One-Liners: Scavenging the Past

THE TENTH MAN (B+) - Ariel, a businessman working in New York, returns to Buenos Aires to reconnect with his father, Usher, who runs a charitable foundation in the heart of the city's teeming Jewish district.

This is the latest film from Daniel Burman, the Argentine writer-director who has explored similar father-son themes in his powerfully affecting previous films "Family Law" (2007) and "Lost Embrace" (2005). (I discovered him a couple of years before that when I swooned over his magical film "Every Stewardess Goes to Heaven" at the Santa Fe Film Festival.) Burman is a quiet storyteller, digging deep into his characters and letting his plots meander or slowly reveal themselves.

Ariel (Alan Sabbagh) is a bit of an aging shlub who is having some obvious relationship difficulties with his dancer girlfriend (unseen) and quite the history with his father that manifests itself in a lot of squabbling over the phone. An early flashback to Ariel's childhood establishes the fact that Usher (Usher Barilka), an otherwise attentive father, once skipped one of Ariel's flag-squad presentations at school in order to go off to complete a "minyan," i.e., serve as the tenth man required of certain Jewish ceremonies, such as a funeral.

Ariel, as a present-day adult, ends up spending his visit to the celebrated commercial district Once, helping out at the foundation's headquarters, doing the bidding of his father, who throughout the week never shows up but continually orders him around by phone. Thus, Ariel schleps about scavenging the apartments of dead people for cell phones, prescription drugs and other items that will be of use to the clientele of the charity, or heading up a diplomatic mission to the local butcher to make sure that there will be enough meat to feed the needy folks in the week leading up to Purim. Another mission involves bringing gifts and supplies to a gawky teenager who is in the hospital with a mysterious ailment.

Usher grows into this mythical figure who seems to be manipulating Ariel not only to press him into service but also to shake the son out of his mid-life stupor. Ariel hangs out a lot with Eva, a tall, quiet sad-sack who is in the midst of some sort of vow of silence. The unlikely pair slowly warm to each other as a possible romance takes shape while Ariel's long-distance relationship continues to crumble.

It is obvious that the son is still bending to the will of the domineering father, but the dredging of his past and the rediscovery of his roots seems to have a liberating effect on Ariel. Burman immerses him in that vibrant old-fashioned world, populated with non-actors, giving this an urgent documentary feel to complement the subtle, mature storytelling. It's a satisfying hero's journey.

CAMERAPERSON (B-minus) - Speaking of dredging up the past, noted documentary cinematographer Kirsten Johnson digs into her own archives and pieces together a collage of her greatest hits. As much as she tries to create a coherent theme from the bits, this too often comes off as an unsatisfying patchwork.

Johnson's resume as a globe-trotting camera for hire is impressive. Recent jobs include "Citizenfour," "1971" and "Very Semi-Serious." She worked with Michael Moore on "Fahrenheit 9/11" and tagged along for the philosophy profile "Derrida." But the bulk of the clips here come from more dire circumstances -- post-war Bosnia, the horrors of Darfur, midwives in Nigeria, a wounded boy in Afghanistan. She has contributed to such unsettling titles as "Pray the Devil Back to Hell," "Trapped," "Risk" and "The Invisible War."

Her theme is an obvious one: To live is to suffer. It is her duty, apparently, to expose this suffering, call attention to it, and somehow issue a call to action. But what effect does her camera's gaze have on her subjects? And on her?

She bonds with a Bosnian family, returning to visit them for the sake of this project. Johnson also adds a personal touch by including footage of her mother, who is disappearing from Alzheimer's. That family-album material feels self-indulgent here, especially existing in the same reel as scenes from a destitute hospital in Nigeria where a newborn struggles to survive its first minutes on Earth.

Stories cycle back through, and settings become familiar. But at times it feels like she is rambling. Clips of Golden Gloves boxers seem superfluous. Johnson is partial to setting up establishing shots through flowers and tall grass. Her camera is drawn to close-ups of people's hands as they speak. A scene of a woman going through her dead mom's belongings drags on, though we are finally rewarded with a cool visual punchline captured nimbly by Johnson. Her style brings to mind Chantal Akerman's epic swan song about her mother, last year's "No Home Movie."

But where is the focus? According to an interview in Variety, Johnson described "Cameraperson" as being about "representation and misrepresentation, about political, ethical questions, as much as it is about trauma, love and tenderness." She admits to being "haunted by how much I’ve seen and how much people affected me when I filmed them" and to struggling with that "ethical conflict." Repeated viewings might unlock some of those subtle messages. The first pass through was a bit of a struggle.