IT CAME FROM DETROIT: THE WILD SOUND OF AN INDUSTRIAL CITY

Chronicling the contemporary garage rock music scene of Detroit, James Petix' It Came from Detroit doesn't stray too far from the standard formula for how these types of documentaries operate.  If you've watched Hype!, High and Dry or the locally-produced Northwest Passage: The Birth of Portland's DIY Culture, you know what to expect but, as with the vast majority of music scene documentaries, the draw is in the scene being profiled.  And, whad'ya know, Detroit's got more than its share of great, loud punk/garage bands that aren't named The Stooges or MC5.

Petix traces the scene from the mid-80s emergence of The Gories up through the rocket-like ascendance of The White Stripes and beyond.  Along the way, he highlights bands within the scene as diverse as The Von Bondies, The Hentchmen, The Electric Six, Blanche, The Detroit Cobras and more.  Fans of any of these bands or gritty rock sounds, in general, should be pleased.  Folks hoping to see interviews with or a lot of footage of The White Stripes in action...well, there's quite a bit of talk about them and at least one clip of them on stage.  But, again, this is a documentary focused on the wild sounds of the entire industrial city, not just their most famous recent export.  And you could certainly take another look at Under Great White Northern Lights after seeing It Came from Detroit, if you'd like; no one's stopping you.

It Came from Detroit plays one-night-only at the Hollywood Theatre on Friday, April 27th.  More info available here.

The film opens in Seattle on the 28th at The Grand Illusion Cinema.


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THE HUNTER: IN SEARCH OF A LOST NATURE

 

Sometimes a film won't easily cut loose its secrets, demanding that you sign up for the long haul, 'cause, otherwise, maybe you're not worthy of making its acquaintance.  Terence Davies' new film The Deep Blue Sea (reviewed yesterday) works in that mode as does Daniel Nettheim's The Hunter, adapted from the novel by Julia Leigh.  It's a film where motives are made transparent, while meanings remain opaque until nearly the end of the picture.  Those who found Claire Denis' 2009 film White Material impossible to shake from memory will find something to capture their imagination here, while others may simply find their patience dwindling within the first quarter of the film.

Willem Dafoe plays Martin, the hunter referenced in the title, hired by a shadowy firm interested in cloning to track and harvest the genetic material of what's believed to be the last of the long extinct Tasmanian tiger (aka Tasmanian devil).  He arrives in Australia presenting himself as a scientist to the already stirred-up townspeople; there's a struggle being fought in the woods between the local environmentalists and loggers.  Martin sets up lodging in the home of Lucy (Frances O'Connor), a woman whose husband disappeared while on the path of the tiger, leaving her children without a father.  And it's not long before Lucy and the kids (Finn Woodlock and Morgana Davies) begin to look at Martin as a possible proxy for their missing patriarch.

The film resists overdeveloping the human relationships; Sam Neill shows up here and there as a vaguely menacing individual who's been hired to guide Martin to the edge of the wilderness.  Most of the characters conveniently melt away whenever it's time for Martin to get back on the path.  What we have here, ladies and gentlemen, is a man vs. nature narrative that pivots strongly on the question of whether or not our "opponent" has been or should be reduced to raw materials.  That might sound like a rather preachy tale; I assure you it is not.  The Hunter leans strongly on its wide open passages, sequences where dialogue and explanation take leave in favor of wrestling with the unknown.  And, by doing so, it rises above simple proselytizing.

 

The Hunter begins its run at the Living Room Theaters on Fri.,  April 27th.  More info available here.

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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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