Pure (Till det som är vackert)

PURE (Till det som är vackert)        B                     

aka:  Beloved

Sweden (97 mi)  2009 d:  Lisa Langseth  

This first time feature film by Swedish writer/director Lisa Langseth seems to have gone through several permutations, including at least 3 or 4 different titles, initially released in Europe as Beloved, before changing the title for the American overseas market to Pure, though the translated title is closer to For That Which Is Beautiful.  Now having seen the film, Pure doesn’t really work, and was previously used in 2002 by Keira Knightley in an edgy realist Gillies MacKinnon British film about addicted mothers, where the title made dangerous reference to potentially lethal overdoses of heroin.  Adapting her own play, interestingly starring Noomi Rapace (the original Lisbeth Salander in the 2009 European version of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (2011)) in the 2004 premiere at Stockholm's Dramatic Theater, this film initially stakes out new territory, feeling very much like a composite of several nations, especially in the riveting performance by the lead actress Alicia Vikander, who won the Swedish Best Actress Award for her performance as Katarina, showing incredible range and the ability to engage in a remarkable downward descent, something along the lines of Hungarian miserablism, but also the Dardennes Brothers film ROSETTA (1999), where in the course of her life she becomes more and more constricted, suffocating in the bleak reality of growing up in the slums of the housing projects, reminiscent of Andrea Arnold’s FISH TANK (2009), especially the unflinching, alcoholic portrayal of her all but absent mother (Josephine Bauer).  Katarina gives a raw, searingly confessional opening monologue that has one’s head spinning before the opening credits, using offensive gutter language to describe herself, where this is a girl barely twenty who uses physical assault to express her ferocious indignation with others, literally attacking people when she’s had enough of their perceived hostility or abuse.  In this respect, both she and her mother have regularly crossed the moral line of human depravity, sinking into the depths of hopeless oblivion from which there may be no possible return.

From this emotional abyss, Katarina has learned to elevate her spirit through the use of classical music and an MP3 player with earplugs, where the musical soundtrack is filled wall-to-wall with breathtakingly beautiful music, especially from Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven, where she takes her somewhat common and unimaginative boyfriend to a concert of Mozart’s Requiem, played to perfection by the Gothenburg Symphony in their hometown concert hall.  While she is utterly enthralled, his reaction is more or less one of open hostility due to the obvious class difference, where his life bears no resemblance to that music.  Katarina’s curiosity, on the other hand, takes her into the concert hall afterwards where she listens to a rehearsal in progress, temporarily transported from the graphic violence of her neighborhood.  When a woman approaches her, mistaking her for a temporary job applicant as a front desk receptionist, she creates a sympathetic lie that sounds heart renderingly appealing and is miraculously given the position straightaway.  Apparently the maternal instincts of her boss, Isabella Alveborg, kick in when Katarina indicates a preference for Mozart to Snoop Dogg, drawing a distinction between her own daughter, suddenly becoming the daughter she never had.  This position gives her access to the continuous stream of music and even some of the principle players, including the conductor, Samuel Fröler, who introduces her to a book of poetry and the philosophy of Søren Kierkegaard, where the quote “Courage is life's only measure” literally enraptures her, where she is quickly swept off her feet by the surge of untapped emotions from this elegant smorgasbord of cultural enlightenment.  The conductor obviously takes liberties with this intern, which turns into an ill-advised Clintonian Monica Lewinsky affair, which she misreads, severing all attachments to her former life, which leaves her flying freefall on a trapeze with no safety net.

Vikander’s emotional upheaval is beautifully portrayed, much of it wordless, where she moves between an enraptured schoolgirl’s crush to a demoralized and humiliated woman who’s been betrayed, where she’s cruelly removed from her position, taking her feet out from under her, initiating a spiraling descent into a crushing void of hopelessness and despair.  Having literally nowhere to go, as her boyfriend has disowned her, throwing her out as well, all she has is the street to comfort her, finding each day a stark nightmarish rejection, feeling ever more helpless and scorned.  At this point, the film’s turn to misery and gloom has a Hungarian feel of bleak depression, something that country specializes in above all other nations, where suicide idealizations frequent the screen, led by Vikander’s no holds barred approach in allowing her soul to rise to the surface and literally be exposed and debased, leaving her with an irreparable psychological wound that is internally ruptured, where she can’t stop the bleeding.  Based on the eloquence and ferocity of Vikander’s performance, offering a fiercely unique perspective, this could have been one of the best films of the year, as again, Beethoven is never far away in the musical expression of human pain and agony, where he contemplated suicide at the impending loss of his hearing.  After all the effort to get to this point, building a believable character within such a painfully realist framework, it’s the director that is her own undoing, adding an epilogue style finale that feels like a betrayal of everything that came before, offering a compromising, uplifting air of hope through art and cultural awareness that simply isn’t there.  She reaches a point for which there are no further options, but then one is pulled out of a hat, which feels more like trickery and the artificial wonders of rewrites, offering a studio style ending that is more in line with focus groups than real life, as this otherwise tragically uncompromising film is not designed and triggered for happy endings, but needs the blistering shock of her own hellish emptiness and inadequacy, which the director achieves for one startling moment, which wordlessly offers a painterly Madonna and child rendering of transcendence from human suffering.  Unfortunately the director then adds a completely unnecessary tacked-on ending, which derails the previously established dour mood, stealing much of the emotional power away from that original moment of utter devastation, allowing the audience a release point to feel good about, as if she has finally achieved Kierkegaard’s message.    

Morgen

MORGEN                               B-                  

aka:  Tomorrow           

Romania  France  Hungary (100 mi)  2010  ‘Scope  d:  Marian Crişan

This is the kind of film that governments or international selection committees like to pick because it represents a globalist community ideal, one where all men are brothers under the sun, but of course, in the real world this ideal has little practicality.  Reminiscent of a Slovakian film The Border (Hranica) (2009), both films are set near national borders, the Ukraine and Slovakia, and here Romania and Hungary, where historically people have routinely crossed borders with little difficulty as they live nearby, so shopping across the border or visiting family was never frowned upon.  Well this is no longer the case in a post 9/11 world where everyone is under suspicion of harboring terrorist intentions.  Despite all being members of the European Union, this apparently means squat when it comes to border patrols, where each individual nation implements their own unique style.  Typically Eastern European nations formerly under Communist rule tend to use this as an opportunity to glorify the autocratic power of the guards themselves, some carrying automatic weapons (Slovakia), each tyrannically protecting their little fiefdoms with a series of near impossible bureaucratic rules and procedures that makes crossing the border an official act that requires an official governmental seal of approval, which in the case of Slovakians means they’d have to travel to the capital to petition for a visa request and back again to receive the decision if they wished to visit relatives across the border, a mere 5-minute walk from their homes, while Ukrainians, on the other hand, can easily obtain theirs.  In this film, a penniless farmer Nelu (András Hatházi), a decent and good-natured guy living in a dilapidated farmhouse with his constantly nagging wife, crosses the border for a little peace and quiet and to go fishing in nearby Hungary, bringing back dinner, but when he returns to Romania, the harassing and overly efficient border guards inform him he needs a permit to go fishing and another permit to bring the fish back across the border, arrogantly informing him that he can cross the border into Romania but the fish stays in Hungary.  The film is a variation on this Kafkaesque absurdity about cracking down on borders using outdated, totalitarian methods from the days of yore which were designed to prevent citizens from escaping the country—in other words people could get in, but they couldn’t get back out, stuck in a bureaucratic maze of totalitarian indifference.      

While never rising to new artistic heights, the film is shot in a near documentary style, though decidedly less grim than previous Romanian films, using long takes in ‘Scope that accentuate the realism, small town humor, and monotonous rhythm of daily life.  Nelu works as a security guard in a perpetually vacant grocery store where employees have little to do, where to pass the time he can be seen helping stock the shelves or assisting elderly customers.  He’s in for a perplexing surprise when he meets a foreigner (Yilmaz Yalcin) one day at his fishing hole, a guy who can’t speak the language, so nothing he says is subtitled, but rather than give the border guards any satisfaction, he denies having seen or met anyone, which immediately earns this new stranger’s trust, where Nelu allows him to stay at his farmhouse in a storage shelter, which doesn’t win the approval of his wife.  Soon the whole town is aware of this stranger who initially helps with needed repairs around the farm, but is soon seen with Nelu when he visits local bars and pool halls, where various friends weigh in on what to do with him, as he’s apparently trying to get to Germany to connect with his family, but he doesn’t have appropriate visa documents.  Several somewhat amusing attempts to smuggle him across the border to Hungary fail, as he’s obviously reticent to leave the kind hospitality of Nelu, growing attached, like a loyal and obedient pet dog, always returning when they attempt to move him along his way.  By the end, there’s an interesting helicopter sequence that bears some similarity to Béla Tarr’s WERCKMEISTER HARMONIES (2000), one that suggests ordinary citizens are all subject to the zeal of an over-eager SWAT team looking to make a name for themselves, which they do by showing a blatant disregard for the rights of the nation’s own citizenry.         

Some interesting observations here are a few of the bar sequences, where Nelu and his friends discuss the current composition of the Romanian national soccer team, which instead of Romanians, national heroes who they used to identify with by name, consists of Brazilians, Argentines, and various other South American countries, adding a strange twist to the national identity, which replicates the multi-ethnic racial composition of the 1998 French World Cup team, which many felt was not really French, but consisted of Algerian, Turkish, Ghana, Senegal, and West Indies players, where 9 of the 11 players on the field had black family origins outside of France.  Another is the use of television, watched continuously by Nelu's overly affected wife, which stirs up antagonism and racial animosity, suggesting to the viewership that any unregistered foreigners are potential terrorists, urging citizens to turn them into authorities, threatening them with collaborative arrest if they don’t, creating an official underclass of potential threats to the nation, yet historically there have always been migrants, ethnic workers, and people with no real national identity comprising the Romanian population, most specifically the Gypsy population, which recognizes no national border and may number about 10 million in Romania alone.  This film doesn’t address the issue of Gypsies, which have perennially caused bureaucracies fits, failing to comply with census records or the systematic recording of births, remaining a community of Gypsies rather than citizens of a given nation.  Since most people have multiple countries of origin in their family genealogy records, it would be hard to restrict these families to a single nation, yet when it comes to the restrictive nature of border crossing guidelines, that’s exactly what they force families to do.  Crişan’s film, which shows Nelu’s growing attempt to understand and sympathize with the stranger on a human level, which is seen in this new authoritarian light as contempt for his government, shows how the individual’s views are being suppressed, where basic instincts of common sense that have prevailed for centuries in living peacefully and showing a tolerance for neighbors, or even the idea of offering a helping hand, are now seen as against the new governmental laws that are instead designed to generate suspicion and pit one against the other, showing that modernist, post-Ceausescu views are actually contributing to greater hostilities rather than greater understandings.      

Girl 6

GIRL 6                  C+            

USA  (108 mi)  1996  d:  Spike Lee

That’s the business, honey bunch.                  —Susan Batson, Acting instructor

It’s sex in the city, Spike Lee style, with a Prince soundtrack wailing in the background, and with Lee offering us a primer on just how you make it in show business, emphasis on the word business.  This is not some misogynistic fantasy about the way it could or should be, but simply a rather comic take on just how absurdly sexist the business already is, where nearly all the big name stars do nude scenes at some point in their careers, especially women of color.  Again, this is not hypocrisy, this is the business, and from Lee’s point of view, the starting point of the story, the entry point.  Theresa Randle has an Alice in Wonderland journey as she naively attempts to break into the movie business “without” demeaning herself by stripping for the prospective director, but runs into a wall of indifference, as talent is measured through sexuality.  When she does an audition for a typically arrogant white director, played here by Quintin Tarantino, supposedly the rage of the industry, he requires that she remove her clothing, which causes her a great amount of stress, as she needs the part but doesn’t want to go down that same broken road of having to resort to racial stereotypes of black women once again being manipulated by an industry controlled by white men.  She wishes to be judged on her talent, which isn’t getting her the time of day.  Sex is what moves the talent meter. 

Written by feminist playwright Suzan-Lori Parks, a MacArthur award “genius grant” recipient in 2001, and Pulitzer Prize winner in 2002, this is a rather subversive attempt to comment on the brick wall that black women hit when faced with breaking into show business, as they are rarely, if ever, accepted on talent alone, where they have to be the sexiest and most sizzlingly hot creature on the screen, perfectly exemplified by Dorothy Dandridge in CARMEN JONES (1954), the tragic sex symbol in an all-black cast ironically filmed by white director Otto Preminger.  Randle starts out with the beauty of a model, but no pizzazz, nothing to light up the screen, where easily one of the best scenes in the movie is working with her way-over-the-top acting coach who continually berates her for being an emotional dud, seen here:  GIRL 6 - ULTIMATE READING! - YouTube  (3:04).  After this theatrical dressing down, and little else to show for herself, she finally lands a job working for a phone sex company headed by Jenifer Lewis, a mother figure who quickly shows her the ropes.  What’s inevitable is her discovery that in order to pay her rent, she’s forced to do behind closed doors what the movie industry would pay handsomely for if she’d do it onscreen.  Randle is deliciously sexy in the role, becoming the premiere call girl because of her theatrical talent over the phone, but success has a way of playing mind games, as soon she can’t differentiate between her job and her real life persona, as they’re interchangeable.

The film itself is very erratic and one of Lee’s least understood films, never really making the case to reframe the inappropriate stereotypes, where once Randle quickly rises to the top of her field, which she does easily and naturally, becoming comfortable with herself as a sexual presence, it apparently stutters and hesitates about where to go next, as she instead has a kind of mental breakdown, where she starts imagining herself in black roles throughout history, where the movie seamlessly intermixes fantasy with reality.  Men are purely secondary roles in this film, which prefers the female perspective, as Lee plays the Mookie role a few years down the road as the good-natured neighbor in the building, while Isaiah Washington plays multiple roles, including a clever street thief, her former boyfriend, and the Harry Belafonte role as the soldier in the CARMEN JONES sequence, where the fragmented approach to his role may interestingly be a telling comment on men, as women tend to like part of who they are, but dislike other parts, never seeming to be able to find a complete man.  Randle’s imagination also takes her through a roller coaster journey of various destinations, which include some major songs, Prince - How Come U Don't Call Me Anymore? on YouTube (3:51) or [1982] Vanity 6 - Nasty Girl on Vimeo (4:15), but also rather hilarious tributes to black TV sitcom staples like Good Times (1974 – 79) and The Jeffersons (1975 – 85), playing Thelma with Spike Lee dressed up as George Jefferson, doing his strut, even dancing the Funky Chicken, while also taking a stab as Pam Grier in a FOXY BROWN (1974) meets SHAFT (1971) flashback, where she takes care of business before he can arrive on the scene, all but eliminating the need for a male role except to add extraneous violence, which she rightly points out is completely unnecessary, as all the dirty work has already been done.  Randle is exquisite throughout, perhaps breaking the all time record for most hairstyle changes in a film, where it’s a shame her career never blossomed, but the movie squanders a good idea and breaks down into a myriad of different directions, mixing fantasy, satire, and social commentary with parody, none of which are made clear except for the fact that its easy to lose yourself in this industry, which wants you to be all things to all people.

Breathing (Atmen)

BREATHING (Atmen)                    B+                  

Austria (94 mi)  2011  ‘Scope  d:  Karl Markovics

One thing international cinema can do is offer a glimpse into the habits and characteristics of people from various countries around the world, and none is more reflective of their unique cultural reserve than films from Austria, where the meticulous rhythm of life is unlike any other.  In Austria, don’t expect anyone to lend a helping hand or to express sympathy for others, and if there’s an incident on the street, such as an accident or police presence, don’t expect the pedestrians to even slow down.  Life is not disrupted by death, illness, or acts of God.  This is a country that measures intelligence by a strict ability to conform to society’s rules, where anyone stepping out of line is an embarrassment to the entire nation.  Almost antiseptically clean, where nothing is ever out of place, people are expected to go about their business with exact precision.  When criminal or other untoward behavior exists, it’s usually carefully tucked out of sight so as not to draw attention to itself.  This typifies the life of Roman Kogler (Thomas Schubert), a 19-year old kid living at the Juvenile Detention Center, where he unflinchingly goes through the required inspection routines, but doesn’t socialize with the other kids at the center, preferring to remain as isolated as possible.  He doesn’t even partake in athletic activities, such as water polo, and instead swims laps solo, where the guys are lined up sitting on the side of the pool until he gets tired out in order to resume their game.  All this is done wordlessly and amusingly, as it’s simply a reflection of the ways things are.  Kogler has special daytime privileges to search for a job as part of a work-release program, where from a brief conversation with a counselor, we can assume things aren’t going well.  

In a film like this, one has to extract and inspect clues left behind from the storyline, as Kogler rarely speaks to anyone.  Bits and pieces of his life are revealed sporadically over time, but initially his background is a blank, like his expressionless face.  When he expresses interest transporting corpses at the city morgue, one shouldn’t be surprised at his choice, as bodies don’t talk.  Almost immediately, however, he’s exposed to the naked corpse of a young girl with his same last name, which sends his head spinning, driving him into an emotional paralysis.  This incident seems to almost imperceptively start opening his hermetically sealed interior world.  People notice something different or not quite right, where he fails to utter a word of explanation and instead takes a sudden interest in finding his mother,  When he’s not sure what to do, his older coworkers at the morgue offer him no sympathy or help, but expect him to fall into line.  Each has their own way of approaching the job and they’re not going to change because of some kid.  Still, some of the scenes at work are among the most emotionally unvarnished in the entire picture, portraying death exactly as it is, without an ounce of artifice.  Roman’s own cold and steely reserve reflects his approach to everything, from maintaining a healthy distance with the dead, also his roommates, coworkers, and even his approach to finding his mother, where he doesn’t let on right away, but instead keeps a respectable distance.  When he does reveal his identity, she’s not exactly thrilled to see him, but this extended sequence is brilliantly conveyed through his emotional confusion, where any number of possibilities could happen, but one can hardly be prepared for the cold hard facts of reality when they present themselves completely unexpectedly. 

Nothing is overdone here, everything is exactly as it is, where this coming-of-age story is somberly reflected by his unidentified internal pain that he carries around with him at every stop along the way, never expressing a word in his defense when he arrives late one evening, or uttering a single complaint when things don’t go his way, but it’s clear after awhile that he’s led a wrenchingly sad and lonely life.  Easily one of the best scenes in the film is when a gorgeous and free-spirited American girl (Luna Mijovic) sits next to him on the train, whose unbridled inhibitions certainly stand out, where their near wordless ballet of unexpressed thoughts is priceless, leaving a hint of more to come, which is about as optimistic as this film gets.  But this unravels as an interior psychological exposé, where the accumulated details of his life, both the present and the past, intersect in a developing storyline, where he’s not the anonymous figure walking down the streets at the beginning, where he becomes someone that matters to each of the people in his life, making his presence felt in very subtle ways, but felt nonetheless, which is an immensely appealing turn of events.  With a 20-year acting career behind him in movies, television, and the theater, first time writer/director Karl Markovics has created a visually compelling and seamless work where everything feels fully integrated into this young man’s life, becoming a detailed and complex portrait, but always carefully controlled, never revealing more than is necessary.  This was Austria’s choice for the Best Foreign Film at the 2012 Academy Awards, and is an impressively directed and beautifully balanced first time feature, immersed in the internal symmetry of its own soul searching.  

Mikey and Nicky

MIKEY AND NICKY            B                     

USA  (119 mi)  1976  d:  Elaine May

The fun of the movie is seeing John Cassavetes work together with Peter Falk, best friends still reeling from working together in Cassavetes film HUSBANDS (1970), one of the best films ever made about friendship.  This is Elaine May’s take on the same subject, told in a completely different manner, using two unlikeable characters, each just as despicable as the other, but where loyalty and friendship define the subject matter.  What’s different, of course, is that the Cassavetes film is actually about the people being portrayed onscreen, while this film is more of a fatalistic, nightmarish version gone wrong, where the reality is behind the scenes, rarely onscreen, making this feel like one long, extended improvisation.  Originally conceived as a play at least 20 years before it was finally shot, there is reason to believe it has gone through various permutations before reaching the final product.  Initially released by Paramount in an incomplete print that they hurriedly put together, May eventually completed a slightly longer version with her own edits, shooting 1.4 million feet of film, almost 3 times the amount used in GONE WITH THE WIND (1939), a record that may still stand for a two-hour feature.  Apparently, she was so in love with what “might” happen on camera, believing a great performance is sacred, she wanted to be prepared in every case, using 3 camera angles on nearly every shot, which becomes apparent early on, as the shots are positioned nearly the same throughout, simply alternating the angle.  Cassavetes and Falk, of course, are excellent, though you could certainly see this as a stage device, as their improvisational skills could completely change the outcome on any given night. 

The weakest aspect of the film is the story itself, which is pretty bare bones, a sleazy crook Nicky (Cassavetes) on the run trying not to get offed, as he knows there’s a gangland contract on his life, calling on his lifelong friend Mikey (Falk) to help him get through the night alive, offering little in the way of human transcendence, as it’s a fairly irreverent take on life and what you make of it, where the viewers are likely to be split in terms of finding any human relevance here, while the strongest aspect is the tone itself, completely unsentimentalized, using a naturalistic feel throughout, especially from these two zany lead characters who don’t fit the mold of Hollywood heroes.  What starts out as a hilarious meeting, when the two guys get together in the first place, where Nicky’s in the midst of a paranoiac panic attack, deteriorates into a battle of wits and egos, where both men are misogynistic and crude, probably lifelong street hustlers, where they have to lie and cheat their way into getting what they want.  But when they drop all the nonsense and just try to relate to one another, it’s a hit or miss proposition, occasionally working brilliantly, like the womanizing behavior of Nicky, where you can feel a lifetime of deceit preceding each visit, like something out of FACES (1968), where over time the women simply grow sick of hearing any more of his pretentious crap, as he’s such a difficult guy to get along with in the first place, eventually it’s no longer worth it.  They don’t buy the act anymore.  Mikey’s best scenes are his earnestness in proving his friendship, where he’ll constantly go the extra mile just to eliminate all doubts, where he continually does what he needs to do to establish trust. 

Throughout the film, Cassavetes is the unsympathetic character, as he’s a loose cannon who seems capable of any and every abuse, where his belligerent behavior is contemptuous towards women (and blacks), eventually turning on anyone who gets too close.  For a lead character, he’s such an amoral slimeball that he’s difficult to put up with for two hours, where at some point viewers may wish somebody would shut him up permanently, where people may think Falk is a saint for putting up with him.  They have a beautiful scene together breaking into a cemetery after midnight to visit the grave of Nicky’s dead mother, where the on again and off again friendship is continually fleeting, where Cassavetes couldn’t be more obnoxious, but also desperately human.  There’s a bit of a tonal shift that may change the audience’s view of each character, but the storyline itself grows more predictable, as if constrained by the inevitable plotline.  Many of the secondary characters don’t have a chance to stand out, buried offscreen for most of the movie, given only the briefest moments to make something of their limited roles.  One exception to that is Joyce Van Patten, Nicky's middle aged wife who desperately tries to hold her own against the snake oil charm of the world's lousiest husband, only to fail in the end.  If this movie highlights anything, it’s the flaws in the human condition, where every weakness is exploited and truth stands for nothing, as what can you get for it?  If you think deceit is a common element of the male species, this is a film for you, as this film is guided by that principle throughout, right down to the exasperating final shot.  Still, the movie has a rough edge and meandering feel throughout, where often the viewers may think they’re not really getting anywhere, like two characters adrift, continually stuck inside their own messed up heads, giving this an existential tone of Sartre’s No Exit, where these guys are doomed no matter what choices they make.

Hell and Back Again

HELL AND BACK AGAIN                    B                     

USA  Great Britain  Afghanistan  (88 mi)  2011  d:  Danfung Dennis      Official site

The timing of the release of this film is not nearly as impactive historically as another previously released Oscar nominated film RESTREPO (2010), shot by photojournalist Tim Hetherington who was recently killed April 20, 2011 during the Libyan uprising to remove Muammar Gaddafi from power.  At that time, shot during 2007-08, America was in the midst of leading a military surge into Afghanistan by taking it to the enemy, moving Army troops forward directly into enemy positions in an attempt to draw them into combat.  What felt like a suicide mission, troops surrounded on all sides, showed questionable judgment on the part of U.S. military leaders who were inclined to use soldiers as guinea pigs in the hopes that this aggressive military plan might work, where the region shown was at that time responsible for 70 % of all the ammunition ordinance used in the entire Afghan war.  After 15 months, the troops pulled back, as they were receiving too many casualties, leaving behind, unprotected, everything they had been risking their lives for.  RESTREPO remains the strongest case made yet against this kind of cowboy warfare, where America retains its mindset of arrogance and racial superiority, believing modern weapons and well-trained troops should do the job in wiping the enemy off the face of the planet.  Despite the heroism displayed by the soldiers, this has proved to be a foolish endeavor, as little was ultimately gained by such a risky operation.  Yet again, at the beginning of this film, shot in 2009 by photojournalist Danfung Dennis who is embedded with the troops, Marines are being reminded of the historical significance of their mission, as helicopters are about to drop soldiers behind enemy lines where it is believed their superior training and firepower should rule the day.  These men are the best trained soldiers America has to offer, yet once again their task is daunting, rarely, if ever, seeing the face of the enemy, yet continually subjecting themselves to relentless sniper fire.

Shot using an unvarnished cinéma vérité style, where the camera moves when the troops on the ground move, hearing everything that they hear, which includes the confusion of trying to identify the direction of incoming fire, as they are once again surrounded on all sides.  Almost immediately they lose a fallen soldier, once again questioning the wisdom of implementing such a mission.  What happens unexpectedly is that the leader on the ground, U.S. Marines Echo Company sergeant Nathan Harris, who commands the unit in the early footage, gets shot in the hip just a day before he is expected to return home from his third tour of duty.  The injury blows away part of his hip and leg, where he is seen afterwards back in North Carolina with his wife Ashley, where he has to adjust to the mindblowing ordinariness and mediocrity of regular life, which can’t compare to the intensity that he’s used to.  While his injury is not life threatening, he will likely have difficulty walking and leading any kind of normal life, where his adjustment is enormously difficult, especially since his pain medication often leaves him confused and bewildered, where he can be seen waving guns around in the house or in the car, several times pointed directly at his wife.  He appears to be an unexploded time bomb just waiting to go off and never once do we see any evidence of psychological counseling being offered, nor do we see the intervention of other family members.  It appears this soldier is left largely on his own to deal with such an immense, life-altering injury which carries with it as much emotional as physical damage. 

The film moves back and forth between the front lines and Harris’s life on the homefront, where the certainty in his mind of leading the mission, despite losing fellow soldiers and taking incoming fire, makes more sense to him than adapting to life back home under his current situation.  In Afghanistan, he’s in control, gladly assuming responsibility for others, but in North Carolina he doesn’t have the clue to recovery, which is filled with uncertainty, as neither he nor his wife have any answers for what the future holds.  In the meantime, he can make life miserable for her, where the title refers to his frame of mind after returning home, often becoming a bullying husband who flies off the handle over petty issues, which largely covers up just how weak and insecure he feels inside, something Marines aren't trained to feel.  None of his buddies are with him now, he has little use for a rifle, and he’s completely unsure what the future holds for the both of them, uncertain if they will even stay together.  While this film follows a severely wounded soldier back home, a story replicated thousands of times around the country, it also is being released at a time when the U.S. is making preparations to pull its forces out of Afghanistan, having already pulled troops out of Iraq, where the public has grown tired of a lingering war and wants to move on, as the economic climate is threatening everyone, literally kicking us all in the face, changing how people live their lives, where sympathy is not at a premium.  We all have to face the facts and make whatever adjustments are necessary to build a new life, one fraught with still more difficulties down the road, without the certainty of financial stability.  There is a real question to be asked whether this decade-long war on terror has made America safer or weaker?  Despite upgraded intelligence and security measures, it seems the government and the military may have overspent us into financial ruin, likely the exact overreaction that al Qaeda hoped for, financially destabilizing America’s place in the world, where the lifelong sacrifice of death and massive casualties to the surviving young soldiers is a heartbreaking picture of the price to be paid.

Thin Ice

Actress Lea Thompson and director Jill Sprecher at Sundance

THIN ICE                    C                    

aka:  The Convincer

USA  (93 mi)  2011  ‘Scope  d:  Jill Sprecher               ATO Pictures [us]

Originally playing at Sundance 2011 under the name THE CONVINCER, the film changed the title and was re-cut and re-scored for its commercial release, and, according to a letter by the director to Roger Ebert mentioned as a footnote in his review here: Chicago Sun-Times [Roger Ebert], suggests quite a bit more was changed as well:  “The producers and distributor of our film completely re-edited it without me. Nearly 20 minutes were cut; the structure rearranged; out-takes used; voiceover and characters dropped; key plot points omitted; a new score added. Although our names contractually remain on the film, my sister and I do not consider 'Thin Ice' to be our work.”  One wonders how often this is the case in the movie industry, though normally one would hope changes may be slight or mutually agreed to.  However, there is a long history of this in the movie business, which is why it’s so hard for struggling directors to get final cut rights on their films.  According to Anthony Kaufman from indieWIRE: Exclusive: Sundance Film Taken from Director; is Werc Werk Works ..., since the premiere at Sundance, “The film lost its original title; it's now called ‘Thin Ice.’ The film lost its editor, Stephen Mirrione, who won an Oscar for his work on ‘Traffic.’ The film lost its composers, Emmy-winner Alex Wurman and Grammy-winner Bela Fleck. And it has lost its filmmakers, writer-director Jill Sprecher and her sister/co-writer Karen Sprecher.”  Werc Werk Works | Home is the Minneapolis production company on the film, founded by producers Christine Walker and Elizabeth Redleaf, where Walker subsequently resigned her position as President, leaving Redleaf as the CEO in charge, with others following Walker's departure as well, leaving the company’s future in jeopardy as they currently have no new films under contract.  The website mentions the film played at Sundance, but hasn’t mentioned it in any of their news items since then, as they have with their 4 other produced films, releasing the final product with as little fanfare as possible.  The Sprecher sisters, who found out about the cuts made to their film not from a company directive or agency communication, but from reading about it in newspapers and over the Internet, are forbidden under contract restrictions to use a pseudonym or to say anything substantial to the press other than their version of the film will be included on the eventual Blu-Ray release.  Wow, what a backstabbing, behind-the-scenes roller coaster ride!

  

As for the film itself, it reunites the LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE (2006) team of Greg Kinnear and Alan Arkin, adding Billy Crudup as comic relief, offering the potential for a dark comedy, but instead this is a somewhat convoluted and disturbing small town crime thriller where everything than can go wrong does, blowing up in the faces of the unsuspecting who grow more and more desperate over time, reminiscent of the Coen brother’s FARGO (1996), but without the meticulous detail of a brilliant script, including the accentuated personalities and hilarious small town charm.  Set in the wintry snow of Kenosha, Wisconsin, we find ourselves at a Midwest insurance convention (resembling a Moose lodge) where Kinnear plays Mickey, a bit downhearted that he didn’t take the top prize for salesman of the year, but ratchets up his hopes as the next year’s winner wins a trip to Aruba.  Before he knows it, he’s been waylaid by a conniving oversexed female who trades sex for stealing his credit cards, waking up in the morning feeling like he got fleeced.  To make up for his bad luck, he hires an insurance agent on the spot, David Harbour as Bob, who was about to go to work for the competition, feeling like he made a steal as Bob is a hard worker and conscientious team player, doing most of the work Mickey should be doing out in the field, but he’s consumed by other affairs, namely losing his wife, Lea Thompson (always excellent), and falling into a seemingly insurmountable mountain of debt.  Any man in his position would feel compelled to try Lady Luck despite the pitiful odds.  But he’s a born salesman, so he’s got experience on his side, perhaps taking advantage of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity with an elderly customer Bob finds who’s already over-insured, Alan Arkin as Gorvy Hauer, who may have an invaluable violin lying on the premises which Mickey thinks might come in handy, thinking he could switch violins and the senile old man wouldn’t notice.

As if by design, Gorvy has out of town family business, which Mickey thinks is the perfect opportunity, but there’s a kicker.  Just before he leaves, he has a security alarm installed by Billy Crudup as Randy, a sort of fly by night operator who turns out to be an ex-con, changing the rules of the game midstream.  What seemed like a simple bait and switch runs into serious difficulty, which has both of these guys on the run for a despicable crime intended to shut somebody up.  Over time, these guys dig themselves into a deeper and deeper grave, where Mickey’s money problems escalate with his lies and guilty conscience, both intended to cover up his tracks, but he only grows more exposed, which really pisses off Randy, who thought these guys were a bunch of nobodies that no one would care about, thinking they couldn’t be more perfect foils to take advantage of.  Randy never did any actual respectable work in his life, so he has to con (read threaten) others into giving him money, something he does very well, as he turns into a crazed maniac when things don’t go his way.  Crudup is really loony most of the time, always over the edge, while Kinnear is the ordinary everyman who can’t resist temptation when it comes calling in dollar signs.  Kinnear’s secretary, Michelle Arthur as Karla, makes the most of her small part, while it’s really a two man operation, Kinnear and Crudup who continue to out screw up the other.  What’s missing is any real sense of humor or playfulness in their boneheaded acts, where the characters find themselves caught up in the scrambling details of the story and don’t have much of a chance to breathe life into their characters.  Kinnear can’t stand up to William H. Macy’s role in FARGO of a squirming weasel which is played with a delightful relish of immorality and cowardice, while Kinnear is perhaps too likeable, a decent guy gone to bad ends to try to make up for the fact he’ll never get anywhere in smalltown America without changing the odds by pulling off a big score.  The odds are always stacked against him, and there’s a reason why they call them low “odds,” as it would take a miracle to pull off this caper.  One can only surmise that this wasn’t that good a film to begin with at Sundance, probably made worse by the somewhat desperate, last minute measures taken by the production team which were obviously at odds with the originators of the film, who are themselves daughters of a Wisconsin insurance salesman, and in a truth is stranger than fiction twist ironically woke up one morning after Sundance feeling like they got fleeced.