Once a year, a city rises and falls, leaving no trace in Nevada’s Black
Rock Desert, and “Confessions” captures the dust and dazzle, transcendence and
transience of the utopian art project known as Burning Man. The film conjures
an aura of awe at the sudden spectacle, while poking at some of the
contentious issues surrounding the event: the disproportionate whiteness of
the event, prohibitive expense, and not least, the almost inevitable
irritation of co-habitating with 30,000 aggressively creative people in the
desert heat.
But then Burning Man seems to make it easy for a filmmaker: Wherever
“Confessions” (handheld, digital video) cameras look they find startling
visions — people playing with fire, a Barbie doll garden, a chess game played
with dildos, ghost galleons and other “art cars” traversing the sand flats,
neon-lit art galleries and bazaars blazing in the dark.
There’s a handful of Burning Man documentaries already out there, so
“Confessions” co-directors Paul Barnett and Unsu Lee attempt to differentiate
their project by framing the 2001 festival through the eyes of a quartet of
Burning Man “virgins” from San Francisco.
We wander the playa with Kevin Epps, director of “Straight Outta Hunters
Point,” actress Samantha Weaver (co-director Barnett ends up proposing
marriage to her on camera), and rich dilettante Anna Getty. The most
interesting character is salty, seen-it-all cab driver Michael Winaker, who
ends up piloting a series of whimsical desert taxis to locations like “corner
of Justice and 6:30.”
This focus on this feckless foursome has the unfortunate effect of making
“Confessions” come off like an extra-long episode of “The Real World” set
against a Burning Man backdrop. It’s like being trapped at a fascinating party
with a boring guide — or your parents — you want to wander off and explore
by yourself.
Advisory: This film contains nudity and frank language.
– Joe Brown
‘SEPTEMBER 11′
Omnibus collection of 11 short films, from various directors. (Not rated.
125 minutes. At the Rafael Film Center.)
The horrible events of two years ago serve as the occasion for “September
11,” an omnibus of short films that opens today at the Rafael Film Center.
Eleven filmmakers from all over the world were invited to submit shorts
dealing with Sept. 11, each to run exactly 11 minutes and nine seconds in
length — what we call 9/11 is known as 11/9 in most countries.
The results are mixed. Many of the films are too long, and even worse, the
collection as a whole doesn’t come to grips with the human scale of the
tragedy. Indeed, some filmmakers show a shocking lack of empathy or interest.
Although adopting the somber pretense of compassion, they remain indifferent
to the murder of 3,000 human beings and instead use the occasion of Sept. 11
as an excuse for a lecture on the evils of American foreign policy.
What are we to make of Britain’s Ken Loach, for example, who when invited
to make a film about Sept. 11, chose to turn in a finger-wagging film about
America’s involvement in the overthrow of Chile’s President Allende on Sept.
11, 1973? I suppose Americans are supposed to watch and think, ‘Yes, Ken,
you’re right. Those people on the planes, and in the towers, and in the
Pentagon deserved what they got — and thank you for being compassionate
enough to point this out to us.” That was not what I was thinking.
Idrissa Quedraogo, from Africa, offers a film about kids trying to kidnap
bin Laden — it’s mildly cute, but cute and bin Laden don’t quite go together.
Iranian Samira Makhmalbaf’s film also deals with children, and the anxiety of
their teachers in anticipation of the American attack on Afghanistan. It’s a
stretch to fill the full 11 minutes and nine seconds.
The lone American effort, from Sean Penn, has the benefit of weirdness.
Penn enlivens the story, about a delusional widower (Ernest Borgnine) who’s
awakened from his dementia on Sept. 11, with inventive camera work and
interesting little jumps in time. But again it feels stretched.
But by far the most effective short film is that of Alejandro Gonzalez of
Mexico, who shows a blank blue screen, with occasional flashes of real footage
– of people jumping from the burning towers. The sound track is layered with
mood music, street noise and with sounds from that terrible day, including
that of an answering machine message left by a woman in one of the doomed
planes. Something we’ve almost gotten used to becomes new again, and raw and
horrific. It’s the film that redeems this collection.
Advisory: This film contains violence and strong language.
– Mick LaSalle
‘ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE MIDLANDS’
Drama-comedy. Starring Rhys Ifans, Robert Carlyle, Shirley Henderson, Finn
Atkins. Directed by Shane Meadows. Written by Meadows and Paul Fraser. (R. 103
minutes. At Bay Area theaters).
Welsh actor Rhys Ifans has made a career of playing boyish goofballs, from
the scrungy roommate in “Notting Hill” to the NFL kicker in “The Replacements.
” In “Once Upon a Time in the Midlands,” Ifans is goofy again, but also
resoundingly grown-up.
As Dek, an auto-shop owner deeply devoted to his girlfriend and her young
daughter, Ifans makes nesting look rather appealing. He’s the standout in a
stellar cast in this charming family story from filmmaker Shane Meadows
(”Twenty Four Seven”), a young chronicler of the British working class who’s
like a more sentimental Mike Leigh.
“Once Upon a Time in the Midlands” invokes conventions of the Western genre
– the nearly deserted streets, the loner out to cause trouble, the way of
life under attack. But there are no gun battles, just a cozy little family in
suburban Nottingham threatened by the return of Jimmy (Robert Carlyle), an
insinuating petty criminal aiming to reclaim the girlfriend and child he
abandoned.
The inevitable Jimmy-Dek confrontations showcase two actors in command of
their physicality. Ifans has about a foot on Carlyle, but you wouldn’t know it.
Carlyle gives Jimmy a free-form anger that says this guy could take anybody.
When Dek tries to appear threatening, Ifans’ slumped posture betrays this nice
guy’s terror.
Shirley Henderson is a wee-voiced study in conflict as the woman in the
center of this romantic triangle. Her scenes with Ifans have such lived-in
intimacy that it’s hard to believe the girlfriend ever loved anyone else. But
when Carlyle’s rugged Jimmy saunters in, Henderson regards him as if he’s
kryptonite, revealing her character’s struggle between youthful passion and
more mature affections.
The most poignant moments happen between Dek and the daughter (Finn Atkins).
Fearful he will lose this child to her real father, Dek gives her his
father’s huge, man’s wristwatch. It’s an awkward gesture, but Ifans and Atkins
play it delicately, giving the moment real emotional weight. Teasing but
respectful, Atkins’ 12-year-old girl bears little resemblance to the
wisecracking preteens of most American movies.
Advisory: This film contains violence, raw language.
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– Carla Meyer
‘HEROD’S LAW’
Satire. Starring Damian Alcazar. Directed by Luis Estrada. (Not rated. 123
minutes. In Spanish with English subtitles. At the Lumiere and Shattuck in
Berkeley.)
“Herod’s Law,” a nasty little satire from Mexico, outraged the ruling
Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) when it came out in 2000. It’s no
wonder, since the film portrays the scandal-plagued PRI as a corrupt, whoring,
murdering nightmare.
Therein lies the problem with “Herod’s Law” (translated from the profane,
Herod’s law means “get somebody else before he gets you”). Much like last
year’s “The Crime of Padre Amaro,” which took on Mexico’s Catholic Church,
“Herod’s” suffers from its enthusiasm, so fueled by anger and emotion that
storytelling grows clouded. Irreverence gives way to polemic, then to an orgy
of violence.
This must have been incendiary, brave stuff when the movie first came out
and the PRI tried to squash it. But north of the border and three years after
the PRI was ousted, the picture mostly feels overdone. “Herod’s” begins with a
crooked politician hiding money in a hollowed-out copy of the constitution,
and gets less subtle from there.
But the opening scenes have a winning, breezy tone, as a low-level 1940s
party loyalist (Damian Alcazar) is plucked from minding a garbage dump to
become stooge mayor of a desert town where his predecessors have all been
lynched. A sly and likable actor, Alcazar shows glimmers of ambition mixed
with delusion. The guy thinks being mayor will lead straight to the
governorship.
The village looks compelling enough, the film’s sepia tones and lived-in
looking vintage clothes and cars establishing a sense of time and place.
Estrada also paces the mayor’s introduction to politics beautifully: The
audience discovers the town’s powers just as the mayor does, from the priest
collecting a peso for every blessing to the madam who really runs the joint.
The townspeople, especially the fierce Isele Vega as the madam, are smarter
and tougher than the mayor, but he has the imprimatur of the party.
After finding the city coffers empty, the mayor does what he must to make
“improvements” to the town, forcing tributes from shop owners and more
personal favors from prostitutes. The character is meant to embody the party,
his meager ideals quickly tossed aside to follow lustful and homicidal urges.
Alcazar makes a deft transition from idiot to maniac, serving as an anchor
for the broad performances around him.
“Herod’s Law” shifts tone too often in the second half, veering from farce
to domestic violence while the playful cha-cha music never stops. Yet Estrada
is good at using visual cues to comment on the deterioration of a soul. Even
flush with cash, the mayor wears the same tattered suit. In fact, it gets
worse as he goes along, his physical appearance betraying his immorality. Kind
of like what happened to that other great political mind, Lady Macbeth.
Advisory: This film contains violence, raw language, sex scenes.
– Carla Meyer
‘MILLENNIUM ACTRESS’
Japanese animation. Directed by Satoshi Kon. (PG. 87 minutes. At the Metreon.)
Satoshi Kon went to art school, drew “manga” comic books and made a
stunning anime debut in 1998 with “Perfect Blue,” an R-rated suspense tale of
a Japanese teenage pop idol making the transition to acting but finding fame
to be more than she bargained for when she becomes the target of a stalker.
The storytelling in “Perfect Blue,” skillfully blending the fiction of the
horror film the actress is shooting with her real-life turmoil, is taken up a
notch in “Millennium Actress,” a kinder, more benign film, but nonetheless
even more ambitious. It is a lovely Valentine to the golden age of Japanese
filmmaking and an era of gentler, deeper feelings.
And by the way, there isn’t a film filled with richer, more colorfully
imaginative images currently playing in theaters.
The story centers on the first interview in 30 years of Chiyuko, one of
Japan’s greatest actresses. A videomaker, Genya, has secured this interview
because the actress’ former studio is being torn down, and he is making a
documentary. Now nearing 80, she lives in seclusion far from the city.
Genya has been smitten with Chiyuko, his favorite actress, for decades —
he even cries during all her films, which he has seen many times. His boyish
cameraman, however, like so many of the young in Satoshi’s world, has no sense
of history and initially views the assignment as rather silly.
We find out that Chiyuko, born during Japan’s devastating earthquake in
1923, once helped a young artist escape from the military before he is
captured and shipped to Manchuria. When Chiyuko is discovered by a producer
scouting for talent to make a propaganda film in Manchuria, she jumps at the
chance in hopes of reuniting.
Suddenly, Genya and his cameraman are whisked away to other eras, sometimes
in the world of Chiyuko’s films — in the age of Kurosawa, Ozu and Godzilla,
she’s a sword-wielding princess in one scene, a tragic geisha in another, an
astronaut (!) in still another — and at other times in Chiyuko’s real life,
where her love for her never-forgotten artist/conscientious objector is the
crux of her creative drive and her occasionally problematic personal life.
Satoshi implies his disdain for modern filmmaking, his longing for the days
when storytelling was paramount, and suggests that Chiyuko’s purity of
devotion is lacking in today’s young.
So it is often somber. But “Millennium Actress” is nevertheless a positive
film because Satoshi suggests that these noble aspirations in filmmaking and
life can live again, even if, for now, like his main characters, he is “just
chasing shadows.”
Advisory: This film contains moderate violence.
– G. Allen Johnson
‘SO CLOSE’
Action thriller. Starring Shu Qi, Zhao Wei and Karen Mok. Directed by Corey
Yuen. (R. 107 minutes. In Cantonese and Mandarin with English subtitles. At
the Lumiere.)
In an earlier incarnation of this newspaper, the yahoo movie critic Joe Bob
Briggs wrote warmly of a phenomenon he called “bimbo fu” — a movie genre
marked by the feisty brawling of leggy, well-endowed females for the
titillation of their male fans.
“So Close,” a silly Hong Kong action flick from actor-turned-director Corey
Yuen, fits nicely in the “bimbo fu” genre, even though its bimbos are highly
skilled killing machines who sport elegant attire and not the halter tops and
Daisy Duke cutoffs that Joe Bob revered.
Shu Qi, the beautiful Taiwanese star of “The Transporter” and “Millennium
Mambo,” plays lethal Lynn, a kung fu killing machine who eliminates vast teams
of security thugs without breaking a sweat or staining her dove-white pantsuit.
Sue (Zhao Wei), her sister, partner and ace hacker, operates an elaborate
surveillance system providing access to any video security operation extant.
There isn’t much the sisters can’t do, and there isn’t a man who’s a match
for their cool-headed cunning and expertise. Both actresses are fun to watch,
as is Karen Mok as an aggressive, emasculating cop who’s hot on their butt-
kicking trail.
“So Close” has moments of style and audacity, but the script is a shameless
muddle and the shifts in tone — from gooey romance to hard-driving, hyper-pop
action — give the impression that the movie was directed by six or seven
people in alternating shifts.
Everything you need to know about “So Close” happens in the dazzling
opening sequence. Masquerading as a virus-buster, Shu Qi kills a crooked
computer magnate by releasing cyanide out of her sunglasses, then catapults
out of an office chair, lands on the ceiling using her high heels as grappling
hooks and bullet-sprays the magnate’s team of henchmen.
Advisory: This film contains violence and sexual references.
– Edward Guthmann
Mary Allen