A NOTE GIVING THE PORTER INSTRUCTIONS OF HOW TO "REACH THE IN-LAWS" -- Laura being already in exile and Laura's ex-husband already being dead.  (Miraculously, the two little ones, Laura's grandchildren, were taken by kind souls to said in-laws and survived these horrors.  Indeed, miraculously ALL OF LAURA'S GRANDCHILDREN, including the director of this film, survived all these horrors and live to this day).  Victor on the other hand, was one of those who (it was learned only in the 1990s after the fall of the military dictatorship) were simply dropped from a plane POSSIBLY STILL ALIVE over the ocean to drown (after they were deemed no longer of use to the military interrogators ...).

Okay, Dr. Laura Bonaparte's life was marked by almost unspeakable horror.  And after the fall of the military dictatorship she had spent much of the rest of her life giving interviews, working on behalf of memorial projects across Argentina and Mexico so that these horrors would never be forgotten.

... 'Cept in her later years, and this is when the director, Natalia Bruschtein [IMDb] [FA.es]*, her grand daughter, decided to pick-up the camera and make this final documentary, Laura Bonaparte came down with Alzheimers disease ... 

Yet despite ALL THE HORRORS and TRAJEDIES that I list above, this is a LOVELY, PLAIN-SPOKEN and ULTIMATELY UNBELIEVABLY POIGNANT FILM that will surely make you cry...


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

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Javier Tapia Sierra

A Light Beneath Their Feet [2015]

MPAA (PG)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars) 

IMDb listing

A Light Beneath Their Feet [2015] (directed by Valerie Weiss, written by Moira McMahon) is an excellent Hollywood quality, locally set, indie "coming of age" drama about a high school senior, Beth (played magnificently by Madison Davenport), growing-up in Evanston, IL, trying to navigate her way between her college dreams (of going away to UCLA in California) and taking care of her mother Gloria (played again magnificently / convincingly by Taryn Manning) suffering from bipolar disorder.  Dad (again played quite well / convincingly by Brian King), divorced from Gloria, was remarried and expecting a new child with his new wife Julie (played by Kali Hawk). The film played recently at the 2015 (51st Annual) Chicago International Film Festival.

To be honest, I don't particularly like the "central conflict" (impossibly far UCLA vs mom) in the film or the film's portrayal of the families in the story (all "nuclear" at best).   If there were no grandparents, no uncles or aunts to say nothing of siblings "in the picture," then Beth's departure at the end of the film for UCLA (left thankfully somewhat ambiguous, though it's more-or-less clear where the film-makers seemed to want her to go) would _definitely_ consign mom "to a home" (if at her age, late 40s, one would even exist).  It's hard to imagine an alternative.

THAT SAID, this is a film DEFINITELY WORTH WATCHING.  And since the director, Valerie Weiss, was present for Q/A after the screening, I asked, honestly, if they, the film makers, considered at all making a sequel as the setup of the dilemma was excellent, it's successful playing-out would be the challenge.  To this Ms Weiss answered that they have been looking into pitching the idea of following up the film WITH A TELEVISION SERIES.

I think that would be _great_, because in my line of work as a Catholic priest, I KNOW that there'd be MILLIONS of people / families that could benefit from watching a family struggle with this dilemma of caring for a family member who is truly _borderline_ ... someone who is _almost_ able to take care of him/herself (but _definitely_ not quite), or is able to take care of him/herself _in some things_ but NOT in others.  I would also suggest looking at some of the "telenovelas" of the Spanish channels, because this kind of television series would seem to me to be "more familiar territory" to them.  

In any case, I think that the topic of this film is excellent, and I hope that much more is done with it in the future as MANY, MANY PEOPLE / FAMILIES could benefit.


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In the Underground [2015]

MPAA (UR would be R for language)  Fr. Dennis (4 Stars)

IMDb listing

TimeOut Chicago (M. Smith) review


In the Underground [2015] (directed by Zhantao Song) is a well shot documentary about the life of a mining community (both above ground and below ground) in China today.  The film recently played at the 2015 (51st Annual) Chicago International Film Festival.

I didn't come to the film with a great deal of expectations, 'cept that it was playing at noon (for a discount) on my day off and I generally find anything that is set "a little off the beaten path" (NOT in London, NY or Paris, or in this case NOT in Beijing / Shanghai) interesting.  This film necessarily had to take place "in the (Chinese) provinces" and hence I did expect to learn something.  And did I ;-)

First, the cinematography was actually outstanding.  Near the beginning, the director takes the Viewers with an elevator load of miners down from the surface, several thousand feet, to their "actual place of work." When the elevator started moving down, the sky was still visible at the top of the elevator shaft.  By the time they reached their destination, "the opening to the sky" seemed about as large as a small "star in the sky."  It made for a remarkable intro to an almost necessarily remarkable film.

I would imagine that miners from throughout the world would probably appreciate more the technical details of the film.  To a layman like me, the hydraulic pylons holding up the roofs of the passage ways that the miners passed through looked both relatively modern and (eeek... ;-) "crooked" / "slanted" at times.  I honestly don't know how much of that was simply "well that's the way it is in a mine (any mine)" (or simply dangerous).  But I certainly left the film with an appreciation of some of the dangers of being a miner, period.

The film also followed the lives of some of the miners above the surface along with their families.  ONE THING that REALLY SURPRISED ME (and would PLEASANTLY SURPRISE READERS here) was an extended treatment given TO A FAIRLY LARGE CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY, MEETING IN A FAIRLY LARGE CHRISTIAN CHURCH in this Chinese mining town.

The director, a truly happy-go-lucky guy, very happy to have been given the opportunity to show the film here in the United States, was present for Q/A after the screening.  I therefore asked him AS A CATHOLIC PRIEST about the Christian community pictured in the film and whether such communities "were common" "in the Provinces" outside of China's major cities.  The director smiled and responded that he DOESN'T KNOW OF A SINGLE COAL MINING COMMUNITY IN CHINA (and there SEVERAL HUNDRED OF THEM) that DOES NOT HAVE A LARGE CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY PRESENT THERE.  He added that the Church shown in the film was built by miners' families (wives and mothers) themselves and again underlined that there simply isn't a Chinese mining community anywhere in China today that wouldn't have a large Christian community associated with it.

I COMPLETELY UNDERSTAND THIS.  Mining is a dangerous occupation and I just can't imagine how either the miners below or their families above could function WITHOUT an "outlet for prayer."  My own Religious Order, the Friar Servants of Mary, was built around the devotion to Our Lady of Sorrows ... the loved ones around a family member who's in danger or dying.  We have a Saint, Saint Anthony Pucci, OSM who promoted this devotion in coastal Italy to families of fishermen who again risked their lives for the sake of earning a living for their families.

So I left this film happy as can be to have learned something of China that I didn't know before.  I've heard that Christianity HAS GROWN in CHINA (and, in fact, despite persecution in the Mao Zedong years of China after the Revolution, it grew even then).  But folks, CHRISTIANITY MAY BE GROWING "IN THE PROVINCES" IN CHINA EVEN FASTER THAN ANY OF US COULD IMAGINE.  And that is honestly wonderful news ;-)

Now if it would seem that the film was ONLY (or even predominantly) about the Christian community in this provincial Chinese mining town, that would not be true.  THE FILM IS ABOUT THE LIFE OF THIS MINING TOWN -- The film-makers follow the miners to taverns after their shifts to document some of their conversations / letting off steam after work (hence why the film would probably get an R-rating, due to their language in said scenes ;-).  The lives / going-ons within some of the families of the miners is documented as well.  Some of the street-life / festivalscelebrated in the town (including lovely and very traditional Chinese "street opera") is portrayed.  And after a miner died in mining accident, a quite traditional Chinese funeral for him is followed as well.  What I wish to say here is that in the midst of this _very Chinese_ town a large and vibrant Christian community is portrayed AS PART AND PARCEL of that community and that I found remarkable and honestly wonderful ;-)

I love "International Film Fests" ... ONE _ALWAYS LEARNS_ something NEW ;-)
 

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

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