TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL, PART 3
April 20 – May 1, 2011
 

The foreign contenders in this year’s Tribeca Film Festival mostly outshine the homegrown flicks in this round-up. Though only one of the foreign features is truly remarkable (NEDS), two documentaries (Jiro Dreams of Sushi and Cinema Komunisto) are particularly interesting, insightful, and entertaining. Of the two films in the world narrative competition—both sexy and Scandinavian—the sober Swedish film She Monkeys is no match for Turn me on, Goddamit—a raunchy Norwegian tale of teenage daydreams. However, some of the highly anticipated films—Last Night with Keira Knightly and Cédric Klapisch’s My Piece of the Pie—are the greatest disappointments of the lineup. The films below are in order from the very best (NEDS) to pretty darn good (from Jiro to Klitschko) to sheer celluloid embarrassment (Janie Jones).

NEDS
Even with Kubrick’s Clockwork Orange and Shane Meadow’s This is England as primers for violent British cinema, Peter Mullan’s savage film about knife-wielding teenage thugs roving through 1970s Glasgow will still shake you to the core. Shy and clever young John McGill is beaming with promise when he is befriended by not-so-sweet-and-tender hooligans. His conversion into a self-destructive monster happens faster than the film can comment on, and we can only assume that he—a product of a violent home—has always teemed with unseen rage. Unlike This is England, NEDS allows the difficult subject to devastate us more immediately by not indulging in the projected glamour of these Doc Martin-wearing punks. But the indecipherable Scottish ramble (accompanied by subtitles) and John’s cheeky teachers amuse us just enough to stave off complete despair. Available on On Demand through June 23.

Jiro Dreams of Sushi
A documentary about a $300-a-head Michelin three-starred restaurant shouldn’t be able to capture the soul of a country as well as Jiro seems to do. The film’s namesake is an 85-year-old sushi chef who has been tirelessly preparing the world’s most consistently flawless sushi for the most of his life. His sons, one of whom flew the nest to run his own restaurant, are Jiro’s humble disciples, cherishing their father’s incomparable ability to select, handle, and prepare the perfect piece of fish and all its mouth watering accoutrement. The family dynamic and Jiro’s stories of his samurai work ethic elegantly shift the film’s perspective from food to Japanese tradition almost without ever taking the camera out of the kitchen. And with food scenes rivaling the sensual mastery of I Am Love, this film will be especially devastating if not followed by reservations at the best and nearest sushi restaurant.

Cinema Komunisto
In addition to being the authoritarian marshal of the formal Yugoslavia, Josip Broz Tito was also, apparently, something of a film buff. A gargantuan film industry boomed in the county during his reign, and Tito couldn’t be happier to support it, sending soldiers to serve their entire tour of duty as extras or allowing the blowing up of functioning bridges for a scene. Cinema Komunisto is the swinging tale of the hotshots (actors, directors, producers) responsible for the hundreds of commie-friendly, mostly military-focused films that Yugoslavia churned out until it was torn apart by war in 1991. Aside from their scale and frequency, the movies don’t seem particularly noteworthy, but this communist stronghold’s close ties with Hollywood (Richard Burton played Tito in one production) is certainly a tale worth telling.

Turn me on, Goddammit
The landscape of teenage daydreams (the raunchy kind) are captured with titillating precision in this stylish comedy about one girl’s explosive sexual awakening. Stuck in a tiny Norwegian town, Alma spends her afternoons calling a friendly phone sex operator and fantasizing about a dreamy classmate. When she’s shunned by her school (and even the neighborhood toddlers) for telling an uncorroborated story about said crush’s unusual pass at her, her social isolation winds her sexuality into even more of a frenzy. Frequent musical interludes over images of angelic blondes in gleaming IKEA-laden apartments seem like commercials for organic cotton, but they are cut off as harshly as an interrupted reverie.

Klitschko
The Ukrainian brothers and boxing superstars Vitali and Wladimir Klitschko are the subject of this engaging documentary about two professional athletes who have each reached the pinnacle of their sport, earned doctorate degrees (in sports science), and made good on an oath never to face each other in the ring. Sebastian Dehnhardt’s film also delves into other issues that weigh on the post-Soviet soul of many Ukrainians: among them, the bitter legacy of Chernobyl and a blend of suspicion and intrigue about the West. As a documentarian, Denhardt realizes he’s in the presence of a great subject, and he doesn’t allow flashy filmmaking to get in the way of a story that touches upon so many subjects but, ultimately, centers on how two men, as brothers more than boxers, endure. 

Treatment
This fresh and zeitgeisty satire about one screenwriter’s desperate gambit for his big break pokes fun at the absurd perseverance it takes to make it in showbiz. Struggling writer Leonard (Joshua Leonard) has the script but not the leading man, so he checks himself into a $10,000/week rehab clinic to befriend and recruit mega-star Gregg D. Deadpan one-liners with just the hint of snark are reminiscent of HBO’s Bored to Death, and just like in that treasure of a show, John Hodgeman makes an irresistible appearance. But the urgent reality-TV quality of the camera work and the small-screen acting overstays its welcome when the film takes a buzz-killing turn for the serious.

She Monkeys
In a sleepy Swedish town where sturdy, blond women seem to grow on the vine, an unusual friendship develops between 15-year-old Emma and Cassandra, her sultry, slightly older teammate on the equestrian acrobatics team. The relationship grows from mistrust to curiosity to sexually charged obsession with hardly a word exchanged. The girls communicate through long, piercing glances, and Emma expresses her loyalty by agreeing to play Cassandra’s increasingly dangerous games, testing social and physical limits as a pledge of each other’s devotion. The quiet landscape shots are intended as haunting naturalism, but they are momentarily captivating at most. Otherwise this simple film leaves little to digest.

Last Night
What’s worse, to cheat for sex or yearn to cheat for love, without ever acting on it? A successful and beautiful young couple perched in a sleek Manhattan loft poses this question when they are tempted by potential lovers in the course of a night spent apart. Keira Knightley plays opposite stoic Sam Worthington, whose minimal dialogue could probably have been performed by a well-coiffed brick. Luckily, Keira talks enough for the both of them, lending the film a theatrical feel reminiscent of Closer. But unlike that film, which explores a similar theme with far more sweep and nuance, Last Night is a rigid, albeit stylishly-produced, scenario good for prompting a philosophical conversation about cheating, but little else. Available On Demand.

My Piece of the Pie
Known for his energetic ensemble gems (L'Auberge Espagnole, Paris), Cédric Klapisch narrows his scope (and dulls his good sense for narrative) with My Piece of the Pie, a confusing mishmash of comedy and muckraking about the iniquity of global economics. A mother of three (Karin Viard), who finds herself unemployed after her factory job goes bust, takes a position in Paris as a cleaning lady to a morally bankrupt multi-millionaire commodities broker (Gilles Lellouche). After his son is dropped of at this doorstep, she’s bumped up from maid to nanny, and begins weaseling her way into her boss’s life with her no-nonsense Fran Drescher advice from the other side of the social divide. The film moves from one contrived plot point to another with relative dignity for such a hackneyed set-up, but it falls flat on its face by ending not with romantic catharsis but a pointless battle of haves vs. have-nots.

Stuck Between Stations
Before Sunrise set the standard for talk-heavy narratives confined within a day, and so many hopeful imitators have consistently fallen short. A pretty, young grad student (in the midst of a personal crisis) spends the night flitting around Minneapolis with an old high school classmate on leave from the army for his father’s funeral. The characters don’t seem bound to any specific social group—like the hipster youth of mumblecore—giving the film a generic, though realistic, energy. But the conversation, which attempts to balance interesting taking points with lame but believable chatter, could have used a little less authenticity and a bit more pizzazz.

Janie Jones
A jaded, womanizing rock star saddled with a 13-year-old daughter while on tour has the same irresistible appeal as watching a mobster mope in therapy and should, at the very least, make for a diverting film. Unfortunately, Janie Jones takes the contrived but promising set-up and sinks it with one too many clichéd, eye-rolling scenarios. After being pawned off on her rocker-daddy (Alessandro Nivola), Janie (Abigail Breslin) blossoms from abandoned child to some Alanis Morissette-cum-MacGyver wunderkind, warming papa’s heart with her precocious tunes and knack for bailing him of prison. It’s an uninspired, if occasionally entertaining, comedy redeemed only by Nivola’s solid (and studly) leading role.

Maria My Love
This unadorned profile of a young girl struggling with her mother’s recent death and her father’s betrayal is as sincere and simple as it is lifeless. Ana (Judy Marte) falls into a new relationship with a sweet, young grocer, who pushes her to confide in him about her troubles. Not able to verbalize her grief and confusion to him, she funnels her emotions into an odd friendship with an aging recluse (Karen Black) whom she’s determined to help. Though Black’s fiery performance adds some professionalism to this under-ripe project, it’s sorely in need of an original spin. Yana Litovsky Tribeca Film Festival, Part 1, Tribeca Film Festival, Part 2
April 23, 2011