Liberation's Forge: A tense moment from STONEWALL UPRISING.

And so now we catch up on a couple of very good films that opened last week, but — because there’s only so much podcasting I can do before my ears start to bleed — had to wait a week to be covered. In the case of the film featured in this episode, STONEWALL UPRISING, the delay turns out not to be too bad: We’re still in the midst of  Pride Week, after all, so this documentary remains relevant.

This is from Kate Davis and David Heilbroner, whom we met earlier this year with the release of their black metal documentary WAITING FOR ARMAGEDDON. There are fewer church burnings in STONEWALL, but that doesn’t mean the event depicted — a 1969, NYC riot sparked when the police raided a gay bar called the Stonewall Inn and the patrons decided they’d had their fill of harassment — didn’t stoke its own kind of fire, specifically the birth of the gay rights movement. Davis and Heilbroner rally some great, eyewitness interviews — including the vice cop who led the raid — and manage to put the story in context with considerable footage from news shows and “educational” films showing how, even in the mid- to late-sixties, attitudes towards homosexuality had barely advanced beyond the let’s-burn-’em-at-the-stake stage. If you paired this up with another great doc released last week — 8: THE MORMON PROPOSITION, about the Mormon church’s concerted efforts to have their institutionalized homophobia turned into law — you’d get a good view of how far gay rights have come, and how far they still need to go.

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STONEWALL UPRISING
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www.firstrunfeatures.com/stonewalluprising.html

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A Worthy Complement.

Public Threat: A criminal (Javier Godino, left) delivers a not-so-subtle message to public servants Soledad Villamil and Ricardo Darin in the Oscar-winning foreign language film, THE SECRET IN THEIR EYES.

Seems to be some confusion about the title of this. For the record, according to the front page of the production notes, it’s THE SECRET IN THEIR EYES. Not THE SECRET OF THEIR EYES or even THE SECRET IN HER EYES, which is the way the video file for the trailer is labeled. So I hope we’ve got that all ironed out, now. Let’s move on, mmmkay?

The nominees for this year’s Best Foreign Language Film were a strong bunch: AJAMI; THE WHITE RIBBON; A PROPHET (UN PROPHÈTE) — I didn’t get to see THE MILK OF SORROW, so can’t say how it matched up. That the Argentinian SECRET — the story of a retired police inspector (Ricardo Darin) who delves back into a rape-murder he investigated in 1974 — took the prize may have had much to do with director Juan Jose Campanella’s ability to mold the film (adapted from a novel by Eduardo Sacheri) as a popular, whodunit while running deeper currents about love and sacrifice underneath. It probably didn’t hurt that supporting actor Guillermo Francella — better know in Argentina for his comic roles — delivered a complex, powerful performance as the inspector’s flawed sidekick, or that the film boasts a stunningly choreographed arrest sequence set in a crowded soccer stadium.

Campanella was clearly enjoying his victory, and we had a fun time talking. Click on the player to hear the interview.

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THE SECRET IN THEIR EYES
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www.sonyclassics.com/thesecretintheireyes

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Another Powerhouse Nominee from 2009

Veit Harlan (center) directs his wife, actress Kristina Soderbaum. From HARLAN - IN THE SHADOW OF JEW SUSS

It’s typical in these circumstances to say, “I don’t know what came over me.” But I do know what came over me: I was going to interview Felix Moeller about his new documentary, HARLAN – IN THE SHADOW OF JEW SUSS — the film about German director Veit Harlan, his infamous, anti-Semitic 1940 creation JEW SUSS, and the repercussions said film and the man himself had on his descendents — when I was informed that one of the film’s subjects, journalist, critic, and Harlan niece Jessica Jacoby, would also be available. I agreed to interview them both, but then ran into a brick wall in my planning: I wished to have a candid discussion with Moeller about how he confronted so difficult a subject, and the presence of Jacoby — a woman who, I figured, had undergone every form of questioning on the subject from polite discussion to accusatory interrogation — threw me a curve. I was left not sure how I could ask the questions I wanted about Harlan’s work, how Moeller got the family to open up about the impact of that legacy, and the restrictions Germany has placed on the public exhibition of the film, without making the woman feel that she had travelled down this road far too many times.

I never came up with a solution for my dilemma — in hindsight, the best approach probably would have been just to ask the frakkin’ questions and let the chips fall where they might — and it shows in my awkward approach to the interview. Nevertheless, Jacoby and Moeller were quite forthcoming in discussing how they tackled the story of one of the darkest chapters of film history, and provided good insight into the creation of a compelling, revelatory, and surprisingly beautiful documentary. Click on the player to hear the interview.

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www.zeitgeistfilms.com/harlan

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It is available in the U.S, though.

Hanging on with a Wing and a... uh... oh: Desi in OCTOBER COUNTRY

A tangent here, but stick with me: At the beginning of the animated film, MY NEIGHBORS THE YAMATAS, director Isao Takahata envisions the world of his titular family as an ocean voyage, complete with pounding waves and raging storms, but arriving eventually at a safe port. If the analogy was transferred to OCTOBER COUNTRY, the new documentary by Michael Palmieri and Donal Mosher, the familial vessel would also be facing typhoons, hailstorms, shark-infested waters, and a foggy void where the safe landing should be. And you may as well throw an iceberg in for good measure.

Filmmakers Mosher (whose family is depicted, and who also is a photographer, musician, and writer) and Palmieri do not hedge in their depiction of the upstate N.Y. Mosher family, whose various members have undergone such trials as teen pregnancy, drug abuse, and molestation. But they don’t overdramatize events, either, and for all the darkness that’s revealed, there’s also a glimmer of hope in the idea that people can endure all this pain and sorrow and still remain, however tenuously, a family. Letting his camera take its cue from the photo series Mosher did on his clan, Palmieri creates haunting visuals that complement the group’s shadowed history.

Mosher and Palmieri were happy to discuss their concerns in pulling back the veil on one family’s struggles, and how they’re hoping that this one story can bring a new perspective to the challenges facing the working class in today’s U.S. Click on the player above to hear the interview.

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www.octobercountryfilm.com

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Happier Disasters

The Birth of Brutal: Gylve “Fenriz” Nagell in UNTIL THE LIGHT TAKES US

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m not all that obsessive over metal, heavy or otherwise. Don’t hate it — in fact, I like the beat and the aggression and the flights into epic, audio assault — it just doesn’t take priority when I’m programming my Pandora stations. Nevertheless, I’m happy when one year brings us two very good docs about the genre. However, one of the big differences between the earlier ANVIL: THE STORY OF ANVIL and this month’s UNTIL THE LIGHT TAKES US is that Anvil’s brand of party-hardy, American (Canadian, if you will) metal doesn’t quite grab me as much as the darker, more adventurous black metal bands of UNTIL THE LIGHT TAKES US.

Another difference is that debuting directors Aaron Aites and Audrey Ewell (he’s better known as a musician; she’s an art director and previously produced a narrative comedy) have decided to bring an artist’s intuition to the telling of black metal’s twisted history, a tale that includes accusations of Satanism, arson, suicide, and murder. With a prime focus on two of black metal’s most prominent and controversial practitioners — one, Varg “Count Grishnackh” Vikernes, was filmed while finishing out his sentence for arson and murder; the other, Gylve “Fenriz” Nagell, survived the turbulence of the 90’s and has, with great reluctance, made cautious accommodations towards the mainstream — the result is an impressionistic presentation that better conveys the genre’s complexity and rebellious, and occasionally genuinely dangerous, attitude.

I was able to talk with Aites and Ewell about how one reaches out to artists who have been previously buffeted by the mainstream press, and why this form of music is best served by an iconoclastic filmmaking style. Click the player above to hear the interview.

Trailer[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

www.blackmetalmovie.com

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Compare and Contrast

The Face Looking Back: Sophie Okonedo in SKIN

You could probably forge a good, absurdist, dark comedy out of a government where racial identity can be declared and reversed by official decree, and white parents whose child’s skin is, because of a genetic quirk, darker than theirs struggle to get their kid designated Caucasian. I can imagine Terry Gilliam going to town on something like that, or maybe even Kevin Smith in a more thoughtful mode. But this isn’t absurdist comedy, this was South Africa in the throes of apartheid, and the story told in Anthony Fabian’s debut feature, SKIN, turns out to have been all too real.

The actual person, Sandra Laing, suffered through a kind of industrial-strength crisis of identity, with her parents determined to ensure that her privileges be protected via that all-important white designation, and her own growing awareness that, whatever the government stamped on a piece of paper, she would have no shortage of difficulty in finding a place in so divided a society. Director Fabian shot the film in South Africa, and brought together a strong cast, including Sophie Okonedo as Sandra and Sam Neill and Alice Krige as her parents. The result is quite moving — a human and unusual perspective on the insanity of institutionalized racism.

Anthony Fabian and I got a chance to talk about his motivation for taking on this project, and how the dictates of apartheid could twist the motives of even the best-intentioned of parents. Click on the player above to hear the interview.

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www.skinthemovie.net

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Truly Absurd Bureaucracy

Don't Make Me Happy. You Won't Like Me When I'm Happy: Tom Hardy relishes the pain in BRONSON

You wanna talk extreme? Charles Bronson, ne Michael Peterson, has spent thirty-four of his fifty-six years of life in incarceration of one form or another — most of that time has been in solitary confinement. The system has been violent to him, but he’s been violent back, and an anti-authoritarian cult has risen around his two-fisted brand of rebellion.

He’s an artist and poet, and has published an instructional book on how to keep fit under restricted resources (like, say, if you’re kept in solitary for most of your life). He’s not the guy you’d want to have a beer with. He’s most likely the guy you’d fear is going to break the beer bottle over your head. (Although, to be fair, he’s been certified as clinically sane and hasn’t been violent for the last seven years.)

In telling Bronson/Peterson’s story in the new movie, BRONSON, Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn has decided to meet extreme with extremes. The narrative style is surreally hyperbolic; the violence is blunt and unsparing; a framing device has Bronson — played by Tom Hardy — telling his tale from a proscenium stage. There are saturated color schemes, animated sequences, and even, for obscure reasons, a reference to the artist Magritte. Some of this seems to push too hard (Whiteface? Really?), but Refn clearly has his reasons and, while I may not have bought it all, I didn’t regret being taken on the trip. If you’re going to go out there, I think, then, frack, you’d better go all the way out there. Congrats, Nick, mission accomplished.

Refn and I got to talk about the motivation behind the narrative madness and discussed how one confronts an audience with a character who defies empathy. (I also got to meet his three month old daughter, who’s another kind of extreme: extremely adorable.) Click on the player above to hear the interview.

Trailer

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www.magnetreleasing.com/bronson

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FOCUS FEATURES’ 9 OPENS IN THE UK ON OCTOBER 28TH
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Refn’s Saga of Danish Drug Lords

To listen to the complete version, and to read the introductory text, watch the trailer and get links to the official website, go to the post marked “SPOILER ALERT!”

Are You There God, It's Me Larr... Hello? Michael Stuhlbarg (right) and Adam Arkin try to sync with the Great Cosmic Joke in A SERIOUS MAN

The Coen brothers are at it again. They’ve already sicced existential hit men, lunkheaded convicts, and over-ambitious hula hoop manufacturers on the populace, now they’ve gone and recruited God as chief tormentor. The target this time: Some poor, midwestern schlub who isn’t gonna know what hit him.

A SERIOUS MAN is a comedy, but a comedy in the Coen tradition, which means humble, Jewish physics professor Larry Gopnik (Broadway actor Michael Stuhlbarg) is going to go through royal Hell for our amusement, and maybe enrichment. Set in 1967, the film plagues Larry with the turmoils of the time, including but not limited to sex, drugs, rock ‘n’ roll, moral relativism, and an unemployed brother (Richard Kind). This all could be very painful… aw, hell, it is painful. But it’s pain in the laughing-through-tears tradition that the Coens — once nice, midwestern Jewish boys themselves — know all too well.

SPOILER ALERT: This version of the podcast contains minor plot spoilers at the end of the round table interview. If you want to avoid these spoilers, please download the spoiler-free version.

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More Coen Angst

A Beautiful, If Somewhat Perplexed, Mind: Rose Byrne and Hugh Dancy in ADAM

Turning out to be a rough month for romance, isn’t it? ADAM, the new drama directed by Max Mayer and starring Hugh Dancy and Rose Byrne, doesn’t skip back and forth within its time line or offer the narrative flamboyancy of (500) DAYS OF SUMMER, but that doesn’t mean that the course of love is going to be any smoother.

You see, the titular Adam (Dancy) has Asperger’s Syndrome, a condition characterized as a kind of autism, but not quite as severe. In Adam’s case, that works out to him being rather brilliant in the fields of� technology and astronomy, but at a total loss when it comes to simple human interaction. His new neighbor, Beth (Byrne), just starting to make her own way in the world, takes it upon herself to help Adam get up to speed with this whole relating to people thing. Simple friendship, however, soon blooms into full-on romance, and Beth and Adam — both of whom have other problems to contend with — find themselves in territory where neither person may be able to provide the support that the other needs.

If you’ve watched ALIAS or THE WEST WING, or you’re well-immersed in the� New York theater world, you may have noticed director Max Mayer’s name. He’s making his feature debut with ADAM, and was happy to talk about its inception, how the Method tends to break down when one of your actors is playing autistic, and the dark, dark reality of filmmakers forced to outsource their nature shots to Canada while decent, hardworking U.S. wildlife goes unemployed. Click on the player above to hear the interview.

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www.foxsearchlight.com/adam

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Defying the Odds