Many movies screened at film festivals are never distributed
to U.S theaters or they receive such a limited release that they never make it
to most towns or cities. This is especially true of documentaries and foreign
films, particularly subtitled ones. And it’s too bad, because a lot of these
pictures are excellent and deserve to be seen. The good news is that some of
these movies are picked up by streaming services such as Amazon Instant Video,
or iTunes, or Netflix and you can watch them at home on your computer or your
smart TV. String a few together and you can have your very own, private film
festival.
Here are capsule reviews of three such motion pictures that
I recently saw at festivals and liked. You may want to check them out.
Little White Lie
(2015) is a documentary by and about a young woman named Stacey Schwartz, which
is interesting in its own right, but perhaps even more so today, in light of
the Rachel Dolezal “I identify as black” scandal. Stacey was raised in a white,
middle class Jewish family in Woodstock, NY. An only child with two loving
parents, she strongly identified with her Jewish heritage and with her extended
family. Occasionally , though, questions were raised about the fact that she
didn’t look quite like them; her skin was darker, her hair and facial features
were different. This always was explained
by the fact that her dad’s grandfather was Sicilian, and quite a bit swarthier
than the rest of the clan. There was a photograph to prove it. Still, she always felt somehow different, a little
odd, an outsider. And by the time she went off to college at Georgetown, Stacey
had some serious doubts and lots of questions.
Little White Lie is the funny, sad, and I’d even say
“astounding” saga about Stacey’s quest for the truth, the improbable lengths to which her family went to avoid facing up to it, and what happened when the shit hit the fan. It’s also the very personal
story about how Stacey coped with her discovery that she was black just as she
was coming of age, the way she embraced her new identity, and her family’s
response.
There is the obvious comparison to Sarah Polley ‘s film Stories
We Tell (2012), also a deeply personal exploration of family secrets and
paternity, albeit without the “race card” element. Stories We Tell is
more polished, with a more creative and intriguingly told story, and, in fact, one of my
favorite documentaries (see my review); but Little White Lie is
more personal and has its own fascinations.
I only wish Ms Schwartz had explored how her experience and
understanding of racial bias and race issues generally changed (or whether it
did), given her new black identity and her unique background and perspective. I
suppose it’s possible that her relatively privileged economic status and class
background insulated her from the dark side. Perhaps she’s saving those
discoveries for another movie. In the meantime, enjoy the Little White Lie
experience.
65 minutes. Available
for streaming from iTunes and Amazon Instant Video.
Diplomacy (2014)
(also known as Diplomatie), a French/German production, is a pitch
perfect drama about how General Dietrich von Choltitz, the German military
governor of occupied Paris in August 1944, came to disobey Hitler’s order to
blow up the city before withdrawing in the face of the Allies advance. Filmed
by esteemed director Volker Schlöndorff [The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum (1975), The
Tin Drum (1979), Voyager (1991)], Diplomacy is a terse two-hander, which
imagines an all night dialogue between von Choltitz and Raoul Nordling, the
Swedish consul in Paris, in which the latter seeks to persuade the general to
save the city, notwithstanding the Prussian Choltitz’s life long – indeed
multi-generational - commitment to military obedience, not to mention his dual
fears of Nazi reprisals to himself and to his family if he doesn’t follow his
orders and Allied reprisals if he does.
Von Choltitz is convincingly portrayed by Niels Arestrup as a
complex, intelligent, committed officer, caught between the clear path of duty
and his knowledge that the war is lost and that his Fuehrer is a madman. André Dussollier plays the Swede,
pulling every rational, strategic, emotional and psychological argument out of his
considerable bag of diplomatic and strategic tricks to head of the impending
disaster. Their discussion, and the power dynamic between the two men, seesaws
back and force as the night turns to dawn, with the fate of Paris in the
balance. Knowing in advance how it turns out does not diminish the drama or our
fascination.
It plays like the play (by Cyril Gely) from which it
derives, enhanced by Schlöndorff’s use of close ups, the claustrophobic yet rich set,
and the actors’ exquisitely developed timing and characterizations. If you
enjoy great acting, Diplomacy won’t disappoint.
84 minutes.
Subtitled. Available for streaming from Netflix, Amazon and iTunes.
A Girl Walks Home
Alone At Night (2014) is described by writer/director Ana Lily Amirpour
as “the first Iranian vampire spaghetti western”. This is catchy but not altogether honest and a
bit misleading. If you look for it, you can find the spaghetti western
loner-avenger motif in this movie (think of the classic Sergeo Leone/Clint
Eastwood films of the mid-1960’s), but not the look or feel of a western. And
although Ms Amirpour and her principal actors are of Persian descent, and the
language in the film is Farsi, this is an American production shot in
godforsaken Taft, California.
Still,
it is notionally set in Iran. Summarizing her story for IMDB, here’s Amirpour
again: “In the
Iranian ghost-town Bad City, a place that reeks of death and loneliness, the
townspeople are unaware they are being stalked by a lonesome vampire.” Sound
interesting? Well, actually, it is. Also quirky, moody, thrillingly depressing,
and unlike any vampire movie you’ve ever seen. Think you don’t like movies
about blood-sucking Dracula types? Well this one is genre-bending enough that
you might want to give it a chance. My wife would never volunteer for a vampire
flick, but loved A Girl Walks, perhaps because it is actually a female
revenge/avenging fantasy (a genre she loves).
It is a relatively slow moving, soulful movie. There’s not a lot of action, but certainly enough to hold our interest. There are a couple brief bits of
violence, absolutely necessary to the story, which should not be disturbing to
most people, even most squeamish people. The Girl, as she is called, is
mysterious, alluring, dangerous and just plain weird. She speaks rarely, but
when she does, we listen - as in a wonderfully creepy scene with a little boy.
There’s also a truly great, slimy bad guy, identified in the credits as ‘Saeed
– the Pimp’; a bathetic old drug addict,
‘Hossein the Junkie’; a prostitute; a sex-tease ‘Princess’; and our nominal protagonist, - the attractive young
man called Arash.
A
Girl Walks Home Alone At Night is a surprisingly fine film, and one that stays with
you awhile.
101 minutes.
Subtitled. Available for streaming from Amazon and iTunes.
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