THE DEEP BLUE SEA: TERENCE ADAPTS TERENCE, SEDUCTIVELY AND SORROWFULLY

Opening with the voice of Hester (Rachel Weisz) reading a suicide note addressed to her lover, Freddie (Tom Hiddleston), Terence Davies' (Distant Voices, Still Lives) adaptation of Terence Rattigan's play The Deep Blue Sea is saturated with a deep and convincing melancholy from the get-go.  It also begins quite inscrutably at first, favoring a thick atmosphere that steals one's breath, before eventually allowing the viewer to enter into a conscious understanding of what's driving this seductive, trance-inducing well of sorrow.

Set against the backdrop of 1950s London, the story revolves around Hester's decision to kill herself; the present time of the film occurs across a single day, though much of the story is based in events of the past, remembrances of what's brought her to this point.  Her sexless marriage to a much older man, William (Simon Russell Beale), has been compromised by the affair with Freddie.  And, now, the glow of the new relationship has dimmed, leaving her passion somewhat mangled and misdirected due to Freddie's inability to love her with an intensity equal to her affection for him.

Freddie's newly acquired coldness is located in lingering issues surrounding his service in World War II.  Hester sadly comments, "his life stopped in 1940.  He loved 1940.  He's never really been the same since the war."  As for her own situation, she tells William that, "zero minus zero is still zero," roundly rejecting any notion that the happiness of the past can be reclaimed by her or any of the lovers in the story.

This is a gorgeously shot film, nearly every frame is lit from within by a sumptuous orange/yellow glow that perfectly accentuates the mood of the piece.  Each performance hits its mark quite magnificently but Weisz is exceptional, possibly the best she's ever been.  The Deep Blue Sea demands a small amount of patience at first, but, if one invests the effort, the film rewards the viewer with a hypnotic and perfectly pitched glimpse of the not too distant past; a time and place where despair, divorce and pressures of social convention were no less stressful than they are now.

The Deep Blue Sea starts its run at Cinema 21 on Friday, April 27th.  More info here.


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5 BROKEN CAMERAS: FIVE TOOLS OF RESISTANCE

I don't think I've seen a more affecting documentary this year than Emad Burnat and Guy Davidi's 5 Broken Cameras, winner of the directing award in the documentary category at this year's Sundance Film Festival.  Cobbled out of Burnat's footage of his Palestinian hometown of Bi'lin as it protests against an encroaching illegal Israeli settlement, the film is an incredibly layered work of resistance cinema, acknowledging what's been lost while simultaneously turning its head to a future just beyond the horizon.

Burnat, who also narrates the piece, admits early on that he never intended to become a filmmaker.  His first camera was acquired shortly after the birth of his fourth son, Gibreel, with the sole purpose of filming his family's day-to-day lives.  But, coinciding with the arrival of his son, a powerful, non-violent activist movement emerges on the streets and surrounding countryside of Bi'lin.

It inspires Emad to participate through documentation of the town's crusade against the illegal barriers and settlements that threaten and displace the residents of his village.  The film's title acknowledges the series of cameras passing through Burnat's hands, each one in need of replacement after being destroyed during demonstrations ending in violent reaction by the Israeli military.

As the movement grows, so does Gibreel who, like the other children of the village, must come to grips with the chaotic environment in which he has been born.  Emad worries aloud for his son's generation, wondering how long non-violent resistance will last, given all the children have witnessed.  It's a question worth asking, even as Bi'lin's struggle garners support from activists around the globe.  Burnat's cameras watch as the increased numbers continue to yield limited results.  Meanwhile, the losses become more personal by the day.

I've never seen any act of direct journalism as powerful as 5 Broken Cameras.  In creating a visual journal of a protest movement, from their nascent birth as a cluster of the oppressed to a swarming throng motivated by righteous indignation, Burnat has captured the very essence of what it is to push back against the seemingly immovable object, all while highlighting a very specific struggle in a non-didactic manner.  These are the memories that his cameras recorded, truth viewed through the eyepiece of five tools of resistance.

Five Broken Cameras screens as a part of the 20th Jewish Film Festival at the NW Film Center's Whitsell Auditorium (in the Portland Art Museum) on Thursday, April 26th at 7pm.  More info about the festival available here.


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FAKE IT SO REAL: WRESTLING WITH AMBITION IN NORTH CAROLINA

"Jazz is dead," according to one of the men interviewed in Robert Greene's Fake It So Real.  Thus, it's disqualified from being considered the great American art form.  His suggestion as to its successor?  Why, wrestling, of course.

If sincerity and commitment are the markers of success, the subjects of the new documentary Fake It So Real, members of the independently run MWF (Millennium Wrestling Federation, naturally), are about as successful as they come.  But, despite the film culminating in a billing advertised as the MWF World Championship, these men are most certainly at the lower end of the food chain in the wrestling world; the league is based entirely in Lincolnton, North Carolina, where ALL of their wrestling events (including the "world championship") play out in front of tiny hometown crowds.

It's an affectionate look at a particularly American strain of small town ambition, capturing an overzealous adherence to the foggy notion that time and effort in the ring will bear out results.  You could easily label it hoping against hope but most of these men can't even acknowledge how difficult of a path they've chosen.  The majority of the wrestlers featured here still believe in their dreams of big time wrestling circuit success, although a few are content with just doing what they love; one guy, singled out as the most "normal" of the pack by a peer, calls it his "hobby."

All of this is filtered through a series of characters, ranging from a "rookie" paying his dues as he undergoes constant fraternal hazing to the league's manager whose emerging health issues cause him to miss his first match in ten years.  Greene practices a warts and all approach to documenting his subjects; the hazing mentioned above includes a hefty amount of homophobic rhetoric (present elsewhere in the film, too) and his camera bears witness to more than a few misguided racial stereotypes exhibited in and out of the ring.  It'd be easy to react against the film for containing these moments, but I'm inclined to praise Greene for choosing to not filter out the harsher aspects of the southern reality encountered here.

Bottom line, Fake It So Real entertains because hopes and dreams still power most people's conception of the American experience.  Who cares if the ones on display in the film are more than a bit outlandish?  It's almost impossible to resist cheering this band of brothers as they ply their chosen trade, willfully ignoring the odds against them.

Fake It So Real plays one-night-only at the Hollywood Theatre on Friday, April 27th.  More info available here.


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THE BUS: SEXIN' UP THAT OLD BOX ON WHEELS

Often times, we cling to things not just for what they can do for us but also what they say about us.  The spirit of director Damon Ristau's light and fun investigation into the culture of the Volkswagen bus is far more swayed by rhetoric of the latter variety, even with numerous testimonials littered throughout The Bus pointing to the vehicle's unrivaled utilitarianism.  The folks interviewed here claim to enjoy, among other things, freedom, solidarity, and self-sufficiency, all due to their fervent love for and ownership of one of the boxiest vehicles this side of a train car.

To Ristau's credit, the love is contagious.  The Bus traces this miracle of German engineering from its factory origins; why yes, that is a photo of Hitler smiling unashamedly at a mockup of a VW bug, to the incredibly effective advertising campaigns of the 1960s (recently referenced in this season's premiere episode of Mad Men), which helped spread the notion that what the vehicles lacked in elegance was more than made up for via a distinctive ownership experience.

Clever graphical inventions throughout The Bus (a vignetted frame to convey the view from the driver's seat, a speedometer that shows the sales per decade, etc.) quickly and playfully relay info, keeping the pacing brisk and allowing it to always return to the backbone of the piece: its subject's love of this car/lifestyle.  Speaking of love, Ristau introduces us to a couple whose very union was founded upon their affinity for the bus; she was enamored with how easily one could learn to repair them, he was drawn in by both her beauty and skills as a bus mechanic. 

 

The film takes us on VW-powered excursions to Burning Man and other hard-to-reach locales, out on tour with a traveling musician who's been living and working in his bus for over 5 years, and beyond, really hammering home the bus equals freedom concept that so many of its subjects espouse.  In its own modest way, The Bus might very well be the most sexy sales pitch ever for the American association between motor vehicles and rugged individualism.  The perverse twist being that the seductive technique is piled upon inducing adoration for a decades old box on wheels.

 

The Bus plays one-night-only at the Hollywood Theatre on Wednesday, April 25th.  Director Damon Ristau will be in attendance for a post-screening Q&A.  More info available here.

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THE RAIN FALLS DOWN ON PDX: WEEKEND ROUNDUP FOR 4/20

Here's a list of films opening in PDX worth mentioning, although I don't have the time to write at length about them.  Plenty of stuff out there to enjoy over the weekend:

The Laurelhurst Theater is continuing their BAM (Beer and Movie) film festival this week with Sam Peckinpah's 1972 convicts-on-the-run, flick The Getaway, starring Steve McQueen and Ali MacGraw.

Cinema 21 is heading into their final week of showing the Indonesian action hit The Raid: Redemption.  On Saturday the 21st, they'll be hosting a single screening of the new documentary about the politics of vaccinations, The Greater Good, at 4pm.

The 20th Portland Jewish Film Festival continues this weekend at the NW Film Center's Whitsell Auditorium.  On Friday and Saturday, the NWFC hosts The Rabbi's Cat, an animated feature concerning a feline who gains the power of speech.  My Architect, the quite good documentary from 2003, about Louis Kahn plays on Sunday at 4pm.

Over at PSU's 5th Avenue Cinema, Wong Kar Wai's 1997 film Happy Together will light up the screen over the weekend.

And the Clinton Street Theater's got John Walker's A Drummer's Dream through next Thursday.

Reviews and posts for films that are opening today (or playing somewhere in town this week):
Marley: This One's for the Fans
Grindhouse Film Festival presents King Kong vs. Godzilla
The Trouble with Bliss: Sad & Quirky Observations on a Static Life
The Salt of Life (review from PIFF--it opens at Living Room Theaters today)
The Kid with a Bike: Return of the Dardenne Brothers
Jiro Dreams of Sushi: Wherein the Daily Grind Lasts a Lifetime



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THE TROUBLE WITH BLISS: SAD AND QUIRKY OBSERVATIONS ON A STATIC LIFE

There's no kind way of getting around the fact that, in following the non-adventures of its flat and listless protagonist, The Trouble with Bliss ends up being nothing more than a flat and listless viewing experience, lightly peppered here and there with a few promising moments. 

Morris Bliss (Michael C. Hall) is in his mid-thirties.  He's yet to leave the nest, still living at home with his father (Peter Fonda).  And, as the film opens, he's just begun an affair with a teenager named Stephanie (Brie Larson), who happens to be the daughter of a guy called "Jetski" (Brad William Henke), an old friend from high school.

As lives go, Morris' is a bit of a nonstarter.  He's got a map in his bedroom with push-pins marking all the places he hopes to visit one day.  He prefers taking the handouts his father begrudgingly gives him to looking for work; Fonda's pitch-perfect here and the scenes between him and Hall hint at a complexity that the film fails to deliver in the end. 

There's really nothing that Morris seems all that interested in chasing.   Even the women (yeah, that's Lucy Liu in the mix, as a flirtatious neighbor) he becomes involved with don't motivate him as much as inexplicably fall in his lap.  In the world presented here, the ladies apparently can't resist the downbeat and helpless man-child type.

All of which would be fine if there was at least some urgency or momentum built into the story.  But Michael Knowles and Douglas Light's screenplay, based on Light's novel East Fifth Bliss, seems more interested in painting its characters into corners early in the film, defining them before sealing them forever in amber; these are people incapable of evolution. 

There's an abundance of films out there that deal with issues of arrested development, some are even quite good (Heavy or Trees Lounge, for instance).  The Trouble with Bliss just doesn't know what to do with its sad and quirky observations on a static life.

The Trouble with Bliss starts its run at the Hollywood Theatre on Friday, April 20th.  More info here.



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GRINDHOUSE FILM FESTIVAL presents KING KONG VS. GODZILLA

This coming Tuesday night, Dan Halsted's Grindhouse Film Festival celebrates the 50th anniversary of Ishirô Honda's King Kong vs. Godzilla in style with the projection of a 35mm print of the film.  This is an example of the kind of peerless programing going on at the Hollywood Theatre nowadays; they've hit upon a wonderful balance between the expected indie/art house fare and more adventurous rep-based events, offering really distinctive bookings on a regular basis. 

Plus, now with the newly renovated seats, screen and sound system in the downstairs theater space, paired with the theater's reputation for digging up exceedingly rare prints in great condition, there's a near guarantee that even the older, more niche-based programming will shine.  January's Grindhouse screening of Dario Argento's 1977 psychedelic, fever dream Suspiria on the Hollywood's 50-foot screen was a revelatory experience.

But enough gushing, let's move on to the details about Tuesday's screening.  Here's what the Grindhouse fest press release has to say about what's going down on 4/24:

King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962) Godzilla breaks free from an iceberg and heads straight to Tokyo to start tearing the city apart. Meanwhile, a pharmaceutical company captures King Kong and brings him to Japan. It’s only a matter of time before he breaks free, and we see a colossal collision between the two mightiest monsters of all time!!! 
Directed by the great Ishiro Honda. 35mm daikaiju trailers before the movie!

King Kong vs. Godzilla plays one-night-only at the Hollywood Theatre on Tuesday, April 24th.  More info available here.

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