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Capturing the Flag (2018)

Unrated

Volunteer voter protection worker, Brooklyn-based entertainment lawyer and producer of Capturing the Flag, Laverne Berry. Photo credit: Nelson Walker III

New York attorney Laverne Berry, saw something at an election polling site years ago that jolted her from her comfortable contribution of driving people to the polls. When one of her charges had trouble walking, a janitor on site took it upon himself to use a pushcart and chair to get the woman to the polling booth.

“If he could do that on a day when that’s not his job,” Berry determined, “I can take some time off every election to do something.”

In Capturing the Flag, Berry and three other “voter protection volunteers” are documented during the lead-up to and through the 2016 election from their on-the-ground perspective in Fayetteville, North Carolina, polling districts. Director Anne de Mare’s fascinating and sober documentary fights an undercurrent of foregone conclusion, but provides pointed insights into our election system and the soldiers who take up the challenges of making votes count.

CHECK OUT MY INTERVIEW WITH DIRECTOR ANNE DE MARE

De Mare and her cast navigate subject matter that should be important to not simply those still distraught about the results of the 2016 election; setting aside partisanship to fairly critique our voting process should matter to every citizen.

Joining Berry on her quest is volunteer Steven Miller, an attorney and longtime friend. Miller, a white man, and Berry, a black woman, communicate with an ease certainly found in lifelong friends. En route to North Carolina we meet volunteer Claire Wright, an attorney and recent naturalized citizen. This is her first U.S. election and her first visit to North Carolina. Writer Trista Delamere Mitchell eagerly joins the group on the ground.

De Mare, along with animator Sean Donnelly, use visual aids to provide an “election day” sense of urgency to the documentary. A graphic counter along the bottom of the frame tick off months, then days, then hours before election results.

Almost immediately the team runs into an ongoing controversy at an early voting site in Fayetteville. The local NAACP has accused the state board and three county election boards of illegally removing thousands of people from voter rolls. The purge, they say, is primarily affecting voters of color.

Berry laments the inconsistent voting rules and methods from state to state. It makes protecting voter rights “daunting.”

A 2013 Supreme Court decision invalidated Shelby County v. Holder, a provision of the Voter Rights Act of 1965. That 2013 decision limited supervision by the Justice Department over states that had demonstrated relentless efforts to curtail black people from voting. Within weeks of the ruling, several states began establishing new voting restrictions—more stringent photo ID laws, limits on third-party voter registration, limited rights for those with past criminal convictions, shuttering polling locations across states. The very day of the decision, Texas began efforts to redraw boundaries for congressional and state house districts.

We watch as Berry bravely heads alone into the breach—a polling site in an all-white community littered with yard signs for Republican candidates. Yet, she reminds herself that her mission is to insure fair voting, regardless of party affiliation. She is regarded with caution at first, but her eagerness to help, earnestness and time pushes her through resistance. Miller, at different polling site, faces similar challenges from black people.

For a time, then, the film becomes a microcosm of the passions, absurdities and contradictions of the U.S. election system. A young polling judge at a precinct is initially curt and forceful with Miller, who’s assisting folks outside the polling site. The young man regards the older one as an outsider, a troublemaker. But as the day goes on, and both men doggedly undertake their responsibilities, they seem to accept each other’s roles. The strident young judge in fact, is revealed to may have overreacted due to the stresses of heading up a polling site for the first time. In the end, Miller joins him inside the now-closed precinct as polling officials search for an errant ballot.

The team’s journey is intercut with efforts from the local branch of the NAACP, including a press conference by chapter President Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II. Barber and others are pushing back against subtle and blatant attempts to suppress the minority vote.

Amid these early voting machinations, President Obama visits Fayetteville for a rally that for me stood as a contrast to the divisive rallies that have sadly become the norm. When an elderly man wearing a military uniform riles up the crowd with his Trump sign, Obama playfully admonishes the agitated crowd and reminds it that, 1) free speech should be respected in the U.S., 2) veterans deserve our respect, 3) elderly people should be respected as well. He famously concludes: “Don’t boo, vote!”

Meanwhile, foreign-born Wright registers disappointment, having recalled practicing law in post- Apartheid South Africa when that country’s courts looked to U.S. law precedents as a guide to building South Africa’s new constitution. “I thought that the U.S now, after the civil rights movement, was an egalitarian society,” she says. “Living here has made me realize it is not at all.” It is crushing to watch Wright trying to help an African-American woman, having been referred to a third precinct and still not able to cast a ballot, who throws up her hands and says she has to get back to work instead.

I like that de Mare allows her subjects to display their professional and ethical commitment to their tasks, while reminding us that they are also citizens, party affiliates, who care not just about voters but the outcome of the election. Since we already know the fateful outcome of the 2016 race, it’s with some dread (or joy, if Trump was your guy) that we relive the day while Berry and the team face it for the first time: the certainty that the math is in Hillary Clinton’s favor, the surprise that Donald Trump is doing better than predicted, the rising suspicion that the calculus was wrong, that working-class sentiment was misjudged; the shock and disbelief of the results.

We’ve walked with Miller as he remained level-headed and professional throughout the day. Not until the night of election results, when he explodes into anger, confusion and disappointment, do we see the partisan side he’d left off the field while attending to his duties.

De Mare, an award-winning director (The Homestretch, 2014), has taken us back to a fateful moment in U.S. history to allow us to relive it at the ground level and in personal terms. With cases before the courts (including our top court) on issues of gerrymandering, alleged attempts to manipulate the upcoming census, as well as looming critical midterm elections, de Mare’s film couldn’t be timelier.

Capturing the Flag has its world premiere at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival 2018.

 

| Marvin Brown’s Movie Review Archive

Quik Flix Hit

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Maynard (2017)

Unrated

Auburn Avenue Films

On the night Barack Obama was elected president of United State of America I remember looking at my sleeping infant daughter while processing my unique place in time where I stood at an exact moment of before and after. The morning before, I awoke in a country in which it was improbable to think the 44th person elected to the highest position in the land could be anything but white and male. The morning after, my daughter and I awoke in a country that would be lead for the next eight years by someone who looked like us.

I thought of this moment as I watched Maynard, a documentary of the first black mayor of a major southern city. The parallel of Maynard Jackson’s and Barack Obama’s moments certainly isn’t lost to history or the filmmakers.

Helmed by editor-turned-director Sam Pollard, Maynard is refreshingly uncluttered, a straight through-line depicting Jackson’s early academic successes; his civil rights linage (his grandfather was famed movement leader John Wesley Dobbs); his foray into law and politics; his rise; his retirement; his comeback and untimely death. To be sure, we get standard archival footage, still photographs, newspaper headlines and talking heads, but the film vibrates with a sense of the era—its roiling racial politics, its music, the clothes.

CHECK OUT MY INTERVIEW WITH DIRECTOR SAM POLLARD

Maynard Holbrook Jackson Jr., tall and broad, uses carefully chosen words, commands audiences with his articulate speeches and forthright assertions. Sound familiar? He graduated from Morehouse Collage at 18 and eventually earned a law degree. Although he was delivered an early election defeat in his run for the U.S. Senate, Jackson dusted himself off and become vice mayor of Atlanta, eventually repositioning himself for a mayoral run. Maynard offers a unique look into southern politics. As vice mayor, Jackson’s run for mayor pit him against incumbent and colleague Sam Massell. It was a bruising affair that ended with Jackson’s election as mayor of Atlanta. That Massell is still alive and Pollard gets him on camera to relitigate the race is astonishing. Some resentment bubbles up right before our eyes.

There’s fantastic footage of a portly Jackson in the ring with Muhammad Ali for a promotional boxing match. News footage and interviews of the Atlanta child murders that rocked Jackson’s second term remain potent. And Jackson’s legacy-burnishing renovation of the Atlanta airport into an international hub truly speaks to his lasting accomplishments.

Of course the path to legend can be littered with sacrifices: a divorce, a seeming disconnect from his only son, health issues and political disillusionment.

The documentary brings in heavyweights to tell the tale—famed mayors Andrew Young and Shirley Franklin, civil rights authorities Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, former President Bill Clinton and attorney Vernon Jordan—but it’s the voices of Jackson’s family that wring true intimacy from the proceedings. The Jackson family brought the project to Pollard and is well-represented here. Daughters Elizabeth, Brooke, Valerie and Alexandra, son Maynard III, widow Valerie and former wife Burnella all add layers to Maynard’s portrayal.

Son Maynard III is presented with sad dignity; we infer a boy trying to exist in the shadows of a mythic-like father, and a man who has fought his demons to arrive as a proud survivor. Jackson’s daughters, beautiful each, project strength and intelligence and yet, sweet vulnerability as daddy’s girls. The women who were married to Jackson provide a dignity that elucidates their critical roles in supporting Jackson’s destiny.

When we arrive at the details of Jackson’s final hours, the documentary gains power. The scene in which the news of Maynard’s untimely death reaches each of his family members is masterfully filmed and edited.

In a time of political calculations of what a legacy means and of whether it can be undone by successors, Pollard’s film assuredly reminds us that the true caretakers of a legacy can keep the flame burning.

 

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Interview with Director Sam Pollard

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BUILDING ON LEGACIES: INTERVIEW WITH DIRECTOR SAM POLLARD

Editor-turned-director’s latest work features late Mayor Maynard Jackson

Sam Pollard on set

There’s something synchronistic about a trailblazing African-American mayor, who paved the way for a trailblazing African-American president, having his story told by a talented editor-director, who himself came up through the influence of a legendary African-America director.

Pollard, left, and Spike Lee with their Emmys

Sam Pollard’s timely documentary Maynard, then, is an exemplar of black legacy all around—in front of and behind the camera. We read frequent reports of the current presidential administration on a quest to erase the legacy of the country’s first black president. Pollard’s film asserts that Barack Obama’s legacy, in part, is a continuation of strides began from folks like Maynard Jackson.

“Listen,” Pollard says, “looking at Maynard in hindsight is a breath of fresh air.”

CHECK OUT MY REVIEW OF MAYNARD

Maynard Jackson Jr.’s story is long overdue for the screen. In 1973, the charismatic, unflappable politician was elected mayor of the city of Atlanta, becoming first African-American to lead a major southern city. Jackson held the post for three terms and by the time of his death had changed the course of politics.

Maynard Jackson

Pollard’s film illuminates a political terrain fraught with racial discord, political in-fighting, complex alliances, both black and white. Sound familiar to today’s politics? And yet, Maynard inspires hope. Our nation’s been through this before, it says, and we have come through the other side.

Even before becoming a longtime editor of the films of director Spike Lee, Pollard had a winding career in editing. Before Lee, Pollard spent 20 years doing low-budget work with vanguards like the late Bill Gunn. But working with Lee for more than 20 years has provided Pollard with “a sense of how to tell a story,” he says. “Being an editor has had a very positive impact on my directorial career.”

The Emmy winner (his “Slavery By Another Name”), four-time Peabody Award winner and Academy Award nominee has produced films on playwright August Wilson, singer Marvin Gaye and author Zora Neale Hurston.

In Maynard, Pollard’s command of his material—with assistance from his editor Jeff Cooper and cameraman Henry Adebonojo—is on display. The documentary vibrates with a sense of the era—its roiling racial politics, its music, the clothes. Maynard Jackson, tall and broad, uses carefully chosen words, commands audiences with his articulate speeches and forthright assertions. Sound familiar? We see Jackson, successful in high school and college, grandson of famed civil rights leader John Wesley Dobbs, primed for greatness.

There would be stumbles along the way. Facing defeat after a run for the Georgia senate, a young Jackson dusted himself off, and turned the experience into a successful campaign for mayor.

Pollard uses archival footage to great effect. I was gobsmacked by footage of a portly Jackson in the ring with Muhammad Ali for a promotional boxing match. News footage and interviews of the Atlanta child murders that rocked Jackson’s second term remain potent. And Jackson’s legacy-burnishing renovation of the Atlanta airport into an international hub truly speaks to his lasting accomplishments.

Pollard with Shirley Franklin, former mayor of Atlanta

But it’s the talking heads that give weight to Pollard’s film and Jackson’s story. Famed mayors Andrew Young and Shirley Franklin. Civil rights heavy-hitters Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. Former President Bill Clinton. Attorney Vernon Jordan. Pollard gets them to speak personally about Jackson. The voices of Jackson’s family wring true intimacy from the proceedings. Jackson’s son, daughters, ex-wife and widow bring the Jackson legacy into focus. Their contributions went beyond speaking in front of the camera, though. It was the Jackson clan that brought Maynard to life. Pollard says he was sought out by the family to bring the story of the late mayor to the screen.

“The family reached out to me,” he says. “They were looking for someone to help produce a film about their father.”

The family understood its patriarch’s place in history. A quote by Jackson’s daughter Bunnie Jackson Ransom—“He was the Obama before Obama”—has been used in some promotional materials.

Maynard was not a perfect mayor. He belatedly contended with a corrupt cabinet member, and seemed to lose his zest for politics during his apprehensive third term. Pollard intended to create a full portrait of the man.

“The easy part would be to not have complexity,” he says. “I wanted a very rounded perspective.”

Bill Clinton on Maynard Jackson

To that end we see former mayors still touched Maynard’s influence, Bill Clinton’s eyes brighten as he relates a Jackson anecdote as only he can. And the scene in which the news of Maynard’s untimely death reaches each of his family members is masterfully filmed and edited.

The documentary gained from what Pollard calls the “benefit of living witnesses.” The film boasts participation from other trailblazers of the era.

“They are still alive. All these former mayors touched by him,” he says. “You can hear directly from people who pass on his legacy.”

Up next for Pollard is a feature film on the life of Bert Williams, a black entertainer from the Vaudeville era. The Bahamas-born Williams rose to become one of the most popular comedians of his day. Pollard’s film, sure to be as provocative as Spike Lee’s Bamboozled, is in the fundraising phase.

Maynard debuts Nov. 16 at DOC in NYC.

Official site here

Sam Pollard’s filmography here

 

| Marvin Brown’s Movie Review Archive

Quik Flix Hit

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Video review

Kept Boy (2017)

Unrated

Breaking Glass Pictures

Kept Boy steadily endeared me to its character as it rolled along. The gay romantic comedy is definitely funny, and its breezy pace kept me involved despite my initial reservations with the clichéd characters: the rich, aging sugar daddy; his buff mindless kept man-child; his brash male housekeeper; and the new stud who lobs himself into the mix like a live grenade.

Out now on DVD and VOD, the film, director by George Bamber (a veteran assistant director, moving to the big chair here), won me over despite its expected love triangle; it gets a mighty lift from humor and his actors.

We meet Farleigh (Thure Riefenstein) and Dennis (Jon Paul Phillips) during what must be a routine house party. We sense they’ve been living this way for years: the swimming pool fetes, limitless bottle of wine and champagne, flashy name-dropping guests. The men seem tired, disconnected, and suspicious that something’s changing between them.

Farleigh is the celebrity breadwinner, the aging host of a once-popular home-design reality TV show. In his tailored suits, deliberate speech and accoutrements of importance, Farleigh plays his role of parent/husband/alpha male in a house of flighty men. Dennis is the kept boy of the title, having long been faithful in his role of eye candy companion (his skills are working out and pouring drinks). Not to be forgotten is Javi, the multiple hyphened helpmate who, Dennis learns belatedly, was the previous kept boy. Javi (Deosick Burney) could be the stereotypical funny black guy, but the script gives Java a couple of nice scenes to discuss his role in Farleigh’s life and Burney elevates the character.

How long was this makeshift family going to last? Fading youth and stagnant routine have a way pecking at longtime lovers, doesn’t it? When Farleigh urges Dennis to get a job and announces he’s selling the Porsche (ostensibly Dennis’ car) Dennis draws out of his lover that their halcyon days may be waning. Farleigh’s carrying massive debt and his ratings-challenge TV show appears to be in its final season.

More troubling to Dennis, who’s completely without job skills, is Farleigh’s interest in the younger, handsome Jasper (Greg Audino), Farleigh’s pool boy turned sudden assistant for the TV show.

Farleigh and Jasper seem to flirt in plain sight, which Dennis absorbs with brutal dignity. But Dennis is not without weapons in this battle. He knows Farleigh’s weak spots and can intuit his sugar daddy’s reactions like nobody’s business.

The film grows interesting because Farleigh, Dennis and Jasper are as self-aware of their roles as we are. Farleigh and Dennis each seem to realize what they had for years is coming to an end—or a transition neither wants to face. They’re playing their roles, but also preparing for life without each other. Beefcake Jasper, more calculating than we initially expect, has sincere motivations. The lovers’ triangle is put through its sexual paces; each combination gets a shot at getting busy.

Bamber’s film has a couple of surprises up its sleeve. A getaway island trip—make or break, as far as Dennis is concerned—teeters fascinatingly between slapstick and drama, culminating in abrupt violence and gunplay. A sweet, quiet, honest long-in-the-coming discussion between Farleigh and Dennis ends with a turn that deepens the proceedings. The island drama notwithstanding, much of the film flows by on strong currents of humor, aided by the likability of the characters. Speaking of likable characters, let’s give shout-outs to Dennis’ lonely-hearts kept-mates, Lonnie (John-Michael Carlton) and Paulette (Toni Romano-Cohen): he, hanging on to his rich-widow sourpuss; she, bemoaning her lot as an aging trophy-gal. The trio slurps mixed drinks in various lounges while strategizing—with well-timed, hilarious dialogue—their next moves as the users who have become the used.

Dennis, most importantly, takes on unexpected dimensions from Phillips’ assured performance, and final scenes between he and Javi, then he and Jasper, really feel authentic, taking the film farther away than expected from its opening scenes of debauched cliché.

| Marvin Brown’s Movie Review Archive

Talking with director Elina Psykou

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AWARD-WINNING DIRECTOR ELINA PSYKOU TELLS UNIQUE STORIES

There’s a clear-eyed focus concerning Elina Psykou filmmaking outlook. Yes, she a female director—underrepresented, lauded—and as a Greek director she’s gaining ground on her auteurs peers like legends Theo Angelopoulos and Costa-Gavras, and rising-star Yorgos Lanthimos (Dogtooth and The Lobster). But she seems less interested in being analyzed as a female or Greek director than telling insightful stories not confined to one country or nationality; she’s busy honing her craft.

When making films, Psykou says, “I prefer not see everything as black or white. Everything depends on the point of view.”

Her latest film, Son of Sofia, had its U.S. debut in April at the Tribeca Film Festival, where it received the prize for the Best International Narrative Feature. Her sophomore effort is set in 2004, but its clash of Russian and Greek cultures seems acutely timely as current immigration issues provide searing headlines around the globe.

CHECK OUT MY REVIEW OF THE FILM HERE

Son of Sofia is the tale of 11-year-old Misha, a Russian boy who arrives in Athens during the 2004 Olympics in Greece. Two years prior, his mother relocated to the country following the death of her husband and now Misha joins her. There reunion, to say the least, is awkward. Attempts by mother and son to reconnect are hindered by bitterness, deception and culture clash. Misha’s faced with many changes, including gaining an unexpected stepfather.

To hear Psykou talk is to hear her appreciation for cultural variety.

“It makes no difference wherever you are from,” she says. There’s a commonality in our yearning, our fears. Whether it’s a Russian kid or Greek kid. “When you are a kid you are the same,” she says.

Steficon SA

Psykou is an alchemist of sorts: she mixes Greek sensibilities in with Russian folklore, then stirs in a bit of dry humor, social commentary and suspense.

Particularly, it’s the fantasy elements that subtly, then boldly run through the film. “I believe kids love fantasy,” she said. So it made sense that Misha turns to fantasy in the face of his confusion. It is a way for the quiet, isolated boy to give voice to his fears and anger. But, Psykou notes, Misha isn’t the only character who looks to fantasy. Each of the main character—Misha, his mother and his new stepfather—use some level of fantasy to cope.

“The film is an opportunity to explore fantasy,” Psykou says. “The three main fantasy scenes in the film all occur during turning points in the film.”

Like her awarding-winning “New Wave” first film, 2013’s The Eternal Return of Antonis Paraskevas, Son of Sofia invests in clever observation, off-beat characters and deliberate pacing. Son builds upon Psykou’s eye for detail and steadicam work and her abilities to mesh the surreal and the concrete.

She finds influence in Austrian auteur Michael Haneke (Funny Games, Amour) and American indie great Sofia Coppola (The Virgin Suicides, Marie Antoinette). Haneke’s cold, creepy intellect is evident, and so is Coppola’s doggedly atonal uniqueness.

What’s next for the talent director? A planned documentary that features people who travel to other countries to receive services—abortion, cremation—not available to them in their native lands. A third film will follow the documentary.

It’s all about staying focused on her craft. Ultimately, Psykou wants to be in a position to create films on a regular basis.

“I’d like to make films every three years,” she says.

 

| Marvin Brown’s Movie Review Archive

Quik Flix Hit

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Tribeca Film Festival

Son of Sofia (2017)

Unrated

Steficon SA

The little Russian boy is grief-stricken, seemingly abandoned, deceived and brought to a country whose language and people he doesn’t understand. It’s not surprising that he gradually retreats into fantasy, which is at first cute, then grows disturbing and possibly dangerous.

Writer-director Elina Psykou (The Eternal Return of Antonis Paraskevas, 2013) sets her sophomore film during the 2004 Olympic Games in Greece, a time of clashing cultures, and of civic pride and competition.

Misha (Viktor Khomut) arrives with the Russia Olympic team to Athens and reunites with his mother Sofia (Valery Tcheplanowa), who has been settled in Greece for more than two years. Details of their separation are vague, but involve the death of Misha’s father and his mother establishing residency to provide for herself and her son. It’s an awkward reunion. Sofia seems to be trying to muster up joy with forced affection and a ridiculously large stuffed animal in tow. Misha immediately regards her tightly rolled-up hairstyle as foreign. He tells her his mother wears her long, beautiful hair down.

READ MY INTERVIEW WITH DIRECTOR ELINA PSYKOU

Things get more awkward as 11-year-old Misha learns he shares his new home with an elderly Greek man, Mr. Nikos (Thanasis Papageorgiou), who Misha is lead to believe is in the care of his mother. Mr. Nikos doesn’t speak Russian and doesn’t want it spoken in the home. Quickly, of course, Sofia’s deception is foiled. Misha discovers her sleeping in the same bed as Mr. Nikos. By the time Sofia belatedly confesses to being married to the man, an irate Misha has sealed himself in the bathroom. To be sure, Sofia has also kept Mr. Nikos in the dark, leading her husband to believe Misha was informed of gaining a stepfather.

The entire film seems populated by characters trapped within themselves, despite being surrounded by colorful culture and an influx of immigrants and opportunities. It’s a sad, quiet tale of people unable to make connections beneath the surface, which inevitably reinforces fantasy and delusions. Misha, often cloaked in a bear costume, finds strength and aggression in his imaginary world filled with moving, growling stuffed animals; the self-important Mr. Nikos longs again for the magical era when he possessed fame; Sofia seems adrift in the space between a past happy life in Russia and this makeshift family in Greece. A quiet scene of the family eating together while watching television hints at a domesticity that will never be.

Psykou’s film is filled with characters you don’t know whether to like or dislike. Sofia seems disconnected as a mother, sneaky and deceptive in ways that seem unnecessary. She leaves Mr. Nikos to do much of the caretaking while she’s away working at a textile company, making stuffed animals. In addition to deceiving her son about being married, she also lies about watching a beloved TV series Misha intended to watch with her, and for good measure keeps a secret stash of candy hidden in the toilet tank. She seems unhappy at her job and in her roles as a parent and a wife.

Mr. Nikos, a former host of a once-popular children’s television show, initially seems controlling and lost in his arrogance. Portraits of himself adorn the walls of his home. His insistence on having only Greek spoken in a household where two-thirds of the occupants are Russian seems selfish, and yet understandable. While he is a man of pride, he also wants to leave a legacy. Late in the film, when he shares his secret room of memorabilia with Misha, Mr. Nikos comes alive and Psykou effectively captures the feel of a bygone time and place. Mr. Nikos becomes as much of a dreamer as Misha.

But the film exists in reality even when the characters don’t. Misha meets Victor, a sixteen-year-old emigre from Russia who immediately takes to the boy. At first Victor seems to be a welcomed friend for a boy whose mother is disengaged and whose stepfather is completely out of step with Misha. Victor takes the boy shopping, to the park and surrounds him with other youths. Unfortunately, Victor also shoplifts, offers lousy advice and engages in a highly disturbingly activity. Psykou presents Victor so matter-of-factly it shocks us when we get the full measure of the character.

Finally, there’s Misha. Wonderful portrayed by Khomut. We feel trapped with the boy thrown into a life he can’t bear, unable to find any external means—language, environment, friendship—to express himself so he turns inward. His actions late in the film, after Mr. Nikos suffers a setback, unnerves as we wonder if fantasy will save or corrupt the boy.

The film will challenge American audiences needing things tied up in a bow and directly spelled out. It’s a delicate balance that Psykou achieves: characters that intrigue us but we can’t say we like them, somber and raw scenes colliding with fantasy, an enticing mixture of Russia and Greek cultures. Her film is a sonic wonder, with animal sounds creeping onto the soundtrack in unexpected, subtle ways. Ands it often seems to be lit naturally, shot simply, harkening back to the Dogme 95 movement. Its deliberate pacing keeps us on edge, waiting for a shoe to drop, seemingly influenced by director Michael Haneke. Its denouement, a fusion of fairytale triumph and Olympic fanfare, is all her own.

The film debuts today at the Tribeca Film Festival.

 

 

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Quik Flix Hit

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bwoy (2016)

Rated R

Breaking Glass Pictures

 

While press materials describes it as “a slow-burning LGBT thriller,” bwoy is more of a heartbreaking character study, a psychodrama really, with brief touches of suspense. Nevertheless, it’s purposefully challenging, skillfully understated and gets a mighty boost from its lead actors.

We open with shots of a beautiful little boy heading into a beautiful swimming pool. We think we know where things are going, and we’re pretty much on target, but director John G. Young (Parallel Sons, 1995) effectively establishes a timeless dread which looms over his story entire.

Anthony Rapp (“Star Trek: Discovery,” Rent) is Brad, an early-forties employee whose call-center day job drains joy from him and he drifts through his after-hours life like a ghost. Young’s camera and pacing are sly in the early-going. We can’t immediately connect Brad with a solemn black woman (De’Adre Aziza) quietly intercut into his daily routine. Slowly, we come to realize Brad, who we’ve taken as gay and single, is actually married to the woman, Marcia. We take him as gay and single because he spends his evenings (and eventually, days) on a dating website seeking buff black men.

Brad isn’t having any luck on the website until he spices up his profile, grabbing the interest of Yenny (Jimmy Brooks), a young, humorous and handsome Jamaican. Yenny comes on strong, but Brad is bowled over by the attention. Indeed Yenny has the gift of gab, a high-watt smile, six-pack abs and, let’s face it, who isn’t won over by a Jamaican accent? Yenny brings color to Brad’s gray life—literally: Young contrasts lush Jamaican landscapes and photos with the muted palette of Brad’s limbo life in Schenectady, New York.

Online chatting begets iPhone texting, which begets photo-sharing, which begets video conversations, which begets cyber sex. The progression is not unexpected. Befitting this era of social media excesses, much of the film consists of screenshots—phone and computers. Things are clearly presented through Brad’s point of view; when he’s offline, so is Yenny. Rapp never falters in building bland Brad out of quiet desperation. Stoic behind thin-framed glasses and a locked jaw, Brad often seems on the verge of tears or about to implode with embarrassment, convincing both in his willful naivety and risk-taking. Brad stereotypically targets muscular black men, has a black wife and yet his cultural examination seems to begin and end with search-engine image lookups and a CD of generic Jamaican jams. Is it pure lust, or revived hope that drives him forward, even as he begins to doubt Yenny’s intentions?

Marcia is key to the backstory. Broken and guilt-ridden into shocking submission, the deeply sad character is deserving of her own story. I’m of two minds concerning the handling of this subplot: the sparse development and dialogue between her and Brad speak to their devastating loss; it also seems undercooked, repetitiously vague. How much of this could Marcia really accept? Nevertheless, her quiet despair is devastating. Aziza is powerful in her final scenes with Rapp.

As the tragic past finally comes into focus, story proper has methodically guided us toward the inevitable in-person meeting between the online lovers. Now we flirt with suspense as Brad cuts free of the past that binds him and goes all-in for love. I expected a twist of “Catfish” proportions, but must admit I didn’t see a softer denouement coming. It certainly points us back to an understated theme of the potent pull of parenting.

 

 

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Quik Flix Hit

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Get Out (2017)

Rated R

Blumhouse Productions

Get Out has the suspense, creepiness, violence and jumps scares one would want from a good horror film. Written and directed by Jordan Peele (half of the “Key & Peele” sketch comedy duo), the film’s also insidious with its coiling use of racial themes to enhance its effect.

A chilling opening sequence evokes the Trayvon Martin tragedy as we watch a young black man walking lost in the suburbs at nightfall. Peele immediately establishes a knack for tone and subtext. A character walking alone in the dark is a horror film trope, but certainly the specificity of a lone black man in a white neighborhood adds another dimension of dread to the scene. Notice, in quick, quiet cellphone dialogue, that the man knows how he looks and where he’s at invites danger.

Next, we’re introduced to engaging interracial couple Chris and Rose (Daniel Kaluuya, “Black Mirror,” and Allison Williams, “Girls”) preparing for a weekend trip to Rose’s parent’s palatial estate deep in the exurbs. Rose seems nonplused that her mom and dad are unaware Chris is black; Chris is obviously more concerned about the oversight. Peele plays with racial notions of Rose’s privilege vs. Chris’ realistic concerns here, and in a later scene on the road when they are visited by a police officer. Rose doesn’t hesitate to cut into the officer for what she perceives is racist treatment of Chris, while Chris simply wants to deescalate a situation he’s likely experienced on more than an occasion. The opening sequence, police encounter and an accident en route cleverly set the viewer on edge even before the anticipated visit with the parents.

Said parents (Bradley Whitford and Catherine Keener) are welcoming in their liberal righteousness. Rose’s father, a successful neurosurgeon, declares he’d vote for Barack Obama for a third term if he could. Her hypnotherapist mother says all the right things but they land with a disingenuousness not lost on Chris. And what to make of Rose’s brother (Caleb Landry Jones, Antiviral), a disheveled rich kid quaking uneasily, speaking inappropriately, like he’s always on the verge of blurting out spoilers?

Back home, Chris’ best friend Rod (LilRel Howery), a TSA officer, is a Greek chorus of sorts, humorously braying about Chris’ naivety of race relations. But Chris—and the audience—isn’t naïve, simply hopeful for the best while laughing at Rod’s over-the-top rantings. You see, Rod says all the things black movie-goers say about white horror movies. He can smell a setup a mile away. Peele, working so effectively as a director of horror, here reminds us he made his bones in comedy.

Over the course of the weekend, Peele quietly but assuredly reels the viewer into a delicious web of paranoia. Suddenly, there’s an annual gathering of friends and family. The winding driveway his lined with black, expensive SUVs, the expansive lawn is a sea of gawking white faces. Chris’ and our time in exurbia grows curiouser and curiouser. His solo trips around the huge house and vast grounds bring unease. The way he’s regarded and how he reacts as the lone black man amongst throngs of old-money white people is a master’s class on how black folks navigate—sometimes moment to moment—competing worlds of racial divide. Chris’ intriguing hypnosis session with Rose’s mom—fantastically visualized as Chris floating in the cosmos with the real world hovering on a big screen TV just out of reach—sets the plot on a course not fully understood until the finale.

Most interesting is the portrayal of the other black faces Chris meets at the house. Every time he talks with or bumps into Stepford-like persons of color, Peele intrigues with the interactions—are they friends or foes, captives or themselves commanding some scheme? In this cauldron of supposed post-racial ennui, we nervously and giddily wait for the shoe to drop. Does Peele’s mixed-race heritage inform the proceedings? Perhaps. The film, in my view, knowingly winks at both sides of the racial coin. What an assured directorial debut!

If there’s a wobbly spot in an otherwise outstanding film, it’s a half-realized backstory concerning the death of Chris’ mother. The moment seems to exist mostly to justify an unlikely act of kindness late in the movie.

In the finale, with the curtains pulled back, the film burst with absurd conflict and straight-up horror and humor. The dangers are far afield from where we would have imagined, and yet with clever insight Peele suggests cultural appropriation is always hiding in plain sight.

This is the second “black” film in a row I’ve seen that, while presenting pointed issues on race, nevertheless with topical, effective storytelling and capable acting and directing taps into American commonality and manages to connect more broadly. Like Hidden Figures, this film seems to have admirers across the board.

 

 

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Quik Flix Hit

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Hidden Figures (2016)

Rated PG

Levantine Films/Chernin Entertainment

That Hidden Figures rights a wrong by dramatizing the little-known history of brilliant African-American women, whose work proved instrumental in putting Americans into outer space, is enough to make this essential viewing. But I was surprised the film isn’t content to quit while it’s ahead.

Directed by Theodore Melfi, the film also inspires and entertains with its unabashed appreciation of science and intelligence, and with the heady competition between the U.S. and the Russians to reach the stars—the space race. I was surprised again when it took another lap around the screenplay to explore the gender inequality of the era.

Figures even finds time, briefly but pointedly, for romance, parenting issues, and marital concerns, giving particular space to black men as providers for, supporters and admirers of these intelligent women. I love movies that celebrate intelligence and imagination. I reflect that despite the film’s risk of biting off more than it can chew, it succeeds because it’s well-written (from strong source material), directed and acted.

At so young an age, Katherine’s (Lidya Jewett) fluency with numbers grants her stamina and opportunities against the liabilities of her era: being black and female. Katherine G. Johnson’s beautiful mind ultimately leads her to NASA where as a widowed mother (now marvelously portrayed by Taraji P. Henson) she joins other black women with dazzling intellect (they are called human computers by their NASA bosses). It’s refreshing that the film takes their intelligence as a given. We know they’re smart, everyone in the building knows they’re smart, their families and friends know it too.

These women and others like them work in the far reaches of the intellectual caste—rocket scientists, physicists, mathematicians and engineers—yet they live in a time of segregated restrooms and eager suspicions. Katherine’s colleagues and carpool mates include Dorothy Vaughn (Octavia Spencer, The Help) and Mary Jackson (singer Janelle Monaé). The commute to and from work allows the women time to let down their hair and air grievances to each other.

Dorothy is a mathematician and supervisor in all but title, while Mary is an aspiring engineer, capable enough, but held back by her gender and race. Katherine’s undeniable gifts lead her to become the first “colored” woman on the Space Task Group charged with sending an American astronaut into space.

At work, it’s all business all the time, with little room for error, having at least as much to do with NASA’s exacting standards as it does the discriminatory practices of the day. Just as I’m wondering how such smart, analytical folks could waste time with petty, irrational racism, Kevin Costner’s hardnosed task force leader Al Harrison grows furious that his ace computer, Katherine, has to waste time daily running across campus to use the “colors only” restroom instead of the one right down the hall.

The women’s work intensifies with news that Russians have successfully launched a satellite into space—and then a cosmonaut. America’s history of being first, best, a global leader is on the line. The nation is stirred by the possibilities of touching the stars. It’s an era of racial shame, sure, but also a unique one in which astronauts (Ohio’s own, John Glenn!) were superheroes. At some point, the united cause to be the first nation to blast off the planet brings temporary racial reprieve. I’m reminded of how a champion sports team or Olympic squad can unite a city, state, nation of racially diverse people for the common cause of victory. The outcome of the space race might be celebrated history, but not the legacy of these amazing women. Their place in NASA and American history is equally impressive. The film gets that on the record.

The cast is a balancing act of great performances. The lead actors are, of course, exceptional—Henson and Spencer build on solid careers; Monaé emerges as a talent to watch. And note Kirsten Dunst’s (The Virgin Suicides) subtle but impactful portrayal of a tired subjugated white women who has more in common with her subjugated black subordinates than she can say. The men shine as well. Costner’s stern, all-business egghead never breaks character, but we find his humanity in the growing respect he gains for Katherine’s intellect and determination. Jim Parsons (TV’s The Big Bang Theory) gives a shaded performance as a mathematician growing bitter in the shadow of Katherine’s gifts, torn by his respect and jealousy. Mahershala Ali, who’s having a good year with this film and the acclaimed film Moonlight (which also features Monaé), is wonderful as a stereotype-busting upstanding veteran who pulls Katherine back to a long-abandoned world of romance.

Hidden Figures is entertaining, informative, a bit suspenseful and important. It’s rare to see a “black” film not involving sports that so personifies the American spirit. It’s hard to see anyone not finding elements that hook them into this outstanding film.

 

 

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Age of Consequences Interview

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DOCUMENTARY PRODUCER SEES PURPOSE IN DIRE WARNINGS

Sophie Robinson, executive producer of The Age of Consequences/PF Films

It is not your father’s global warming documentary, or even your former vice president’s. The Age of Consequences is a stark analysis of the faltering care-taking of the planet and of the resulting horrific consequences that have occurred and that lie ahead.

Director Jared P. Scott’s film positions itself outside the expected framework of liberal lecturing and scientists’ admonishments as it reaches for a broader audience by using hard-hitting visuals, unnerving data and, most critically, support from military experts. To be sure, its tone is bleak. While introducing the doc at a screening, executive producer Sophie Robinson warned viewers that they were about to see a horror film.

CHECK OUT MY REVIEW OF THE DOCUMENTARY HERE

Professionally assembled, Scott’s film doesn’t simply highlight the environmental hazards from climate change, but also examines dangers that cascade from them.

“It’s called a threat multiplier,” Robinson says. The term, used in the documentary by military officials, explains how a cluster of catastrophes—international conflicts, mass population migration, resource scarcity and even terrorism—emerge from the escalating threat of global warming.

Before she spent a year and a half producing the searing documentary for PF Films, Robinson got her start as a grassroots climate change organizer in Massachusetts. She was involved in a statewide network battling the environmental crisis. She also spent time as a science teacher.

A catalysis for her work on The Age of Consequences was another PF Films: Do the Math. That 2013 documentary, directed by Scott and Kelly Nyks, detailed the hazards of the fossil fuel industry. Its against-the-grain style got noticed, Robinson says.

“It got people excited.”

The film drew Robinson to PF Films, where she worked with Scott and his team fashion a unique take on the issue of global warming.

“We decided to make a film for people sick of seeing the same climate change films,” she says. “We wanted a ‘conversation opener.’ We asked ourselves what are some new angles?”

PF Films

A new angle was to seek a bipartisan one. Along with scientists and environmentalists, Age looks to admirals, generals and veterans to bolster its theme that environmental abuses and neglect can spiral into civil conflict, migration catastrophes, food shortages, terrorism recruitment—all while overwhelming humanitarian efforts.

Does Robinson think the matter-of-factly scary tone will be a liability for the film? She laughs. “Luckily, people don’t know how scary it is before they watch it.” It’s frightening stuff, she says, but that’s necessary to convey the seriousness of climate change.

One could think such a documentary would receive pushback in conservative circles, but interestingly the film’s strong representation of the military ruffled some feathers in liberal corners, Robinson says. “Some environmental groups thought we were too soft on the military.” But the military and security community are strong believers in the importance of taking serious climate change and its consequences. Those experts lend gravity to the film in a way a dozens of scientist cannot.

Despite its bleak presentation, the film’s ultimate aim is to encourage a positive change.

“We try to leave people with hope,” Robinson says. “There is an opportunity to change things. I actually feel lucky: I can make a difference in the outcome of our future. This is an opportunity to step up.”

The film debuted on Jan. 27.

 

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