Little Seen Film of the Day – Or (My Treasure)

Or (My Treasure)For fans of bleak foreign films that make you want to slit your wrists when you’re finished, don’t miss this hard-hitting, powerful film by Israeli director Keren Yedaya. Or is a hard worker. She collects discarded recyclable bottles, goes to school, and works washing dishes in her neighbor’s restaurant. She uses the money she collects from her bottle returns to buy food for her mother, who is just being released from a clinic. This mother-daughter family is struggling to make ends meet on the sporadic incomes of Or’s job. Oh, Or’s mother Ruthie works as well: as a prostitute, and while her work can occasionally bring in some money, Or is doing everything she can to get Ruthie to quit the business. She even goes so far as to find her mother a job cleaning the house of a wealthier (an slightly eccentric) mother of a friend. The problem is, while Ruthie loves her daughter, and realizes her chosen profession tears Or apart, she doesn’t really seem to want to stop. To complicate matters, Or is quite popular with the boys, and is pretty sexually active. Yedaya plainly shows us the difficulties life throws at these two women, and some of the joys as well. But it’s all short lived, as we can tell from the tone of the film. And the film spirals toward an inevitable conclusion despite possibilities that convince us that things might work out all right.

The talented actress Ronit Elkabetz is tragic and flawed as Ruthie. Young Dana Ivgy is heart breaking as Or, struggling mightily against forces beyond her ability to control. Yedaya bathes her film in realism, and many scenes seem so raw, naked and personal that I felt uncomfortable viewing them.

Little Seen Film of the Day – Beijing Bicycle

Beijing BicycleBEIJING BICYCLE is a startling film that begins as a charming, warm-hearted tale of a country boy struggling to cope with life in the big city of Beijing, and ends as a cynical, pointed look at today’s society, and the hardened values that are needed to survive. Guei is the central character, a young man, recently transplanted from the country, who finds work as a bicycle messenger. Just as he is about to pay-off his new bike, it is stolen. When he finds Jian, a school boy from the city, riding his bicycle things become very complicated. The bicycle is certainly a ubiquitous symbol in China, as they fill the streets and quickly become essential possessions for these two young men. The startling, and serious ending to this film really draws out the thought and discussion.

Director Xiaoshuai Wang has made several films since 2001’s BEIJING BICYCLE, but I have not seen any of them.  I would be curious to see some of his other films.  He does a remarkable job in this film making a compelling films whose central characters are difficult to relate to.  Lead actress Xun Zhou has starred in several Asian films including SUZHOU RIVER and BALZAC AND THE LITTLE CHINESE SEAMSTRESS

Little Seen Film of the Day – Apartment Zero

Apartment ZeroAPARTMENT ZERO is a most unusual film that made a big impression on me when I saw it in the late 80’s.  Written and directed by Martin Donovan (who later went on to write DEATH BECOMES HER), this combo black comedy/thriller stars Colin Firth as Adrian, a repressed and socially awkward Brit living in Argentina who is struggling to make ends meet operating a repertory theatre with a dwindling audience while paying for the care of his mother in a home.  Despite his social anxiety, he is forced to look for a roommate, and after a series of unsuitable possibilities, settles on the ruggedly handsome Jack, played by Hart Bochner, with whom he is instantly attracted to physically.  The two start up an bizarre relationship, with Adrian intrigued by the charismatic Jack, but more unexpectedly, Jack seeming to share a similar affection for Adrian.

Adrian’s neighbors in the apartment building are an eccentric bunch who immediately take a liking to Jack after being repeatedly rebuffed socially by Adrian, several of which both male and female, become physically involved with Jack.  Adrian resents the connections Jack is making with the neighbors, and begins to put demands on his accommodating roommate.  Adrian’s friend Claudia is involved with a political committee that’s investigating a series of murders that bear a striking resemblance to those committed by members of death squads that operated in Argentina in the 70s.  When she discovers a possible tie between Jack and these death squads, a confrontation between the two leads the film into a violent spiral of revelations and twisted actions.

When I saw APARTMENT ZERO I still wan’t out to many people as a gay man, and the homoerotic undertones of the film fascinated me.  The black humor is exceptionally handled, and the performances by the two leads are terrific, especially Firth as the repressed Adrian.  Sadly, the theatrical cut contained more homoerotic content that was edited from the home video version.  I’m not sure if that version is available to screen.

Little Seen Film of the Day – Once Upon a Time in Anatolia

Once Upon a Time in AnatoliaNuri Bilge Ceylan’s seventh film (following the outstanding trio of DISTANTCLIMATES, and THREE MONKEYS continues the trend proving him to be a filmmaker of note. ONCE UPON A TIME IN ANATOLIA clocks in at 157 minutes, and it starts off at an intentionally grueling pace. Part murder mystery, part police procedural, what Ceylan’s latest film really is an exploration into the human soul. The film is split fairly evenly into the dark of night, and the clinical light of day. For the first hour plus, a posse of police officers, a doctor, a prosecutor and two confessed murderers roam the quiet steppes of Anatolia, searching for the body of a murder victim. Sadly, the self-confessed murderer was drunk the night of the crime, and is having trouble remembering exactly where they buried the body.

As the trio of vehicles wends their way through the darkness of the hilly and windy landscape, the characters provide some banter that is at times humorous, and at times banal. As the group grows weary and decides to stop for the night in a small village, the first plot twist occurs, along with the appearance of the first woman to be seen in the film. ??The body is eventually found, and the film shifts to the small town where the autopsy is to be conducted.

The narrative shifts as well, to the POV of the doctor, a quiet observer, who continues to observe the characters around him, including the wife of the murder victim. Played with somber intensity (and a formidable moustache) by Muhammet Uzuner, the doctor becomes the moral pivot upon which the film hinges. His ongoing discussion with the Prosecutor, played with panache and another formidable moustache by Taner Birsel, reveals a telling line about the ruthlessness of women, which may or may not have something to do with the film’s plot. ??And that’s the beauty of this film. It almost doesn’t really matter the motivation behind the central murder, and it’s never really revealed. It leaves you with a lot of questions to ponder, so if you like your films to be all nicely wrapped up at the end, this film is not for you. But if you’re a fan of Ceylan’s previous films, or if you like amazing cinematography, perplexing and sometimes amusing dialog and mysterious examinations of the human soul, you will want to check out this film.

Little Seen Film of the Day – Vigil

VigilNew Zealand director Vincent Ward made a splash in the 90’s with the Robin Williams film, What Dreams May Come, before that indie film goers enjoyed his work on such films as Map of the Human Heart or Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey.  But his first narrative, a little seen film called Vigil, made a major impression on me even though I’ve only seen it once, in the theater, back in the mid-80’s.

Vigil centers around Lisa, an 11-year-old girl on the cusp of adolescence who lives on an isolated farm in the middle of nowhere, with her parents and senile grandfather.  When her father dies in a tragic accident, her grandfather hires an itinerant hunter  named Ethan to help the family survive.  Their antiquated farm is ever on the verge of literal collapse, and while both Lisa and her mother react with aversion at Ethan’s intrusion into their lives, soon a passionate love affair erupts between the widow and this quiet newcomer, driving Lisa to the point of near madness as she copes with grief, puberty, and what she feels is a menacing invading force.

Anyone who has seen Ward’s films knows that he is a visual stylist beyond compare, and Vigil shows this burgeoning talent beautifully.  The remote hills of New Zealand look like a lost, timeless world, well before Peter Jackson ever conceived a a Middle Earth down under.  When Lisa’s emotional quagmire starts to manifest in hallucinations, the audience, seeing the entire film roll out through her eyes, can’t help but be caught up in her mania.  Young Fiona Kay, who later appeared in An Angel at My Table, soars as a young actor in her first film.  Her affecting, natural performance is what’s makes it possible for the audience to join her on this journey.  Vigil might be a tough film to find at this point, never having been transferred to DVD in the U.S. as far as I know, but do try to catch it if you ever get the chance.  I’d also recommend Ward’s later film Map of the Human Heart starring Jason Scott Lee and Anne Parillaud.