BERBERIAN SOUND STUDIO - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Toby Jones overshadows Berberian Pretensions

Berberian Sound Studio (2012)
dir. Peter Strickland **1/2
Starring: Toby Jones
Review By Greg Klymkiw

Sound has been with movies almost from the beginning. Long before Al Jolson uttered the immortal words "You ain't heard nothin' yet" in 1927's The Jazz Singer, filmmakers experimented with having original scores composed for their films and even designing live foley and sound effects - all of which were achieved by full orchestras for some of the bigger releases in more established picture palaces. Once the "talkies" came, though, a whole new art and craft began to develop - not just synch sound recordists on set, but all the magicians in the sound studios who created effects, mixed and tweaked the sound and edited the sound.

In this day and age, sound has become, for better or worse (and depending on the film), the primary instigation for how, why, where and when to actually make picture cuts in genre pictures. Sadly, far too many contemporary directors that have absolutely no eye for creating decent action or suspense sequences, rely solely on sound to make up for their lack of talent. Or rather, they think they know precisely what they're doing and have their butts saved by editors as well as the low standards of audiences all afflicted with ADD.

One dreadful (and idiotically overrated) director after another (Christopher Nolan and JJ Abrams to name two especially egregious members of this ever-expanding club of dimwits), piece together a wide variety of badly composed, poorly conceived and mostly close shots, throw them into the post-production blender where picture editors must save the miserable footage by using sound as the driving force behind their cuts rather than propelling the image forward to hit dramatic beats. The moron directors think it's all about pace and creating suspense from cacophony when in actual fact, this style of shooting and cutting exhausts an audience to a point where watching the film has less to do with being able to follow a story as it is to be whacked repeatedly in the face.

We're bludgeoned and pummelled senselessly by sound and a whole whack of great artists and craftspeople in this field are turned into volume (of the amount AND level of audio variety) generators.

While, there are a number of great movies about movies, the only one that brilliantly and perfectly captures the art of sound men is still Brian DePalma's seminal thriller Blow Out which starred John Travolta as a movie sound recordist who tries to solve a mystery using the location sound he's recorded. (The Conversation counts as a great "sound" picture, but its focus is surveillance rather than the movies.)

Berberian Sound Studio could have been the best movie about sound in movies since DePalma's mournful thriller, but finally, it achieves that for about 30 of its 92 minutes until it starts spinning its wheels and diving into bargain basement Lynch-like surrealism and sledge hammer (albeit somewhat disingenuous) commentary on the effects of screen violence.

But, first, let's concentrate on the good.

Set during the heyday of Italian horror/suspense thrillers of the 70s, the picture tells the tale of Gilderoy (Toby Jones), a pathologically introspective sound man (which, ultimately, all great sound guys must be). He's as twee and British as Queen Elizabeth (but not quite as inbred) and he's taken a job presiding over the aural arts being applied in post-production to the latest blood-spattered giallo epic by Santini (Antonio Mancino), the reigning maestro of spaghetti horror.

At first, the film is a loving homage to the magnificent giallo genre and a great fish out of water tale. As Gilderoy works his sound magic on this ultra-violent and decidedly misogynistic gore-fest, things slowly and creepily build (not unlike the best Polanski) to a point where dream, reality and nightmare collide and eventually cross a line where we're experiencing a potential mental breakdown.

Alas, once the picture crosses over into this territory, tedium starts to set in. It's too bad. Toby Jones delivers a crackling good performance, whilst the production design and cinematography go above and beyond the call of duty in creating an atmosphere that seems like it was ripped out of the single greatest movie decade in the history of movies. But, as sure as Dario Argento is Italian, Gilderoy's mind starts to crack under the weight of the long hours, a xenophobic attitude (on both sides of the equation) and image after image of the most brutal violence against women.

What's a bit disappointing is that this is our expectation almost from the beginning and our hope, because the first half hour IS so cool and atmospheric (and a movie geek's wet dream), is that it will not veer into familiar territory. As such, the movie feels like a short film idea stretched out interminably over 90 minutes.

It was fun, however, being in a sound studio that bore all the familiar traces of what it was like to work with real film, mag stock and optical. No digital allowed, thanks! Weirdly, though, the most disappointing aspect next to the by-the-numbers surrealism is the fact that the movie SOUNDS like most movies today.

Oh, how I wish it all sounded like a great centre-speaker mono mix with that gentle hiss that can only emanate from optical and analog sound. If Berberian Sound Studio truly had the courage of its convictions - it should have adhered to every element of the period.

A good script might have worked wonders, also.

"Berberian Sound Studio" originally played during the Toronto International Film Festival's 2012 edition of the Vanguard series. It is currently in theatrical release via FilmsWeLike. In Toronto, it is playing at the TIFF Bell Lightbox.

PARADISE: LOVE - DVD review - Review By Greg Klymkiw - First in Seidl's Paradise Trilogy

Paradise: Love (2012) *****t
dir. Ulrich Seidl
Starring:Margarethe Tiesel, Peter Kazungu

Review By Greg Klymkiw
"Never have I looked so directly into hell."
-Werner Herzog on Animal Love, by Ulrich Seidl

One almost imagines an off-screen Julie Andrews singing "These are a Few of My Favourite Things" as the lens of filmmaker Ulrich Seidl greedily drinks in globs of fleshy pink corpulence jiggling like mounds of jello, streaked with road maps of stretch marks boring through virtual mountain ranges of cellulite and grotesque cauliflower-like skin tags gripping desperately to spongy thighs like bats in a cave. But no, as the blonde blob adorned in a sun hat flip-flops onto the sunny airport tarmac of a Kenyan resort, surrounded by her equally porcine 40-50-something Austrian maidens, she is greeted with the happy voices of a welcoming party as they joyfully croon "Hakuna Matata." Once happily ensconced in the paradise of the resort, our jolly Teresa (Margarethe Tiesel) ogles the rich, lithe, cocoa bodies of her male hosts, salivating with the same delightful desire she might express when gazing upon a platter of rich Viennese pastries, imagining the joy of stuffing them all down her expansive, greedy gullet.

That said, Teresa looks like someone's mother.

And indeed she is. She's left her nasty, blubbery smart-phone-obsessed daughter in the capable care of an aunt. Also behind her is the daily toil of caring for extremely mentally challenged adults. However, the loneliness permeating her single parent existence will soon be filled to overflowing. "Filled" is indeed the operative word here.

She will soon enter the pleasurable heart of darkness known as sex tourism and we know, within seconds, that we have plunged ourselves yet again into the wonderful world of Ulrich Seidl. As noted by director Werner Herzog upon seeing Seidl's early documentary Animal Love, we too are looking "directly into hell".

Seidl is no ordinary obsessive. He's an artist with one of the most unique voices in contemporary cinema. His early documentaries exposed things about humanity (and by extension, ourselves) that we all try to deny as being within us and the rest of the whole wide world. Where Seidl differs from traditional documentarians is his insistence upon shooting in long takes - expertly composed shots with exquisite lighting (or in some cases, starkly appropriate such as when his camera trained itself upon the aforementioned individuals who truly loved their animals - a lot!)

All this went several steps further, however, once Seidl switched gears in 2001 and began to apply his unique mise-en-scene and obsessions in the world of drama with what is inarguably still his greatest picture Dog Days.

Paradise: Love isn't too far behind in terms of its brilliance and impact. The tale of the aforementioned Teresa might prove far to unsettling for some, but like all Seidl, patience and perseverance with pay off.

Some accuse him of being little more than a cinematic equivalent to a freakshow impresario, but this is to remain myopic to what he's really up to. Seidl is indeed a humanist who seeks his quarry amongst the extremities of mankind (and most notably in the backyards of Austria).

With Paradise: Love, Seidl unflinchingly charts a woman's descent into satisfying her most basic sexual needs by exploiting those who are so poor they will do whatever they have to do in order to survive.

Teresa parades along the Kenyan beaches in outfits that accentuate her strudel and schnitzel induced corpulence. It's her fat face emblazoned with lustful wonder that ultimately betrays her slatternly desires. Surrounded by eager, young and almost criminally gorgeous Kenyan men who vie for her attention in the hope she'll buy a lot more than the trinkets they have on offer, Teresa eventually sets her sights on one young lad who, on every level, offers just what she wants.

And as Seidl's camera unflinchingly reveals, what some of these young lads have to offer is jaw-droppingly succulent. I dare even strictly heterosexual male viewers to not fantasize about dropping their own jaws to take in the stunning magnificence that dangles between the thighs of these heartbreakingly beautiful young men. With their smooth gentle voices, glisteningly ripped bodies and irrepressibly insistent promises of the love they will provide, it's not hard to believe that Teresa and her ilk might actually believe it is LOVE they are paying for, not sex.

As per usual in Seidl's dramas, the script is a springboard for the drama created in lengthy, intensive improvisations between professional actors and real people. This results in a number of especially harrowing moments. For all the genuine dark humour the movie generates, there are just as many sequences when Seidl's camera catches the eyes of the beautiful young men (who are indeed - in real life - dirt poor and who have provided their services to women like Teresa many times in their lives).

Their eyes betray desperation and terror. The performances of non-actors and actors alike are imbued with reality and poignancy - so much so that it eventually becomes impossible to laugh and you are, in turn, indelibly overwhelmed and saddened with the naked truth of the world we live in. Humanity is indeed at the top of the food chain, but as it devours its own with through-the-roof relish and frequency, one can only despair at where it will all lead us.

Seidl leaves us with a Kenyan folk music group performing "Hakuna Matata" which, in Swahili is literally translated into English as "There are no worries."

No worries, indeed.

"Paradise: Love" premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival 2012 (TIFF 2012) and is currently available on DVD via Strand Releasing.

THE ACT OF KILLING - Review By Greg Klymkiw - This film is unlike anything you have ever seen or will ever see. A Masterpiece. ***** 5-Stars Highest Rating

The Act of Killing (2012) *****
Dir. Joshua Oppenheimer
Co-Dir. Christine Cynn and Anonymous

Review By Greg Klymkiw

This is an iron-clad guarantee. You have not seen, nor will you ever see a movie like The Act of Killing.

Never. Ever.

Director Joshua Oppenheimer (working with two credited co-directors Christine Cynn and an Anonymous Indonesian filmmaker) has delivered a work of uncompromising horror and staggering originality. Its importance as art is matched only by its truly formidable significance as a document of humanity amidst a collection of the most repugnant individuals ever profiled in any film. What Oppenheimer creates is simply and utterly unparalleled.

The filmmaker trains his eye upon several notorious members of a death squad who committed unspeakable acts of torture and murder almost fifty years ago. They continue to live - free, wealthy and revered as heroes. They not only discuss their activities in detail, they do so with pride.

However, what separates this film from any other - documentary or drama - is that these men, part of a movement that murdered over one million people over the course of one year, are given the opportunity to recreate their killings in any way, shape or form they desire. What we get is not only a documentary portrait of these men's actions during a shameful period of history, but an examination of their creative process as they plan and execute films about their actions and, of course, we see the films themselves.

Oppenheimer chooses to begin his film with the words of Voltaire:

"It is forbidden to kill.
Therefore, all murderers are punished,
unless they kill in large numbers,
and to the sound of trumpets.”

Within this very context we're plunged into the madness that is Indonesia. Those of us who were too young to comprehend the turmoil in the East during the mid-1960s first became aware of the horrendous situation upon seeing Peter Weir's great 1983 drama The Year of Living Dangerously with Mel Gibson, Sigourney Weaver and the extraordinary Linda Hunt (in her legendary Academy Award winning performance). Weir created a powerful and romantic world of expatriates living in Jakarta during the end-days of Sukarno's rule in 1965 - one which was about to come crashing down. One's memories of this film are jogged briefly as Oppenheimer initially and simply relates the political and historical roots of his own film. As wonderful as Weir's picture was, its concerns are clearly centred on Western journalists, bureaucrats, politicians, business people and, of course, certain shady American officials.

What we learn at the outset of Oppenheimer's movie is that Sukarno was indeed deposed and Indonesia shifted to complete military rule. Indonesians who opposed the new government were accused of being communists - a crime punishable by death. In less than a year with aid from the west, most of it from America (naturally), over one million "communists" were murdered. Yes, many were communists, but others were labelled as such to justify killing them.

The army mostly avoided soiling its hands with the wholesale genocide of civilians opposing their rule. The two key factions utilized in the killings were gangsters and the Pancasila Youth, Indonesia’s biggest paramilitary organization – a kind of bloodthirsty cross between Boy Scouts and Hitler Youth.

The Act of Killing profiles the gangsters - in particular Anwar Congo, Herman Koto and Adi Zulkadry in the northern region of Indonesia who worked in the lucrative movie ticket scalping trade. Congo and Zulkadry are seen engaging in very serious discussions with each other, however, if this were a fictional (and deeply) black comedy rather than a documentary, when Congo And Koto are paired up in the film, they resemble a kind of psychopathic team of skinny-fat comic duos from cinema's Golden Age. They're almost like perverse Indonesian versions of Laurel and Hardy or Abbott and Costello, casually trading quips about how they exterminated their victims and wandering amongst terrified citizens as they try to recruit actors to play communists in the film recreations of their killings.

Congo, a tall, white-haired, dapper, stylish and still handsome old man is a hero to the government and held in the highest esteem as a poster boy for the still-powerful-and-feared paramilitary youth movement. He's especially keen to take advantage of Oppenheimer's offer to make filmed recreations of the killings and his participation is such that it will cement other key figures in the 65-66 genocide to avail themselves to the cause.

"We have to show that this is history," Congo declares. "This is who we are. In the future, people will remember."

From beginning to end, our jaws hit the floor - so repeatedly that we're virtually, eventually and almost perpetually mouth-agape at what we see and hear. When we accompany Congo to the site of executions, he convincingly informs us that the squalid, private little outdoor enclave is replete with ghosts due to the insane number of people who were murdered here.

"At first we would beat them to death, but there was too much blood," Congo complains. "When we cleaned it up it smelled awful."

Using a volunteer, Congo re-enacts his solution to the blood problem by using a simple garrote-like wire attached to a block of wood that would handily slice into the neck, strangling and nearly beheading the victims.

"I’ve tried to forget all this with good music and dancing, feeling happy, a little alcohol, a little marijuana, a little ectasy," he says, before engaging in a mock cha-cha while he sings joyfully to himself in this bleak little killing square.

Later in the film, Congo relates how lucrative it was to scalp tickets for movies. Standing in front of the actual cinema he used to hang out at, he laments how bad it became when the communists were in power. Because American films were banned, "we gangsters made less money because there was no audience.” After the coup, financed primarily by America, Hollywood returned to the cinema with a vengeance. The scalping became lucrative again and was a nice opportunity to while away time prior to strolling into the night to perform executions. "When we’d watch happy movies, like Elvis movies – we’d leave the cinema smiling, dancing to the music." he says, leading us to a nearby location whereupon he matter-of-factly-declares: “Here was the paramilitary office where I always killed people.”

We are chilled to the bone as he describes the remaining euphoria of the Elvis Presley musicals: “I’d see a guy being interrogated. I’d give him a cigarette. I’d still be dancing and laughing - it was like we were killing - happily!"

Not only were these killings sanctioned by the government over forty years ago, but Oppenheimer demonstrates how highly regarded the gangsters and paramilitary groups are even today. At one point, Congo meets with Syamsul Arifin, governor of North Sumatra. The official happily crows: "Communism will never be accepted here because we have so many gangsters and that’s a good thing." As Congo explains, "Gangster" from the English language means “free men”. The governor nods in hearty approval: "Thugs want freedom to do things even if they’re wrong. We need only to know how to work with them."

As if this wasn't enough to instil incredulity within us, we get an opportunity to see Congo at a paramilitary rally where he appears to be a guest of honour in the presence of none other than the Vice President of Indochina Jusuf Kalla. The happy VP repeats the oft-heard "Gangsters" are "free men" phrase.

Allow me to reiterate - this a very recent event wherein the VP extols the virtues of gangsters before the multitudes. "We need a nation of free men," he asserts, beaming, and then adding, "Sometimes beating people up is necessary."

The litany of shocking acceptance of violence continues when an old newspaper editor admits how he, as a journalist in 1965, had the enviable job of interrogating communists. No matter what questions he asked them or how they replied, he'd "change their answers to make them look bad." After all, he explains, "As a newspaper man, my job was to make the public hate them." Of course, he never had to kill any of them himself. "Why would I kill people?" he asks. "Why would I do the grunt work? I didn’t have to. One wink from me and they’d be dead." Of course, it didn't stop the communists from being beaten "to a pulp" in the newspaper offices before the gangsters dragged them away to kill them. "At first, we tried to give them to the army," Congo explains, "but the army wouldn’t take them. They’d say: 'Just dump them in the river.'"

Of course what Oppenheimer achieves goes far beyond simply cataloguing the boasts and idiotic proclamations of these killers. Where this movie completely distinguishes itself from other documentaries detailing grotesque acts of genocide is that we're following Congo and his colleagues as they're preparing the filmed reenactments of their heinous activities.

There are times when the film alternately flirts with satire of the darkest tones and surrealism that might make Luis Bunuel seem mainstream. As such, The Act of Killing is, first and foremost, a documentary that delves into the creative process of cold-hearted thugs and killers - like some perverse high-toned version of Entertainment Tonight segments or the "making of"-styled electronic press kits - we see story sessions, casting sessions, rehearsals, makeup tests and weird philosophical discussions amongst the killers that are not unlike the moronically serious manner one hears the likes of Brad Pitt explaining their boneheaded characters in the equally boneheaded blockbusters they're starring in for the boneheaded kowtowing toadies actually shooting this stuff to entice the especially boneheaded general public to spend money to see them.

This is not to say Oppenheimer fits that mould at all - he's brilliantly and insanely capturing these moments until we eventually get to the segments where the scenes are being shot, cut and screened for those killers and government collaborators who proudly and zealously participate in the process as if they were artists themselves.

We hear such unrelentingly sickening comments like:

"I know a good location for a torture scene behind the school in the old toilets."

"I hope these clothes express my vision."

Or during moments of repose both on-and-off-set:

"All this talk about human rights pisses me off. 'We want a little human rights!’ Back then, there were no human rights. A soldier has a revolution and might eventually be tried for war crimes. Not me. I’m a gangster. A free man. A movie theatre gangster. Not much education, a drop out. There are people like me everywhere in the world. War crimes! War crimes are defined by the winners."

Even more appalling is a conversation wherein the killers discuss the difference between their actions and those of the communists and try to argue - with straight faces, no less - what distinguishes "cruelty" from "sadism".

I also dare anyone seeing this film not to be shaken to the core when the men casually discuss raping communist women - with smiles on their faces and expressions of satisfaction. And when this talk turns to the rape of children and one of the men describes with a reminiscence bordering on the sentimental of how he forced himself on a 14-year-old girl, one feels like we've somehow crossed even deeper into a heart of darkness. "It’s going to be Hell for you," he says, recalling a halcyon statement he made to the little girl, "But it's going to be Heaven on Earth for me."

And the men chortle knowingly, nodding their heads.

The sad and sickening reality of humanity at its lowest position is like looking into a cinematic mirror - for these men are human and so are we. Our thoughts and actions might separate us from what we gaze into, but it is an unshakeable, undeniable fact that we share what and who we are as a species with these despicable human beings.

Once the reenactments - especially a torture scene conceived by the killers themselves and based on their past actions, the steadily mounting creepiness of the whole process pulverizes us in ways no other film possibly could. Especially harrowing is that in the process, these killers come face to face with with their own atrocities.

And this, as Austrian documentary (and now fiction) filmmaker Ulrich Seidl has proven time and time again, is the eternally horrific realization that one can indeed find humanity in the faces of those who partake (or have partaken) in the ugliest demonstrations of what are unavoidable aspects of, sadly and shockingly, extremely human behaviour.

Another confession of a killer reflects this: "I know my bad dreams came from what I did – killing people who didn’t want to die. I forced them to die."

Oppenheimer makes it clear through his line of questioning and the responses he gets that cinema itself has been a considerable influence upon these killers - especially American cinema. "We saw many sadistic movies and," Congo offers whilst citing John Wayne pictures in particular, "we were influenced by them but we were much more violent than any of those movies."

Make believe soon becomes the film's reality. One of the recreations has the ghost of a victim thanking his killer as beautiful half-naked women dance around them and the late John Barry's Academy Award Winning tune "Born Free" plays - honouring the lives and credo of killers.

While Congo sits back to watch a torture scene he participates in as an actor, he summons his tiny grandchildren. "Yan, watch this scene where Grandpa is tortured and killed," he offers in his gentlest grandfatherly tones. "Ami, come see grandpa beaten up and bleeding."

There will be no redemption for any of these men, but there is, finally, a sad, shocking and grotesque moment we share with Congo - it's haunting, sickening and accompanied in the blackness of night by the sounds of sobs and dry heaves.

"Sickening" doesn't even begin to describe this truly important film experience, but it is art - great art at that.

Enjoy the John Barry theme song for Born Free:

"The Act of Killing" plays theatrically via FilmsWeLike and can be seen in Toronto at the TIFF Bell Lightbox. For tickets and showtimes, visit the TIFF website HERE. There will be one show per day of the Director's Cut. The film is also playing at The Vancity (Vancouver), The Bytowne (Ottawa), The Metro (Edmonton)."

SPRING BREAKERS - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Babes in Bikinis, Babes with Guns, Babes with James Franco.

Babes in Bikinis. Babes with Guns. Babes with James Franco is lots of fun! Look at this shit! This is MY shit! These are my motherfucking GUNS! These are my NUNCHUCKS! All of MY shit! It's the AMERICAN Dream! MY dream!!!

Spring Breakers (2012) ****
Dir. Harmony Korine
Starring: James Franco, Selena Gomez, Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Benson, Rachel Korine, Gucci Mane

Review By Greg Klymkiw

I kill where I please because it is all mine.
There is no sophistry in my body:
My manners are tearing off heads -
Ted Hughes, from his poem "Hawk Roosting"

Violence permeates every frame of Harmony (Gummo, Julien Donkey-Boy) Korine's savagely beautiful Spring Breakers and the overall effect of his film places us in an almost hypnotic state where sex, celebration, friendship and love - the very foundations of humanity - give way to acts of barbarism. Savagery and civilization are, by strict definition, polar opposites and yet one gets an overwhelming sense from the world Korine creates, that civilization without savagery is not possible and that furthermore, they're essentially one and the same.

There is, finally, little to distinguish us from animals. We are animals. Rational thought is what supposedly separates us, but the tone of Spring Breakers is haunting and almost elegiac. Though there is a slender narrative to carry us along, the film is ultimately a poetic, visceral and visually stunning representation of creatures driven by instinct and any actions which move beyond that - hence demonstrating some shred of individuality - are either swallowed up, overwhelmed or left behind as the pack mentality of human existence is what finally drives every action.

The movie follows four young women - Faith (Selena Gomez), Candy (Vanessa Hudgens), Brit (Ashley Benson) and Cotty (Rachel Korine). They live in a grey, bleak, suffocating and stupefyingly insular dormitory in a tiny, nondescript college town. When we first meet them, they're consumed with the need to join the thousands upon thousands of students celebrating during Spring Break, the annual hedonistic ritual of ingesting libations, hallucinogens, having sex and engaging in all manner of naughty fun as they party hearty under the blazing Florida sun. Alas, they're short of money which, leads them to finance their vacation in ways none of them imagined ever doing. Or did they? It seems that below the layers of their supple, nubile flesh, they have dreams of escape, experience and searching for lives worth living - even if the living involves criminal activity - or at the extremities of their meagre existence, the threat of death to others or, for that matter, themselves.

They seek to defile and be defiled.

Enter: Alien (James Franco). He pulls the girls out of a sticky wicket and they, in turn, stick to him like flypaper. He's a raunchy half-time rapper who's built his own crime dynasty after leaving the fold of his mentor and former best friend, Gangsta Archie (Gucci Mane). It's a bitter rivalry, but there's time enough for old scores to be settled - Alien has debauchery on his mind. Luckily, for him, some - though not all of our young protagonists - are more than up to the challenge of mutually agreeable debasement.

A long night gets longer.

There will be blood and it will spill.

This is the fuckin' American dream. This is my fuckin' dream, y'all! All this sheeyit! Look at my sheeyit! I got... I got SHORTS! Every fuckin' color. I got designer T-shirts! I got gold bullets. Motherfuckin' VAM-pires. I got Escape! Calvin Klein Escape! Mix it up with Calvin Klein Be. Smell nice? I SMELL NICE! That ain't a fuckin' bed; that's a fuckin' art piece. My fuckin' spaceship! U.S.S. Enterprise on this shit. I go to different planets on this motherfucker! Look at my shit. Look at my shit! I got my blue Kool-Aid. I got my fuckin' NUN-CHUCKS. I got shurikens; I got different flavors. Look at that shit, I got sais. I got blades! Look at my sheeyit! This ain't nuttin', I got ROOMS of this shit! I got my dark tannin' oil... lay out by the pool, put on my dark tanning oil...I got machine guns... Look at this motherfucker here! Look at this motherfucker! Huh? Huh? A fucking army up in this shit!

From beginning to end, Korine paints a dreamy portrait of angst, ennui and celebration. The celebratory aspects of the film are captured with seemingly unending slow-motion shots of gorgeous and decidedly anonymous young men and women splashed with sunlight on sandy beaches parading their youth, sexuality and good cheer in various stages of undress - lithe, hard bodies with tanned flesh and splotches of colour that appear almost fluorescent.

There's a strange disconnect, though. Who are these college kids exposing themselves to - each other or the camera (which often feels like an observational character unto itself) or both? Are we experiencing a dream? If so, whose? Are these flash-forwards and/or what our heroines hope/imagine what spring break will be like? After all, they are indeed on these same beaches after scratching up enough bus fare to get to Florida. It's also where they admiringly spy the rapping Alien and he, in turn, locks his greedy eyes upon the girls.

Beneath the smiles and good cheer, the same listlessness Korine focuses upon during the early college dorm sequences seems almost to be the root of the celebratory activities. Everyone appears to be having fun because they're supposed to be having fun. Certainly, this is the feeling when Korine's camera prowls about Gangsta Archie's strip club at night - the dapples of sun are replaced with coloured footlights, stage lights, even fluorescent lights and the colours, while vibrant, seem muted through haze and grain.

Whether he's behind the wheel of his car as he cruises the streets or leaping crazily and boastfully within his beach-side home filled with cash, drugs and a huge arsenal of weapons or on a pier during a peaceful and overwhelmingly radiant sunset, James Franco betrays, ever-so subtly and brilliantly, flashes of genuine regret, dollops of blankness and occasional sparkles in his eyes that seem forced. His work in this film is, almost not surprisingly, astonishing. Whether Alien reveals pieces of his sad back story to the girls or when he goes face to face with his old friend and now rival Archie - we see bravado, to be sure, but we also strongly sense that he's donning a mask. When the film inevitably rushes into the literal explosions of violence that the movie's undercurrents hint at, both Korine and Franco are a director and actor at the very peak of their formidable gifts and power as film artists.

Korine's portrait of youth in a hedonistic environment feels less like a narrative since its genuine dramatic beats feel few and far between. Instead they progressively and increasingly seem like buoys on the water of a fluid-like work of visual poetry, thanks especially due to the stunning work of cinematographer Benoît Debie (Irreversible, The Runaways, Get The Gringo). There's aural poetry also, since Korine slathers his film with the evocative Cliff Martinez-Skrillex score which not so much drives, but permeates the entire film almost non-stop.

SELENA GOMEZ as Faith: "I'm tired of seeing the same thing. Everybody's so miserable here because they see the same things everyday, they wake up in the same bed, same houses, same depressing streetlights, one gas station, grass, it's not even green, it's brown. Everything is the same and everyone is just sad. I really don't want to end up like them. I just want to get out of here. There's more than just spring break. This is our chance to see something different."

Korine is also blessed with a first-rate cast. In addition to the aforementioned and mesmerizing James (can-this-guy-ever-do-wrong?) Franco, Spring Breakers must live and die by the quartet of young women whose story the film ultimately tells and they acquit themselves admirably. The wonderful teen pop singers and former Disney TV moppets Selena Gomez and Vanessa Hudgens (Wizards of Waverly Place and High School Musical respectively) both offer bravura work in roles on opposite ends of the film's centre of morality and their work here is genuinely revelatory. Ashley Benson and Korine's real-life wife Rachel contribute solid work also.

Korine's writing and his direction of the actors yields, for me, his strongest work to date. In particular the film features several expressive monologues rendered by Alien and the girls - usually in the form of exclamatory rants (on Alien's part) and extremely sorrowful speeches by the girls as they leave voicemail messages for their respective family members' via pay phones and/or verbally convey during dialogue scenes where one voice dominates - expressing the hope to return to the simpler lives they've eschewed for ephemeral thrills.

There's a lot of fun and cool shit on the film's attractive surface, but below the flesh of its forbidden fruits, are the layers that run deep, embodying lives with little promise save for the guarantee of misspent youthful activity which might well be metamorphosized into that of those like Alien - men and women who get older, not wiser, and keep clutching to the straws of a party they never want to see end.

But end, it does. When it comes, one can only wonder who was, in this sad, empty world ever really standing tall enough to be left standing at all.

"Spring Breakers" played the Toronto International Film Festival 2012 and a theatrical release that included TIFF's Bell Lightbox. It's now available on an expertly transferred Blu-Ray and DVD combo pack with a solid selection of extras via VVS Films. The movie is a keeper and definitely worth owning. 

FILL THE VOID - Review By Greg Klymkiw - The rich, vibrant backdrop of Tel Aviv's strict Orthodox Hasidic Haredi community yields the first great movie love story of the new millennium and a bona fide contemporary masterpiece. In release via Mongrel Media, this is a movie that's NOT TO BE MISSED. See it in a movie theatre on a big screen. In terms of its canvas, the film's humanity deserves to be experienced in the temple that is, the cinema.

Fill The Void (2012) *****
Dir. Rama Burshtein
Starring: Hadas Yaron, Yiftach Klein, Irit Sheleg, Chaim Sharir, Razia Israely, Hila Feldman, Renana Raz

Review By Greg Klymkiw

In a time when selfish personal needs are placed above those of tradition, culture and the preservation of the nuclear family unit, it's a genuine blessing to see a motion picture like Fill The Void which focuses so deeply and intensely upon a modern community steadfastly adhering to an ages-old way of life. That the film is one of the most beautifully written and delicately directed love stories in at least a decade - probably longer - is a testament to the great poetic qualities of filmmaker Rama Burshtein.

Like all great films, its surface is relatively simple, but as such, yields complexities and layers that augment this already enriching family drama. Shira (Hadas Yaron) is 18 years old and her family, members of the strict Orthodox Haredi community, has endeavoured to put together a perfect match for her husband-to-be and when she catches a glimpse of the bright, handsome young man selected to be her eventual life partner, she's thrilled beyond belief.

To add to her joy, it is Purim and her father, the venerable Rabbi Aharon (Chaim Sharir) is granting audience with family, friends and community in his patriarchal domicile - paying tribute by requesting their greatest needs and the good Rabbi granting them the practical means of attaining it. Shira's gorgeously radiant sister Esther (Renana Raz) is pregnant and her handsome, kind-hearted husband Yochay (Yiftach Klein) are in attendance for the festivities. Their undying love for each other is movingly and privately reaffirmed within the crowded family home.

The only spanner in the works appears to be the unmarried Frieda (Hila Feldman) who loves the family dearly, but also harbours jealousy and resentment that she is still without a match and terrified she will become an old maid. This, however, is not enough to spoil this time of celebration, prayer and song. Happiness abounds.

Sadly, into this bliss, tragedy of the most unexpected and devastating kind strikes. The family is faced with an emptiness and sorrow that is exacerbated by the conundrum of what to do about all the marriage plans in the works that have been seriously thrown out of whack by the calamitous events that have befallen them. And it is young, hopeful Shira who is faced with the greatest challenge of all - to maintain family purity, lineage and the very ties that bind - all of which are potentially convenient for everyone but herself and most of all, with the very real possibility that all her hopes and dreams will be forever altered, if not completely shattered.

Fill The Void becomes one of the most universal and moving of all love stories - rooted as it is in the notion of a greater good - sacrifice.

Burshtein's screenplay is both literate and passionate. She's provided herself with a first-rate template to direct a film of great power. Like the conservative community she trains her lens upon, she forces herself to stay within their world as closely as possible with mostly interior scenes, often in closeup and with a look that is warm, sumptuous, gorgeously composed and lit - all reflective of an insular world that beats on in spite of an outside secular and modern world. Her pacing is meticulous in its fluidity or rather, she seems in such complete control of the slow, deliberate nature of how life unfolds that we never feel like she's self-indulgently plodding along to maintain "reality", but instead creates a slow, delicate series of ebbs and flows that build to a crescendo of passion and emotion.

It is one of the few contemporary pieces of cinema that soars in ways the medium, at its core, has the potential to do when its exploited artistically in ways it seldom is - a medium that is more often squandered instead of being nurtured and valued for the great gifts it can bestow upon mankind.

Burshtein has created what might be one of our few modern masterpieces. Not a frame seems out of place, not a line of dialogue seems false, not a single performance achieves less than the miraculous.

Fill The Void does indeed fill a void. It's a movie we desperately need in these times - a film that explores both the pitfalls and joys of tradition, but at the same time, exposing how tradition can indeed be a beautiful part of existence when it is mediated and tempered by those, like the character of Shira, who allow the indomitability of her intellect, reason and spirit to seek what is ultimately her own happiness and fulfilment - one that is as inclusive of herself as it is of those around her.

Given that this is a film about a community in which marriage is the highest and holiest aspiration for women, Burshtein might have actually crafted one of the most feminist films in recent movie history. At its most basic level, though, it's a film so full of joy, sadness, humour and romance, that it puts most films about love, family and tradition to shame.

A masterpiece? I'd say so.

"Fill The Void" is in theatrical release via Mongrel Media.

LOVE IS ALL YOU NEED - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Hubbies will snore. Wifeys will laugh and swoon. Yes folks, it's a post-menopausal chick-flick not unlike "HOPE SPRINGS". Only it's partly in Danish. This doesn't help.

Love is All You Need (2012) **
dir. Susanne Bier
Starring: Pierce Brosnan, Trine Dyrholm, Paprika Steen

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Some movies to me are just so utterly, reprehensibly, unrelentingly sickening I feel an immediate need to check myself into Emergency. Love is All You Need is just such a movie. There is, however, one salient difference between it and similar lumps of cinematic viscous like the Sex and the City movies, anything starring Sarah Jessica Parker and virtually every "chick flick" of both the pre-and-post-menopausal variety made by men.

Love is All You Need is almost good - or rather, made by a woman and aimed at women, it's good for what it is. This I'll admit, is not an especially ringing endorsement, as the movie appears to be aimed at a herd of dull, unimaginative and quite possibly stupid members of the female persuasion.

The picture carries the weighty pedigree of director Susanne Bier - a stalwart camera jockey who made a well written (by Anders Thomas Jensen), but boringly directed movie called Hævnen (AKA In a Better World) which, inexplicably won the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar in a year when it was up against a number of truly fine and challenging films. Then again, this was the immortal 83rd Academy Awards when the execrable The King's Speech swept all the major prizes, so chances are good Oscar was wearing his extra-strength Dunce-Cap with considerable gusto and pride. Still, Bier handles the slightly offbeat romantic comedy proceedings of Love is All You Need with the requisite skill one would expect from a first-rate camera jockey.

But, my God, the picture is sickening! So much so that I practically needed to nail my feet to the floor in order to stop me from bolting after ten minutes. What's even more sickening is realizing just how many people (of a certain persuasion) might actually enjoy it. (I have to keep reminding myself that we're in the Decline of Western Civilization.)

Basically, we've got ourselves a sexy, slightly post-menopausal Danish housewife who is recovering from breast cancer. Her nebbish hubby is boinking his insanely young bookkeeper and dumps wifey for the more decidedly pert pastures of a woman barely out of the cradle.

And wouldn't you know it?

All this is happening on the eve in which our middle aged Danish Treat and her chunky, loutish, bone-headed philandering hubby are about to jet off to Italy to marry their sexy daughter off to the hunky son of an incredibly rich fresh fruit magnate.

The Fruit Man is played by none other than Pierce Brosnan. In all fairness, he acquits himself very well as the romantic male lead just as Trine Dyrholm does as his female counterpart. For the life of me, though (and perhaps I was daydreaming about William Friedkin's Killer Joe and missed something), but I simply couldn't figure out how or why this Brit had a company in Denmark, had all sorts of co-workers yapping at him in Danish, while he replied in English. I mean really, now. At least we in the audience had English subtitles. Pierce had none. Nor, of course, did any of the happy Danes have English subtitles. In spite of this, both parties seemed to do quite well in the understanding-each-other-sweepstakes. Let's hear it for the United Nations!

Okay, now wait for it. I'm about to reveal something extra-sickening.

Are you ready?

Good.

The Sexy Fruit Man and the Sexy Danish Treat de la Hausfrau meet...

- Oh, Christ!

Dare I say it?

God, did I even believe it was happening when it was happening?

Was it really so hard for me to just get up and leave at this point?

I stayed, however, and can live to now tell you the tale.

Besides, you probably guessed it.

THEY MEET CUTE!!!

Both of them are in the airport parking lot on the way to Italy and whammo! Danish Lady slams her car into Fruit Man's. Hilarity ensues.

Can it get more sickening than this? Oh, you bet.

Once we get to Italy and the predictable romantic roundelays play out, I realized then and there just how skilfully simmered this bowl of oatmeal with flakes of bran (and a side of prune juice) actually was. No offence to the ladies, but the biggest and most sustained laughs came from the feminine persuasion in the audience (and believe me, none of them looked like they ventured too far from the suburbs).

Then it hit me - the nightmare scenario: Every middle aged hubby of the bourgeois persuasion will be dragged to this movie by their equally bourgeois middle aged wives. The wives will be yucking it up twixt having to violently elbow their hubbies to stop them from snoring. I experienced this horror all by my lonesome when I went to see the insufferable Hope Springs. Luckily my wife wouldn't be caught dead at a movie like that. She has, what is referred to by some as, taste. As I suffered through Meryl Streep trying to bring romance back into her marriage with Tommy Lee Jones, all I could hear was - you guessed it - the laughter of women and the snores of their hubbies and the occasional elbow slams into their ribs.

Love is All You Need is pretty much more of the same.

Only much of it is in Danish.

Not that it helps.

"Love is All You Need" is currently in theatrical release via Mongrel Media.

BLACKBIRD - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Harrowing indictment of repressive hate laws in the hands of the Status Quo as a weapon against individuality and free speech. A directorial debut that dazzles!

Blackbird (2013) ****
Dir. Jason Buxton
Starring: Connor Jessup, Alexia Fast, Alex Ozerov, Cory Arnold, Michael Buie, Tanya Clarke

Review By Greg Klymkiw

God Bless, Charles Dickens. Even his more detestable characters are often blessed with powers of analysis and reason that exposes the humanity inherent in all. Take, for example, the venerable constabulary beadle Mr. Bumble in "Oliver Twist". Presiding over the orphanage and workhouse, he's the famous literary personage whom the waif-like title character pleads - holding his empty gruel-bowl forward, "Please, Sir, may I have some more?" "More!!??" Bumble bellows incredulously. Aside from administering a variety of nasty corporal punishments and personally taking to the streets to sell "bad boys", Dickens places the following words of wisdom in his mouth:

"... the law is a ass- a idiot. If that's the eye of the law, the law is a bachelor; and the worst I wish the law is, that his eye may be opened by experience- by experience."

Bumble is, of course, referring to Mr. Brownlow's climactic line of questioning in the great book and looking for any way to get out of a sticky wicket he's placed himself in, Bumbles blames his wife. Brownlow asserts that Bumble is more guilty than his wife since "... the law supposes that your wife acts under your direction."

To this specific charge, Bumble is quite right. The law IS an ass! So it has always been and so it always will be - this "ass", this "bachelor" woefully lacking "experience".

Watching Blackbird, the feature length debut by writer-director Jason Buxton, I could not help be reminded of Bumble's words - especially since the mere act of viewing this fine and gripping drama inspired such anger and frustration within me over a system that often jerks its knee in defence of the status quo and has little use for free expression and those things that fall outside the assumption of (purported) normalcy.

How many of us in childhood have experienced the teasing and bullying of the supposedly "normal" amongst us and wondered, even as kids, why the absolute lowest common denominator amongst our peers and "betters" was something to aspire to? Why must we be like everyone else? Why must we be cogs in a machine that many consider to be humanity? Isn't humanity rooted in being oneself? Must we suffer derision - not just as kids, but as adults - taking little interest in the inanities of the water cooler conversations every morning at the office?

Aren't THEY, the "normal ones" the assholes?

Well, yes. THEY are! Unfortunately, we have to put up with them and seek solace in our individuality and search high and low for the like-minded until we find them. Unfortunately, in the wake of the massacres at Columbine, Montreal, Newtown, Aurora and Boston - ANYONE even slightly outside of the norm is viewed with suspicion by the general populace, any ACTIONS (most often involving alternative self-expression within the form of art) is viewed by the lunkheads of society as a threat and the law in such cases?

It's an ass.

This is the horrendous place where Sean (Connor Jessup) finds himself in Buxton's always compelling Blackbird. Sporting a Goth-lite look, obsessed with ultra-metal musical styling and blessed/cursed with a talent for writing, he's been booted from the city by his status-hungry Mom (Tanya Clarke) into the care of her ex-hubby and his long-estranged Dad (Michael Buie), a straight-up man's man in the country who loves bagging game, chugging a good brewski and relaxing to the cathode ray flicker of Hockey Night in Canada. Sean's new home life could be worse, though. Dad seems like a genuinely nice guy who desperately wants to connect with his son and offers a fair bit of room for the kid to move.

Alas, this is a rural community and Sean must contend with the dolts he's surrounded by at school. (This is no cliche. I had to eventually pull my own child from a small town school due to the bullying, misogyny, sexism and overall stupidity of her peers and so many of the teachers and administrators of the school.) What's truly valued amongst these drooling knuckle-draggers is being a jock (and the young ladies must be obedient, compliant and sexual). God help you if you aren't. And jocks absolutely despise kids like Sean. He's picked-on and pulverized by these morons and viewed by everyone as a freak.

His only friend is the most gorgeous babe in the school, Deanna (Alexia Fast). They clearly form a special bond, but she is forced to hide her attraction to Sean since she's also dating the star jock of the school Cory (Craig Arnold), one of Sean's prime tormentors. And let it be said that guys like Cory are a pathetic dime-a-dozen once they leave high school. They've got hockey pucks for brains and unless they're really exceptional in their sporting activities, they're eventual mantra will be (to quote a line from Slap Shot), "Fucking Chrysler plant! Here I come!"

Try explaining that to a kid like Sean - or anyone. They're years away from recognizing and realizing this. (Ironically, though, it's losers like Cory who form the majorities in our world and continue their bullying indirectly, through their bone-headed lack of imagination, kowtowing to the Status Quo and voting for the pawns of the New World Order like Georgie Bush (Sr. and Jr.) and Stevie Harper.)

Poor Sean is so desperate that a well-meaning guidance counsellor suggests he get his frustrations out on paper - he is, after all a burgeoning writer, and where better to express one's pain than in the realm of fiction? Makes sense to me.

Unfortunately, artistic expression is the beginning of a living nightmare for Sean. His online writings are taken as "uttering threats" and he's incarcerated in "juvie" by the "ass" of law to - I kid you not - await trial. Eventually, he's faced with an even more idiotic decision on the part of the narrow-minded inbred society of Man: plead guilty and be free. Plead not guilty and "lose".

Every step of the way Buxton grips the audience. Though not quite as dark and morbid as it could/should have been, it's impossible to take one's eyes off the screen. It's a superb narrative - designed to both reel us in, drag us through the muck and keep us affixed to the hook - no matter how much we thrash in protest over the situation we (via Sean's POV) find ourselves in. Solid, intelligent direction and a perfect cast are the delicious cherries on the sundae of a superbly wrought screenplay.

Having to experience the lack of understanding on the part of even those who believe in Sean angers us, since his personal expression is what leads to his pariah status in this backwards community. Even worse is seeing grown adults just hoping he'll lie and admit guilt - thinking he will ultimately better off, but also to remove the inconvenience this causes them. All this because a creative kid's writings are perceived - not as fiction, but genuine threats. Shiver me timbers, he's going to kill us all. Hell, maybe a good many of them deserve to be culled, but Sean isn't going to be the one to do it. It'll be their government that will create a fake war to make money for a few rich guys so young men can go off and think they're fighting to the death for truth, justice and freedom.

Beating down those we don't understand and then punishing them is just too prevalent in our world. Thematically, Buxton's film works hand in hand with both the narrative and the superbly etched characters. His mise-en-scène betrays what must have been a relatively modest budget - the world he creates feels lived in. Buxton is blessed with a great production design and camera team - the antiseptic qualities of both the school and the juvenile detention centre contrast beautifully with the bucolic countryside and genuine down-home warmth of the home Sean's Dad lives in. Especially impressive is the cutting which always moves the fine coverage forward, but at a pace that's always just short of the proverbial Col. Kurtz "snail crawling along the edge of a straight razor". This doesn't mean it's slow or tedious in any way shape or form, it captures rural life to a "T" and most importantly creates a creepy crawly feeling throughout - especially the sequences in the juvie centre where we get a sense of just how time passes within such institutions.

The tiniest of false notes creeps in here. I couldn't help but feel that the film shies away from the sexual abuse within such centres which, I think in the case of someone like Sean, would have been constant. Aside from taunts and beatings, I know from numerous sources that spent time in such institutions that people like him become cum receptacles - not just from fellow inmates, but in many cases from staff and even administrators. (This never really ended with the Catholics, folks. It's pretty endemic across the board.) Why the film doesn't take this extra step, is a mystery to me - especially given a subplot involving the juvie centre's prime bully who has an almost retaliatory need to extract sexual abuse etched ever-so deeply in his face.

I suppose this is a bit of a nitpick, but, I think a fair one. On the flipside, though, I often and genuinely felt the same sort of dread and frustration I experienced when I first saw Alfred Hitchcock's The Wrong Man. If Blackbird falls short of the kind of sickeningly harrowing experience delivered by the Master of Suspense, it's not reason enough to complain too much. Blackbird flirts with the surface of Hitch and this is a damn fine stone for any first time filmmaker to skip - so much so one can hardly wait for Buxton's next film and hope he'll fulfil the promise displayed here to completely toss us with abandon into hot coals.

"Blackbird" was the winner of this year's Claude Jutra Award and in limited theatrical release.

GINGER AND ROSA - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Heartfelt Period Drama from Sally Potter is highlighted by the astonishing performance of Elle Fanning.

Ginger and Rosa (2012) ***1/2
Dir. Sally Potter
Starring: Elle Fanning, Alice Englert, Alessandro Nivola, Christina Hendricks, Annette Bening, Oliver Platt, Timothy Spall

Review By Greg Klymkiw

I can't say I've ever been fond of Sally Potter's movies. Even the acclaimed Orlando left me cold. This, however, all changed with her new picture, the heartfelt period drama Ginger and Rosa. Focusing its lens upon a pair of teenage girls on the deep cusp of burgeoning womanhood in Britain when Cold War hysteria over the "Bomb" was, perhaps, at its highest, this is a film that paints an evocative portrait of a time and place that I think has added resonance for audiences in our contemporary world of strife and warfare.

First and foremost, it's a delicate portrait of a close friendship that goes awry during an era that's just on the other side of the fence that was the swinging, turbulent 60s and when Bob Dylan would soon let the world know that "the times, they are a changing."

Ginger (13-year-old Elle Fanning pulling off 17 like there's no tomorrow) and Rosa (Alice Englert) have been friends practically since birth - two peas in a pod for most of their lives. At first, they rally round the anti-bomb movement together, but it's Ginger who displays the most commitment whereas Rosa is becoming increasingly boy crazy.

Ginger is a soulful child and has to suffer daily bickering between her very Liberal Dad and Mom (Alessandro Nivola, Christina Hendricks) who are hitting an especially turbulent rough patch in their relationship. When her folks split up, Ginger develops an especially close relationship with Dad and at first, he seems determined to open himself fully to this opportunity.

Rosa, however, engages in a torrid affair and it so interferes with her commitment to the "cause" that Ginger becomes frequently annoyed. When the affair turns out to be the last thing Ginger ever imagined happening with Rosa, a strange rivalry sets in.

When Potter's lens is trained on the title characters, the film really works like crackerjack. Less successful are the sequences involving Ginger's relationship with a group of adult lefty activists (all wonderfully played by Annette Bening, Oliver Platt and Timothy Spall). The scenes are good, but they seem to undermine the carefully wrought and poignant disintegration of the girls' friendship.

It oddly feels like a literary sidetrack rather than a cinematic one, but it's a minor blip (and occasionally engaging one) in an otherwise compelling narrative.

What Potter captures and evokes so beautifully are all the details of their BFF  rituals (lipstick, smoking, dolling-up, etc.) and its eventual disintegration as both discover very different needs, wants and goals.

As a character-driven drama, the movie's performances have to be at a high level for the picture to work at all and I'm happy to report that the entire cast acquits themselves beautifully (even those in the section that slows the movie down unnecessarily).

However, the film's distinct highlight is the remarkable Elle Fanning. She burst upon the scene with a star-making performance in J.J. Abrams's otherwise highly avoidable Super 8  as the geek girl from the wrong side of the tracks. The camera not only loved her, but she delivered the goods in two important ways. As the "love interest" for the makeup-effects-obsessed juvenile lead, she acquitted herself nicely with the kind of dreamy, romantic, yet mouth-watering innocence not unlike the great child performances of Hayley Mills in the classic Disney films from the 1960s. Even more astounding were her "acting" sequences in the super-8 horror film her character plays in. Acting like you're acting is always a tough stretch for any actor, but to deliver this with such expertise as a child actress was simply and utterly astounding.

With Ginger and Rosa, Fanning (sister of former child star Dakota Fanning) pulls off the incredible aforementioned feat of being 13 in real life, but playing 17 in Potter's movie. She keeps a straight face whilst evoking the serious young girl who rails against a system that seems so far out of her reach, yet would not change without her activism. We know her commitment will yield disappointing results (the Cuban Missile Crisis is an eventuality here, as well as increased warfare in Vietnam and JFK's assassination), but Fanning's gaze (she has great eyes) are windows into the character's very soul.

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is no mean feat.

It's ultimately a movie for all, but I think young kids and teens - boys and girls - especially deserve a shot at seeing this movie on a big screen. The period detail is top notch, down even to the performances themselves (especially important as many directors and actors ignore how differently people spoke and/or moved in earlier periods). As such, Potter renders a world that's not ephemeral like so many contemporary films about youth are (and notably even period pictures). Potter yields an overall experience that speaks to both the will and helplessness of our youth in a world that again has gone terribly awry, a world that might soon be dead if not for the genuine commitment and resistance of our youth today.

It's the kids who will effect change and to that end, Ginger and Rosa is an inspiration.

"Ginger and Rosa" is in limited theatrical release via Union Pictures.

LOVE, MARILYN - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Based on Marilyn Monroe's own writings, the Liz Garbus documentary proves to be a well-structured, moving and heartbreaking biographical portrait. Playing at TIFF Bell Lightbox via Mongrel Media.

Yes, fellas - she can read, too.
Quite the catch, I'd say!!!

Love, Marilyn (2012) ***1/2
Dir. Liz Garbus
Starring: F. Murray Abraham, Ellen Burstyn, Glenn Close, Viola Davis, Jennifer Ehle, Paul Giamatti, Lindsay Lohan, Oliver Platt, David Strathairn, Lili Taylor, Uma Thurman, Evan Rachel Wood

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Based on the book "Fragments: Poems, Intimate Notes, Letters" edited by Stanley Buchthal and Bernard Comment, multi-award winning filmmaker Liz (Bobby Fischer Against the World, Killing in the Name & The Farm: Angola, USA) Garbus has, with Love, Marilyn, crafted a deeply moving biographical portrait of movie star Marilyn Monroe that's as eminently compelling as it is, from beginning to end, relentlessly sad.

How could it be otherwise?

Monroe was a sensitive, intelligent young woman orphaned at an early age (her single Mom and Grandmother were both mentally ill and abusive), then shunted from one foster home to another until she married to escape this horrendous, loveless life. It would be the first of three failed marriages in her short life.

Garbus concerns herself mostly with Monroe's Hollywood years where she rose to stardom and delivered one successful picture after another. The grosses generated by all her films were so astonishingly high that they were primarily responsible for saving the financially ailing 20th Century Fox from complete collapse.

And the world loved Marilyn.

Drawing from a two scrap boxes of Marilyn's personal writings that became the aforementioned book as well as published writings by a myriad of figures who touched her life, Garbus presents Monroe's words - performed by a variety of great actors - against a beautifully edited backdrop of archival footage, photos and interviews. Instead of choosing to leave the words behind picture, Garbus simply and elegantly chooses to shoot the actors on-screen as they recite Monroe's words (as well as those of Billy Wilder, Arthur Miller, Gloria Steinem, Norman Mailer and, among others, George Cukor). In the opening few minutes, I found this off-putting - more, I think, due to my expectation that I'd be hearing everything off-camera, but the gorgeously fluid editing, simple but apt lighting of the actors and the well-chosen elements presented to tell Marilyn's story all began to weave a special magic and I was unable to keep my eyes off the screen.

Some of the performances by the all-star cast are better than others, but those that truly shine are the ones where the actors invest themselves wholly in the words and create genuine characters that they've interpreted with skill and artistry, and more often than not, render extremely powerful and poignant deliveries.

This is clearly not a definitive representation of Monroe, but frankly, what could be? If Love, Marilyn proves anything it's the fact that Monroe was an incredibly complex human being who reached for the stars with passion, determination and a real business sense. Even more fascinating is how Garbus conveys the fact that Marilyn created a persona for herself - not just on-screen, either. Marilyn did everything in her power to create a new person to mask her shattered, tragic past to both the world AND, kind of creepily, but brilliantly - HERSELF.

She created a character and lived it.

And whilst living the life of the person she created herself, it's clear, in spite of her endless sexual dalliances, that her career ambitions demanded - on an emotional, personal level - love. She gets, it seems, a lot of love from her second husband Joe Dimaggio, but that she was sadly unable to wholly reciprocate, but even more tragic is seeing her third husband, Arthur Miller, using her as both a meal ticket and a prize trophy. Here, we see Marilyn GIVING love like she never had before and sadly discovering what her husband truly thought about her. What Miller did to Monroe is sickening.

The comma in the film's title, representing her sign-offs on notes and letters, takes on dimensions of tragedy when we remove the comma - LOVE MARILYN. Obviously, it conjures the notion that we all, the world, did indeed love Marilyn, but for me, all I can think about is that it's almost a plea to those who abused her - especially Miller - that all they really needed to do was love her.

The other fascinating aspect of her life are the days she spent in New York with famed Actors Studio coach Lee Strasberg. In some ways, the portrait Garbus presents here (along with Marilyn's reliance upon quack psychoanalysts and her traumatizing incarceration within an asylum) displays both an almost unquenchable thirst to better herself as an actress and alternately an almost self-destructive need to open herself up to the manipulations of others. Strasberg's intensive use of sense memory seems, at least within the context of Garbus's film, to be one of (if not the MOST) damaging assaults upon her. The last thing Monroe needed was to confront those parts of her life she repressed (I think for good reason). Weirdly, in spite of everything we experience up to this point - her willingness to be exploited sexually to move up the ladder, the horrendous assumptions on the parts of so many that she was stupid as well as the eerie aforementioned creation of a new person within herself - her time in New York feels like a turning point - one that plunges her and us, the audience, into the abyss that was Marilyn Monroe.

Garbus creates a truly evocative portrait of an artist and human being who was used and abused - a receptacle for the sperm of all those men who would demand complete domination of her body and spirit. She gave so much, but got, in return, scorn. And though the world loved her, she was, in death - as she was in life - truly and utterly alone.

The movie is a heartbreaker.

"Love, Marilyn" is currently in limited release via Mongrel Media. Torontonians can see the film at TIFF Bell Lightbox. For tickets and info, visit TIFF HERE.

BEYOND THE HILLS - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Cristian Mungiu delivers harrowing masterwork in the tradition of Dreyer's great work focusing upon the exploitation of women within fundamentalist religions. Playing theatrically in Canada at TIFF BELL LIGHTBOX in Toronto via Mongrel Media.

Beyond the Hills (2012) *****
dir. Cristian Mungiu
Starring: Cosmina Stratan, Cristina Flutur, Valeriu Andriuta

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Women who confess during their menstrual period are sinners. Afflicted with the said Woman's Time, they do not dare enter a church (Orthodox, of course - other denominations are unholy). It's highly inappropriate to expose the "dirty" condition of vaginal discharge to the face of God or his representatives.

In fact, women who commit any sins whatsoever are shit out of luck in Eastern Rite Christian religions and their penance for any affronts to Our Lord will rate more vigorous, painful prostrations than a priest can shake his censer of incense at. Related to this is that most orphanages (in virtually any former Communist state in Central/Eastern Europe) boot out their charges penniless at age 16-18. The young women who are lucky enough to be earmarked to serve God as a Nun are the few who can avoid being sold into sexual slavery upon leaving the orphanage.

Many of these women recruited to serve God have ironically already suffered abuse at the hands of orphanage officials who notoriously (and for a price), would look the other way while little girls in their care were forced to pose for child pornography. And then, once the "lucky few" chosen to serve God enter the religious institutions, they are repressed, humiliated and indoctrinated into a life of endless exploitation within the Eastern Rite worship of Christ.

I try to reserve the word "masterpiece" for motion pictures that have lived a bit longer in the world than this one, but I'm pretty convinced Cristian Mungiu (director of 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days) has created a film of lasting value. In its own way the film tells an extremely vital tale in a manner that contributes both to cinema as an art and perhaps even more importantly, to humanity.

So yes, Beyond the Hills is a masterpiece. It tells the harrowing and moving story of two friends who took separate paths after their release from a Moldavian orphanage and charts their heartbreaking reunion some years later. Voichita (Cosmina Stratan) joined a nearby monastery to become a nun under the strict patriarchy of an Orthodox priest referred to as "Papa" (Valeriu Andriuta). Alina (Cristina Flutur) has been living "alone" in Germany and working, so she says, as a waitress. Her plan is to extricate Voichita from the monastery so they can rekindle their deep love and friendship together.

God, or rather, religious hypocrisy and hysteria has other plans. What follows is as nightmarish an exploitation of women as the forced sex trade - the creepily insidious manner in which women are forced into the sexist, misogynistic and subservient roles that are so prevalent in cultures rooted in the centuries-old Eastern Rite religious traditions. Even more horrendous are the deep-seeded attitudes these cultures have towards orphans (also rooted in sexism and misogyny). For a huge majority of Eastern Rite followers, orphans take on the sins of their mothers and as such, our two central characters were born into a world that believed them to be lesser human beings because of this.

Mungiu charts the final weeks of the orphans' friendship in a style that is somewhat reminiscent of that employed by Carl Dreyer - most notably in the religious-themed Day of Wrath and Ordet. Visually, Mungiu's images are occasionally stark, but unlike the austere qualities Dreyer imbues his visuals with, Mungiu's frames are much more packed with details that border on neo-realism. Dreyer's approach is obviously more classical (in his own demented, compelling fashion), however he was so ahead of his time in terms of exploring themes of religious repression/oppression upon women. With Mungiu, and Beyond The Hills specifically, it feels like Dreyer has spawned a younger contemporary director to tackle similar themes in equally brilliant ways. Even more extraordinary is that BOTH directors - separated by decades - speak universally, and NOT ephemerally on this theme.

With Beyond the Hills, nothing in terms of production design ever seems less than real, but where Mungiu and Dreyer share approaches can be found in the tableau-styled takes and, of course, in the stories that are told. Dreyer might be one of the great film artists to have committed himself to the thematic concerns of women amidst religious and/or societal repression and their exploitation within these worlds. Clearly with the horrific tale of abortion, 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days and now Beyond the Hills, Mungiu continues in Dreyer's bold thematic and narrative tradition of placing women and their suffering in patriarchal worlds.

Mungiu's screenplay is quite exquisite. There is, on the surface, a relatively simple plot which allows him to layer numerous complex psychological layers and points of view (though the focus is always clear when it needs to be). His cast acquit themselves beautifully with the gorgeous writing he's wrought for them and the long, simple takes allow his cast to naturally bring the story beats alive and to play out in ways that never seem false or predictable.

Furthermore, and with the same mastery brought to bear in Dreyer's great work, Mungiu establishes a pace that is so hypnotic that the film's running time never seems as long as it actually is.

"Beyond The Hills", distributed by Mongrel Media, is playing theatrically in Canada at the Toronto International Film Festival's TIFF BELL LIGHTBOX.   For further information and tickets, visit the TIFF website HERE.