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Film and the Arts

March '22 Digital Week II

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Wednesday, 16 March 2022 17:02; Written by Kevin Filipski

Streaming/In-Theater Releases of the Week

Lover, Beloved

(SXSW Festival, sxsw.com)

In concert, Suzanne Vega tells amusingly deadpan tales as illuminating as the direct, durable songs she sings in her personable, conversational voice. Those tough-as-nails songs, often written from the point of view of a detached narrator, make her the ideal interpreter of the life of Southern author Carson McCullers, who wrote such classics as The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, The Member of the Wedding and Reflections in a Golden Eye. But Vega’s McCullers solo show, filmed by director Michael Tully, is an awkward hybrid (part concert, part one-woman performance piece, part musical) that doesn’t always coalesce into a uniform and satisfying whole.

Vega plays McCullers with an acceptable southern drawl, speaking the renowned writer’s words while singing several songs that have music by Vega and Duncan Sheik and Vega’s own occasionally biting lyrics. The best moments, such as atmospheric blues or torch songs like “Song of Annemarie” and “Harper Lee,” give a clear snapshot of McCullers’ complicated relationships. Then there are songs like “Me of We,” which do neither McCullers nor Vega no favors.

Fear

(Film Movement)

Bulgarian director Ivaylo Hristov’s black comedy that doubles as a cautionary tale about hypocrisy, xenophobia, and cultural misunderstandings follows Svetia (the memorably dour Svetlana Yanchevaa), a widow in an isolated village, who runs into Bamba (a deadpan Michael Fleming), an African émigré trying to get to Germany. After initial distrust—and a town full of scared citizens—the pair becomes inseparable, to everyone else’s chagrin.

Hristov’s sharp sense of the absurd lets him not belabor his obvious points about narrowmindedness and racism, and there’s genuine feeling throughout, culminating in a final shot—which provides this strikingly-shot B&W film with its only spot of color—that will reverberate in the viewer’s memory.

Great Freedom

(MUBI)

The shameful treatment of homosexuality in Germany—under the guise of Paragraph 175, which made it punishable by imprisonment—is the subject of Austrian director Sebastian Meise’s sensitive drama, which follows Hans, in and out of jail for years due to the simple fact that he’s gay, and his at first tentative then tender relationship with a fellow prisoner.

Franz Rogowski—an actor I’ve never found adequate in anything else he’s been in—gives a sympathetic performance as Hans, and Meise displays, with tact and a lack of cheap sentiment, how humanity cannot be snuffed out even in the inhumane circumstances his protagonist finds himself in.

I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing

(Kino Lorber)

Canadian director Patricia Rozema’s 1987 debut feature is the lightweight, alternately enervating and charming comedy about Polly, an aimless young woman who latches onto her new boss Gabrielle, an elegant gallery owner, discovering new things about herself along the way.

Sheila McCarthy makes a winning heroine, Quebecois actress Paule Baillargeon is perfectly cast as the brooding boss, and if Rozema doesn’t trust her material enough to keep focused—the literal flights of fancy and narrative tangents are more cutesy than necessary—Rozema would find her own voice in her next film, the criminally unseen White Room.

4K/UHD Release of the Week

The Matrix—Resurrections

(Warner Bros)

In this belated sequel, Neo (Keanu Reeves) and Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) make a return trip to an ever more dangerous alternate reality, as director Lana Wachowski goes for broke and creates a string of staggering visual set pieces that may not make much sense but provide the kind of satisfying head trip that fans will enjoy.

And Wachowski succeeds—to an extent: Reeves and Moss make an endearing pair, while the visual effects and stunts dazzle, but, at nearly 2-1/2 hours, it goes on forever. The 4K/UHD transfer looks stunning; the extras (on the accompanying Blu-ray disc) comprise more than two hours’ worth of interviews and on-set featurettes.

Blu-ray Releases of the Week

Adoption

(Criterion Collection)

In Márta Mészáros’ insightful and mature drama, middle-aged woman Kata, who has always wanted children, insinuates herself close to Anna, a teenage ward of the state who wants to be emancipated so she can marry her boyfriend. With powerhouse performances by the two leads—the great Katalin Berek as Kata and Gyöngyvér Vigh as Anna—Mészáros’ potent chronicle of how women must deal with smothering forces from both within and without remains pertinent today, even without all the Communist-era baggage.

The tightly-focused B&W images (photographed by the great Lajos Koltai) are rendered beautifully on Blu-ray; extras include a 2019 Mészáros interview, video essay about her work, Mészáros’ 1964 short, Low-Ball, and a 1979 documentary, Márta Mészáros: Portrait of the Hungarian Filmmaker.

Hester Street

(Cohen Film Collection)

This clichéd 1975 melodrama somehow gained Carol Kane a best actress Oscar nomination as a newly-arrived Jewish immigrant in 1896 Manhattan whose husband, already assimilated, has little patience for what he sees as her glaring inadequacies. Admittedly, Joan Micklin Silver’s mostly amateurish, threadbare film does depict—in evocative black and white—the thriving Eastern European culture of the Lower East Side (including a lot of authentic Yiddish dialogue), but the characters populating her story are less than compelling.

The film looks authentically grainy on Blu-ray; extras include two new interviews with the director, her audio commentary, archival cast/crew interviews and the original opening sequence with commentary by Daniel Kremer, author of a book on Silver.

Vienna Philharmonic—New Year’s Concert 2022

(Sony Classical)

This festive annual New Year’s concert, performed by the Vienna Philharmonic, is a tradition in Vienna, and that means lots of Strauss music (not Richard, unfortunately): delightful Strauss dances, polkas, overtures and waltzes, including the grandest of them all, the “Blue Danube.”

Daniel Barenboim conducts adroitly, the orchestra sounds terrific, and the masked audience looks enthralled. There’s first-rate hi-def video and audio; extras are more Strauss music accompanying ballet dancers and the world-famous horses of Vienna’s Spanish riding school.

The Boston Symphony Orchestra Bewitch Audiences

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Wednesday, 16 March 2022 13:59; Written by Jack Angstreich

Andris Nelsons (R) and Leonidas Kavakos (L) Photo by Chris Lee.

At Carnegie Hall, on the evening of Monday, March 14th, I had the pleasure of seeing a concert presented by the superb Boston Symphony Orchestra, under the stellar direction of the terrific Andris Nelsons, the first of two events on successive nights, the second being a performance of Alban Berg’s classic opera, Wozzeck.

The program opened compellingly with a haunting account of Charles Ives’s uncanny, modernistic The Unanswered Question, here led by assistant conductor Earl Lee in the original arrangement for chamber ensemble and with some of the musicians offstage. The outstanding virtuoso Leonidas Kavakos then took the stage to perform the New York premiere of the contemporary Korean composer Unsuk Chin’s Violin Concerto No. 2, Scherben der Stille, which was co-commissioned by this orchestra, along with the London Symphony Orchestra and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and was written for the soloist. The piece conjures a very unusual sonic atmosphere—one can perceive the influence of György Ligeti, with whom the composer studied—and has power; while seemingly somewhat amorphous, it at times acquires a somewhat dramatic character and ends climactically. Chin joined the musicians onstage to receive the audience’s applause.

The highlight of the evening, however, was the second half of the concert, which consisted of a thrilling version of Hector Berlioz’s extraordinary, stunning Symphony fantastique. Berlioz, more than any other composer—even Carl Maria von Weber, who appears to be more of a transitional figure—is the fountainhead of musical Romanticism and this work, more than any other, announces and inaugurates that revolution. The opening Allegro, “Reveries, Passions,” is largely turbulent, after a suspenseful, introductory Largo section, but concludes serenely, while the second movement, “A Ball,” is a marvelous waltz with exuberant passages. The Adagio that follows, “Scene in the Country,” is evocatively bucolic for most of its length but not without darker, indeed portentous, moments, harbingers of the ensuing, enthralling, if utterly fatalistic, “March to the Scaffold” movement. Even more ominous is the Larghetto introduction to the finale, “Dream of a Witches’ Sabbath,” which transforms into an astounding, breathless Allegro. The artists earned an exceedingly enthusiastic ovation.

An Evening With the New York Youth Symphony

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Monday, 14 March 2022 14:16; Written by Jack Angstreich

Soloist Grace Park

At Carnegie Hall on the afternoon of Sunday, March 13th, I had the pleasure of attending a concert, of music by American composers, presented by the remarkable players of the New York Youth Symphony under the confident direction of Michael Repper.

The event began with the conductor asking the audience to stand for a stirring performance of the Ukrainian national anthem, with music by Mykhailo Verbytsky, an eminent nineteenth-century composer. The program proper opened auspiciously with the world premiere of the arresting, beautifully orchestrated Ruach (And Other Delights), by contemporary composer Jonathan Cziner, commissioned by the New York Youth Symphony First Music Program.

The very talented soloist Grace Park then took the stage for an eloquent account of Samuel Barber’s magnificent Violin Concerto. The Allegro begins lyrically and gorgeously but moves in a more sprightly and also dramatic direction with the introduction of the countermelody by the clarinet. The Andante is at first more inward and meditative, then becomes more conflicted, but returns to more soulful inflections before ending softly, while the closing, more flamboyant and propulsive Presto proved to be a virtuosic tour de force. Each movement received applause.

After an intermission, Repper announced the the release of the ensemble’s debut album, which includes music by the underrated Florence Price, a couple of whose marvelous scores have been heard in Manhattan—including at this venue—in recent weeks. The second half of the concert was equally absorbing with a wonderful rendition of the now seldom heard but extraordinary “Afro-American” Symphony of William Grant Still. The opening Moderato, like the work as a whole, is jazzy, delightful and eclectic, while the Adagio is more restrained but also enchanting. The third movement, marked Animato, is more celebratory and ebullient, and the concluding Lento begins hauntingly but soon acquires a more cheerful character. As a gracious encore, the music director repeated the terrific third movement—in the closing measures inviting the audience to clap along—earning further appreciation from the fortunate attendees. I look forward to hearing these impressive musicians again before long.

March '22 Digital Week I

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Wednesday, 02 March 2022 11:23; Written by Kevin Filipski

In-Theater/Streaming Releases of the Week

Cyrano

(MGM)

In this highly unnecessary musical knockoff of Edmond Rostand’s classic play, Peter Dinklage gives an underwhelming performance in the title role, Haley Bennett fares slightly better as Roxanne, whom Cyrano secretly pines for, and Kelvin Harrison Jr. is a dud of a Christian, the handsome front for Cyrano’s romantic words to Roxanne.

Director Joe Wright displays his usual visual dexterity, and the sets and costumes are rotely spectacular, but Erica Schmidt’s adaptation is an exceedingly bumpy road: her changes don’t help, the songs are interchangeably dull and the story’s tragic arc is missed completely. Better to stick with Fred Schepisi and Steve Martin’s Roxanne, which smartly juggled with the play comedically rather than make it into such a risibly self-important mess.

My Best Part

(Altered Innocence)

In first-time writer-director Nicolas Maury’s self-absorbed melodrama, Maury himself (known to American audiences from the witty French series Call My Agent) plays a self-pitying actor whose personal and professional life is destructing who looks to his own complex relationship with his mother to keep himself afloat.

A powerful performance by the legendary Nathalie Baye as the mom helps gloss over the flaws in Maury’s writing, directing, acting and general approach to a complicated relationships that should have been more brutally honest rather than merely gimmicky.

4K/UHD Release of the Week

The Green Mile

(Warner Bros)

For this 1999 crime drama/fantasy based on a novel by Stephen King, writer-director Frank Darabont finds himself afflicted with Martin Brest-itis, a tendency toward unneeded gargantuanism, as a perfectly serviceable 90-minute story has been stretched out of all proportion to an almost stultifying 188-minute epic. But, like Darabont’s previous overrated feature, The Shawshank Redemption (also based on a King story), The Green Mile has become a cult item.

Michael Clarke Duncan is terrific and touching as the noble black prisoner on death row, while then-unknown Sam Rockwell is good and nasty as a remorseless prisoner. But the film is too studied, too full of itself to be forceful and honest. There’s a first-rate 4K transfer; Darabont’s commentary is on the UHD and Blu-ray discs, the latter also featuring vintage extras: a lengthy making-of feature, interviews, deleted scenes, Duncan’s screen test and Hanks’ makeup test.

Blu-ray Releases of the Week

American Underdog

(Lionsgate)

In this routine biopic of Kurt Warner, his amazing story—talented QB who never got a shot in the NFL and who was bagging groceries before he finally did make his debut with the St. Louis Rams, then improbably led them to a Super Bowl win in his first season and eventually make the Hall of Fame—is told competently if unsurprisingly.

Directors Jon and Andrew Erwin have never been known for their subtle touch, but they’re helped by Zachary Levi (Kurt), Anna Paquin (his wife Brenda), and heart-tugging from Hayden Zaller as Brenda’s young, blind son. The film looks excellent on Blu; extras are a good hour of behind-the-scenes footage and interviews with cast, crew and even former Rams coach Dick Vermeil (played by Dennis Quaid in the film), interviewed by none other than Saturday Night Live cast member Heidi Gardner.

Boat People

(Criterion)

Hong Kong director Ann Hui’s shattering 1982 film about the crushed lives of so many Vietnamese refugees following the Vietnam War follows a Japanese photojournalist who finds that, the government’s attempts to paint peacetime as a success aside, families are living in a shocking poverty that is being hidden from the rest of the world.

Hui’s masterly direction dramatizes the squalor, the corruption and the repression that these people are up against without a trace of condescension or sentimentality. The film looks remarkably good on Blu; extras include a new Hui interview; Keep Rolling, a 2020 documentary about Hui’s career; As Time Goes By, Hui’s 1997 documentary self-portrait; and the 1983 Cannes Film Festival press conference.

Dancing Pirate

(Film Detective)

Lloyd Corrigan’s 1936 Technicolor melodrama has few stars (unless Charles Collins and Steffi Duna are names you’re familiar with) and a ridiculous story that gets more implausible as it goes along, but there’s something about the singlemindedness of arriving at the title character’s solo spot that makes this semi-watchable.

There’s a decent hi-def transfer that gives a sense of the early three-strip Technicolor process; extras include an audio commentary along with featurettes on the beginnings of Technicolor and on the film itself.

Edge of Darkness

(Warner Archive)

In this tense wartime thriller set near the beginning of WWII, director Lewis Milestone skillfully draws the various members of the Norwegian resistance against the Nazis and their collaborators in an often vicious and deadly game of cat and mouse.

Made in 1943, Milestone’s film mines this endlessly dramatic subject for melodramatics, propaganda and old-fashioned derring-do; his cast, led by Errol Flynn, Ann Sheridan and Walter Huston as resisters, is in fine fettle throughout. The B&W images look spectacular on Blu; extras are a vintage short, Gun to Gun, and vintage cartoon, To Duck…or Not to Duck.

The Three Musketeers

(Warner Archive)

This colorful 1948 adaptation about the swashbuckling quartet—D’Artagnan joins the other three in their exploits—is better at atmospheric entertainment than at telling a faithful version of Dumas’ story.

But who cares, when you’ve got Gene Kelly of all people sword-fighting/dancing with the best of them as D’Artagnan, Van Heflin, Gig Young and Robert Coote as the musketeers, June Allyson as the lovely Constance, Vincent Price as Cardinal Richelieu and even Lana Turner as the duplicitous countess. It’s Hollywood filmmaking at its slickest, courtesy director George Sidney. The film’s vivid colors pop brilliantly on Blu; extras are a vintage travel short, Looking at London, and vintage cartoon, What Price Fleadom.

Don Giovanni

(Opus Arte)

Francesca da Rimini

(Naxos)

These stagings of two operas—an acknowledged classic and a less well-known but respectable love story—are illuminated by strong performances in the lead roles. In Mozart’s Don Giovanni—seen in Oliver Mears’ stodgy 2019 staging at London’s Royal Opera House—Erwin Schrott is a charmingly roguish Don and Malin Bystrom, Louise Alder and Myrto Papatanasiu are a delightful and sympathetic trio of the Don’s conquests.

Last year in Berlin, Riccardo Zandonai’s tragic Francesca da Rimini was staged impeccably by director Christof Loy, helped immeasurably by American soprano Sara Jakubiak’s varied, versatile, vocally and dramatically flawless portrayal of Francesca. Both operas have excellent hi-def video and sound; Giovanni extras are short interviews with cast and creatives.

DVD Release of the Week

Le Chevalier de Saint-George—The Enlightened Violinist

(BelAir Classiques)

This short documentary about the life of a remarkable musician and composer, Joseph Bologne, aka Le Chevalier de Saint-George, fills a hole in part of our history of music—this Black man from Guadeloupe (then a French colony) was born to an enslaved 16-year-old in 1745 and was considered the “Black Mozart” by his contemporaries for his versatility as an instrumentalist and facility as a composer.

Several music scholars and musicians discuss his importance both historically and musically, and the accompanying hour-long concert—which features soprano Magali Leger, who also speaks in the documentary—includes some of his well-crafted music alongside works by Haydn and Mozart, providing a necessary corrective to our current musical trajectory.

CD Release of the Week

George Walker—Piano Sonatas

(Bridge Records)

This excellent disc collects the astonishing piano sonatas by George Walker (1922-2018)—the first Black composer to win the Pulitzer Prize for music—all five of them short, compact and captivating statements of musical purpose, with their jazz-like syncopations that even sound at times like free improvisations, but always remaining rigidly structured throughout.

Pianist Steven Beck brings his prodigious technique to tackling these often difficult miniature masterpieces that span five decades of Walker’s composing lifetime, letting listeners hear a truly original and extraordinary musical voice.

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