California Scheming

 

CALIFORNIA DREAMIN' (2009) (A-minus) - This Romanian film tells a shambling tale, based on a true story, of a group of U.S. Marines getting stuck in a small town while chaperoning a load of weapons headed to support a NATO mission in Bosnia. Like a good Coen brothers film, it celebrates quirk and carves out some memorable characters.

Former action star Armand Assante plays it cool here as the captain of the crew who must haggle with the local mayor and the station manager who stopped the train and won't let it proceed. The station manager is used to getting a cut of merchandise that gets pirated as it passes through, but in this instance, it seems he's just being difficult.

That man is Doiaru (above), played to world-weary perfection by Razvan Vasilescu. Besides a persistent case of allergies, he is also dealing with his restless teenage daughter, Monica (Maria Dinulescu), who has broken up with her boyfriend and takes a liking to one of the Marines, though neither can speak a word of the other's language, so she recruits a classmate who harbors a secret crush on her to help translate during their dates. 

In the few days that pass, nothing significant transpires, and Capt. Jones and his crew get a chance to relax and partake in some local customs, including a large open-air banquet featuring an Elvis cover band. The mix of bored, yearning local girls with under-occupied Marines leads to a good deal of carousing. Eventually Capt. Jones and Doiarau engage in a casual summit, and hope emerges for an end to the standoff. 

Director Cristian Nemescu -- who died in a car crash during post production of this, his only full-length feature film -- shows a sure hand in juggling the storylines and deepening the humanity of his characters. His style exhibits hints of Iron Curtain masters like Krzystof Kieslowski and Emir Kusturica. His legacy is this charming, delightful minor-key slice of life.

BONUS TRACK

The original Mamas and Papas title track plays over the closing credits. Here is the more melancholy version, by Jose Feliciano live in East Berlin in the 1980s:

Breathtaking

 

OXYGEN (B-minus) - A woman awakes from a cryogenic coma, apparently in a space capsule, and must reason with a HAL-like computer to help rescue her before her oxygen runs out. Melanie Laurent puts on a hell of a one-woman show in her cramped pod, as she races against time to both survive and crack the mystery of her circumstance.

The screenplay, by newcomer Christie LeBlanc, is pretty clever, and its logic is internally consistent throughout, a neat trick. The biggest problem is how LeBlanc and director Alexandre Aja, in this futuristic excursion, are weighted down by the old-fashioned Bechdel test. Their heroine, Liz, is obsessed with reconnecting with her beloved "husband," whom she sees flashes of as she strains to access her memory banks and hunts for clues to who she is and how she can survive. In the end, this is mostly a cheesy soul-mate story about the power of love and companionship.

If it were not for that heavy-handed hetero-normative shmaltz, "Oxygen" could have been a fascinating sci-fi brain teaser. Liz is a resourceful researcher of cryogenics who seems to have been shot by her own gun. Her interaction with AI assistant MILO (Mathieu Amalric) provides snappy dialogue and narrative development; he is just helpful enough to tease Liz toward the next hint or revelation but never satisfying enough to help her fully unravel the full mystery. 

Fortunately, this zips by in a pretty neat 100 minutes, pushed along by the ominous countdown clock monitoring Liz's dwindling oxygen levels. And the ending is smart and, again, logically consistent. If only the anachronistic rom-com tropes weren't such a distraction.

THE WORLD TO COME (C) - Like clockwork, it's another lesbian love story set in the time before the invention of electricity. But this one is a lukewarm mess, with a mismatched cast and a laborious narrative structure.

Katherine Waterston almost makes this worth watching as Abigail, a dutiful but melancholic farm wife in pre-Civil War upstate New York. Waterston offers a mask of heartbreak and longing following the death of a daughter, and her inner emotional glacier is slowly melted when she meets a neighbor, Tallie (Vanessa Kirby), another matrimonial drudge-worker. As the women visit each other, a bond develops. Slowly. 

Problems abound here. The lethargic pace is frustrating. The men mumble and the women whisper (I eventually engaged the subtitles). The characters seems like four unrelated archetypes rather than organic people in a believable setting. The husbands are portrayed by a pair of mopey duds -- Casey Affleck (with Abigail) and Christopher Abbott (Tallie's menacing mate). The screenplay is written from the perspective of two men (and directed by Mona Fastvold) trying to imagine the inner thoughts of two women from two centuries ago. And the main device they use is extensive voice-overs, mainly Abigail narrating her diary entries but also the ol' corny letter-writing dictation. The leaden line readings, a sop to the era, nearly grind things to a halt at various times.

Waterston brings a haunting ache to the story, but Kirby comes off as way too modern, with both her look and her attitude (and, frankly, her fluffy flowing locks). Affleck's character shows a glimmer of understanding of his wife's attraction to another woman, and while that nuance is interesting, it also is rather far-fetched. Fastvold holds off on showing love scenes and then deftly underplays them, saving the most explicit one for close to the end, as she intercuts it with another scene of tragedy. But in the end, this slog mostly sits on the screen, inert, leaving the viewer as frustrated as the women born in the wrong time.

That Millennium Drift

 

NOMADLAND (A-minus) - Chloe Zhao follows up her wonderful breakthrough "The Rider" with more amateur actors from a real community. Here she embellishes into fiction the story of nomadic older Americans traveling between seasonal jobs and struggling to survive. Frances McDormand adds the professional sheen and emotional gravitas as Fern, a woman adrift since the death of her husband.

McDormand has help from David Straithairn as Dave, a fellow drifter, shooting puppy-dog looks at Fern, who isn't ready to connect with a man. The overall tone is rather morose, with the emphasis on the battle each day to make ends meet and find shelter from the elements. (While most people have RVs, Fern lives out of a van, and always on the brink of economic peril.)

The film is set right after the cratering of the company town of Empire, Nev., with the closure of a U.S. Gypsum plant in 2011, setting Fern on the road to survival. Whereas "The Rider" embedded Zhao in a real community and a non-actor as a star, in "Nomadland" McDormand and Straithairn (and a few other ringers) stand out as great actors. It's not so much a distraction as it is sort of the mirage of a CGI trick. It's almost as if McDormand, no matter how dirtied up she is here, has been digitally stitched into a documentary.

That might not be noticeable to a lot of viewers. Regardless of the casting fiction at play, McDormand wrings true pathos from Fern's situation. The budding relationship with Dave doesn't follow a predictable arc (thankfully), and Fern -- still hamstrung by grief over the loss of her husband -- occasionally is able to open up to a few fellow nomads to make a connection. The non-actors contribute a powerful moment, including Charlene Swankie as Fern's ailing friend and real-life RV-camp host Bob Wells, who pours his heart into a sorrowful monologue.

The undeniable strength here, though, is Zhao's vision and the cinematography of the West by Joshua James Richards, returning from "The Rider." The images, combined with the tinkling piano music of Ludovico Einaudi, set the melancholy mood and lay the foundation for Zhao's storytelling. 

This is gorgeous, heartfelt storytelling.

BONUS TRACK

From the closing credits, Cat Clifford with "Drifting Away I Go":

And a sample of Einaudi's soundtrack:

Musical Interlude: First Thoughts

 

 Headline:

Diver says he was swallowed by humpback whale while diving for lobsters off Provincetown

 

Video:

Baby Goat Movies

 

There is a certain type of art film -- quaint, rural, picturesque, mostly wordless, ponderous -- that will almost certainly get me mocked for liking, even among my most intellectual and erudite friends. These are little film-festival nuggets that rarely gain a wide audience. They can be a challenge to watch, at times, but the rewards can be sublime.

We have dubbed these films Baby Goat Movies, so named after our experience with a Santa Fe Film Festival entry from about a decade ago, "Le Quattro Volte," which prominently features a baby goat as central to its artistic aspirations, notably a fateful result for the little critter. That film has a kinship with the "Qatsi" trilogy of films by Godfrey Reggio, starting in 1982 with "Koyaanisqatsi" -- commonly referred to as a contemplative tone poem with a powerful visual flair. 

We followed up the Santa Fe viewing of "Le Quattro Volte" by dragging a friend to a screening at the University of New Mexico Film Center, and she shook her head, mystified, through most of it, and felt the need to flee halfway through for an extended oxygen break, missing the pivotal "baby goat" scene that shall long live in film infamy. I watched it again recently on the smaller screen, and our date this time appreciated the narrative. I was struck this time by how funny it is at times, especially that damn mischievous little goat. The film truly is a special experience.

Then, we made a triumphant return to an actual movie theater -- the venerable Guild Cinema -- to view this year's version of the Baby Goat Movie, this one starring a hog named Gunda.  Let's review both.

LE QUATTRO VOLTE (2010) (A) - We don't throw around the word profound too often, but this dramatized documentary about a remote rural Italian village drills down into the essence of life -- by analyzing the cycles of existence, from human to animal to vegetable to mineral and back to the start. (The title roughly translates to "the four times" or "the four turns.")

This unique brainchild of Michelangelo Frammartino follows the travails of a goat-herder who is old as dirt, which is an apt metaphor, because his secret to longevity is apparently a concoction he drinks every night, a mix of water and sacred sweepings from the local church. It is not clear if this elixir is meant to cure his hacking cough or cause it. 

Eventually the old man succumbs, and phase two begins with a start -- a goat falling out of the womb and splashing into the dirt. Now we follow the journey of the adorable baby goat, a little rascal among the spring class of upstarts. But a goat doesn't live forever, and if you thought this was a light-hearted animal romp, you will be mistaken. In a truly sorrowful and moving scene, our little hero will eventually end up, as we all do, feeding the tree -- in particular a mighty fir that will be felled, celebrated in a ceremony by villagers, and then converted to charcoal in time for winter so that it can heat the residents' homes.

This all sounds so dull and routine -- and you may find it tedious and pointless -- but Frammartino not only celebrates the natural elegance of the countryside, but he homes in on the fascinating details and rituals of daily life, both human and animal. There is hardly any dialogue, pretty much all of it incidental. It might be trite to say that a movie represents the true purpose of cinema, but I can't think of a better representative of the raison d'etre of the art form. 

GUNDA (A-minus) - I grew up with Arnold Ziffel, the boy-like pig who was treated like a son by Fred Ziffel on TV's "Green Acres." Now a half century later comes Gunda the wunda-pig, a sow burdened by a litter of cute little piglets, all the stars of an intimate black-and-white art documentary about farm life. It is shot by Victor Kossakovsky almost entirely from the pigs' ground level. After 90 minutes you can sense something resembling human emotion from Gunda, just like with clever little Arnold.

The opening scene focuses on the notched opening to the pigs' fenced-in pen, Gunda's exhausted face eventually overrun by the newborns clamoring and clambering over her and spilling out into the open space, perhaps for the first time. Much of the rest of the movie shows the mom either suckling the piglets (it nearly made my own nipples ache in empathy) or modeling the classic behavior of snuffling through the dirt.

At one point Gunda jams a heavy hoof onto the runt of the litter, and Kossakovsky lingers long enough to convey the peril but cuts away before we find out if the baby dies or whether it turns into the slow piglet hobbled by a paralyzed foreleg. About a third of the way in, the filmmaker suddenly cuts away to an extended scene of chickens -- including a one-legged clucker -- emerging from a cage and warily exploring their surroundings. The up-close camerawork reveals the birds' physical details, reminding us just how positively prehistoric they can seem. A later scene spends time with a herd of cows, who are constantly besieged by flying pests. I guess I never realized how cows tend to stand in pairs, facing in opposite directions, presumably so they can swat the flies away from the other's face with their tails. 

But then it's back to Gunda, still shot from snout level, whose piglets are gradually reaching maturity. We never see a human in the entire movie, but in the penultimate scene, a large tractor arrives to decide the family's fate and to engender an ending that wells with emotion. It dawned on me that the names of the animals featured in this film are used as pejoratives for humans -- pig, hog, chicken, cow -- but "Gunda" instead humanizes these beasts in an earthy way. I'm hoping that doesn't insult the animals.

New to the Queue

Thinking "We know how to do this ..."

A scorned man simmers in small-town America, "The Killing of Two Lovers."

Chinese master Jia Zheng-ke is back with a documentary revolving around writers from different eras, "Swimming Out Till the Sea Turns Blue."

Christian Petzold ("Barbara," "Phoenix," "Transit") returns with Paula Beer and Franz Rogowski in the fantasy romance "Undine."

We were disappointed in Theo Anthony's debut ("The Rat Film"), but he's a filmmaker with a unique perspective, so we'll give him another try and check out his outre documentary about video surveillance, "All Light, Everywhere."

A restless New York actress wanders upstate for a meandering adventure in "Slow Machine."

Childlike Wonders

 

STREET GANG: HOW WE GOT TO SESAME STREET (B+) - This documentary about the ground-breaking children's show "Sesame Street" is more for history buffs than fans of the show. The filmmakers dig deep into the origins of the show, the groundwork done in the 1960s to turn the vast wasteland of television into an education tool, one targeting in particular inner-city preschool children.

Many of the key players, their faces aged now 50 years or so, are on hand to recall this sensation that first aired in fall 1969. That includes the creator, Joan Ganz Cooney, and a lot of the actors who created some memorable characters. Of course Jim Henson, creator of the Muppets, is long gone, but we hear from him in archival interviews. And we see him, in clips, on set with Frank Oz, a puppeteering team for the ages. Highlights include an archival interview with Joe Raposo -- the songwriter who created the show's ear candy, who recounts the story of the inspiration behind "Bein' Green," the wistful hit song for Kermit the Frog in 1979 -- and Holly Robinson Peete joining her father, Matt Robinson, who was the original Gordon and the voice of Roosevelt Franklin.

The veterans -- from both behind the scenes and in front of the camera -- reminisce reverentially. What we're missing here is a true sense of the impact of "Sesame Street" on the kids who grew up with the show. It would be interesting to get a sampling of at least a few people whose lives were truly affected by this multicultural teaching tool beamed into homes all over the country. It's a bit ironic that this documentary is more about the adults than it is about the kids. That's not a fatal flaw, but it's certainly a missed opportunity.

TINY TIM: KING FOR A DAY (C+) - This documentary about the avant-garde singing sensation from the late '60s just never feels comprehensive or essential. Tiny Tim (born Herbert Butros Khaury), has been gone 25 years now, but during his heyday, he was a pop-culture phenomenon noted for his appearances on "The Ed Sullivan Show" and for getting married to Miss Vicki on Johnny's Carson's "Tonight Show." He sang in an old-timey falsetto, most notably on "Tiptoe Through the Tulips," jarring dormant memories of 78-speed records spinning a few decades earliers.

The documentary stumbles out of the gate with excessive animated re-creations, in a graphic-novel style, giving the young Herbert Khaury his own sort-of gothic super-hero origin story. Director Johan von Sydow and writer Martin Daniel don't quite recover from that misstep, and the rest of the 78-minute endeavor feels a bit rushed and superficial. We hear from former friends, wives, and colleagues (Wavy Gravy was a big fan) -- plus cutting-edge filmmakers D.A. Pennebaker and Jonas Mekas -- and there certainly is an appreciation for Tiny Tim's talents beyond the fleeting freak he might come off as in the culture's collective memory.

Alas, the music clips are frustratingly brief -- as if the filmmakers were unable to score the rights to the songs and had to limit them to just a few seconds each. And while we get a sense of Khaury's unique personality and his groundbreaking gender fluidity, the sense of the man here feels incomplete.