The new films this week are lesser-known. The big titles came last week, timed to American Thanksgiving. But there’s quality in this batch and with the European Film Festival chipping in, lots of choice too.
At Eternity’s Gate: 4 stars
The Wild Pear Tree: 3 ½
Tiger: 3
Prosecuting Evil: 4
Clara: 3
Stefan Zweig: Farewell to Europe (part of EUFF): 3 ½
A Serious Game (part of EUFF): 3
The Pagan King (part of EUFF): 2 ½
The Possession of Hannah Grace: --
AT ETERNITY’S GATE: Finally, an artist has looked at and interpreted the mysteries of Vincent van Gogh. We all know that he was troubled, sold only one painting while he was alive and cut off an ear for some unknown reason. We learn a lot more here, much of it based on letters to his brother, some on rumor and occasionally, I’ve read, on pure conjecture by the director, Julian Schnabel. He’s a painter himself so I assume he understands more than most about van Gogh’s artistic ambitions and the terrors he suffered. He shows him at length walk the hills and fields of southern France to take in the beauty and find a new light to paint. He was rebelling against the impressionists who he says were only repeating themselves.
In Willem Dafoe’s mesmerizing performance he also talks of “a menacing spirit around me,” “I feel like I’m losing my mind” and that sometimes the flowers and angels talk to him. Madness and artistic genius go together, say both the director and his subject. For van Gogh there was also an intense loneliness. He couldn’t connect with the people he was living among. Children threw stones at him, he yelled back and spent time in a mental asylum. He was only 37 when he died, of a gunshot wound according to this film. It all sounds grim but doesn’t feel that way because there are so many scenes of beauty here, his paintings sure, but also the rich landscape.
With Oscar Isaac as his friend Paul Gauguin, Emmanuelle Seigner as the subject of a key painting, Rupert Friend as his brother Theo, Mads Mikkelsen as a not-helpful priest and not least, the intellectual pleasure of Schnabel's vision. (5th Avenue) 4 out of 5
THE WILD PEAR TREE: At three hours and eight minutes it’s too long but it’s never boring. Nuri Bilge Ceylan from Turkey is too much of a master filmmaker for that. He simply has too much he wants to discuss this time and loses track of the clock. You’ll be well rewarded if you stick with him for this tale of a young man trying to figure out his own life, the impact of his family background and especially his relations with his father. Dad was a role model, used to associate with important people and still works as a school teacher. But now, he’s lost respect, has a gambling addiction and can’t pay the bills. “Mr. Loser,” the son calls him on one of several visits home from a big city.
The son has a book he wants to get published and is repeatedly moved to ponder the big question: how does what he expected from life compare to what is actually coming to him? The mayor, a bookstore owner and others won’t help with money but do get him into conversations about tourism, artistic impulses, the actions of the prophet and that “religion prevents people from finding their own truth.” Dad can’t help and often retreats to his own father’s farm where he’s been digging a well. There’s no water but he insists there will be. Neighbors laugh but mom defends him preferring to forget his foibles and remember the imaginative thinker he was when she married him. The film is heavy with these discussions; they feel like rambling diversions and do go on too long, but hang in there. They build to a profound climax. (VanCity Theatre) 3 ½ out of 5
TIGER: Sure it’s got all the clichés you expect from a boxing movie but I found it better than the one that’s around right now, Creed II. The fight scenes make more sense and are better staged, but more importantly, the film is about more than boxing. It deals with identity, heritage, racism, rejection of outsiders. And it’s a true story, although the film declines to admit that it happened here in Canada. It’s set in the US and was filmed in Ohio although the main character is from Etobicoke and one short incident actually took place here in BC. So, marks off for willful blurring of the facts.
Pardeep Singh Nagra, played here by Prem Singh, was barred from soccer in 1999 for his temper outbursts. He takes up boxing under a coach played rather languidly by Mickey Rourke and faces racist taunts from some of his other charges, notably one played by Michael Pugliese. They’ll meet in the climactic bout that’s sure to come but first there’s a bigger battle. Nagra wants to wear a turban (no problem) but also keep the beard his religion requires. The American Boxing Commission says no, citing safety reasons and the case ends up in court. “I have a right to fight,” is Nagra’s succinct claim to his religious rights. Most of the dialogue is terse like that. (Sing and Pugliese wrote it and also raised some of the money to make the film). Under director Alister Grierson, an Australian, the acting is crisp, the boxing is vigorous and the film properly thrashes out the human rights issues. (International Village and Strawberry Hill in Surrey) 3 out of 5
PROSECUTING EVIL: THE EXTRAORDINARY WORLD OF BEN FERENCZ: He’s a long-time campaigner for law and human rights, an “international do -gooder” somebody calls him, and this stirring film lets us get to know him and what drives him. Initially it was the horrors of the Holocaust which as a young American G.I. he was assigned to investigate. His son says it traumatized him and “fuelled a nuclear reactor inside.” Then he was assigned to the legal team at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials and became chief prosecutor at one of the subsequent trials. A colleague had found a trove of field reports by Nazi death squads and as he puts it, when he had names, dates and numbers right there on paper, he didn’t need witnesses. He recounts all this proudly and, even though he’s a Jew, without a hint of revenge. Instead he reflects on war and how it “can make murderers out of otherwise decent people.”
His solution? “Law, not war”. Even at age 99, he’s fervently advocating for that. He was a prime mover to create the International Court of Justice in The Hague, got both Robert McNamara and Bill Clinton onside and scoffs at Bush for pulling out and America’s ongoing refusal to participate. There are brief glimpses of Trump, Putin and Kim to underline the need for his vision. The film, by Barry Avrich of Montreal, presents it with lots of historical images and stories and the insights of major figures like Alan Dershowitz, General Wesley Clark and Canadian Supreme Court Justice Rosalie Abella who calls Ferencz “a roving conscience.” He should be better known. (International Village) 4 out of 5
CLARA: The main impression I got from this Canadian film is this: Akash Sherman, the director, sure knows his astronomy and space science. It’s only seven months since NASA launched its planet-searching Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) and he’s already worked it in as a major element to his story line. Not only that, he invokes all the technical facts in detail and fully explains “transit”. Ironically, that’s all in aid of a warning about getting so obsessed with stars and space that you might miss what’s happening down here on earth. That’s exactly what’s happening to a young Toronto astronomer played by Patrick J. Adams. He’s already split from his wife and gets booted from the university telescope for hogging it too much.
When he turns to working from home and advertises for an assistant, Clara shows up. She’s played by Troian Bellisario with no science background but a can-do attitude. They become close; they compare philosophies but the two story lines—science and personal—can’t comfortably work together any longer when she reveals a mysterious ailment. The dialogue is sharp, the settings are fine and the acting is adequate but it’s like toggling back and forth between two movies. The science side pays off best with a discovery that impresses even a skeptical expert played by R. H. Thomson and includes the most bizarre use ever of a Bob Dylan song. (International Village and suburban theatres) 3 out of 5
EUROPEAN UNION FILM FESTIVAL: The 21st annual, playing at the Cinemathque until Tuesday and as always very informative with its stories, history and legends from over there. Like these three.
STEFAN ZWEIG: FAREWELL TO EUROPE: I knew that he was a major writer from Austria but not much about his life. This film shows his last years, until 1942, living mostly in Brazil, where he landed to flee the Nazis and repeatedly deals with his refusal to publicly denounce Hitler. He's got a valid reason, based on his deep attachment to the ideals of classic humanism. For us, evaluating his thinking, especially since he was a Jew and knew what was happening back home, makes this a thoughtful movie experience.
It’s a dramatic representation of his later life. Maria Schrader, an actor herself, directs, and Josef Hader plays him with stoic dignity. He receives official honors in Brazil, pleas to speak out at a writer's conference in Buenos Aires and a debate from his first wife in New York. She's played by the well-known star Barbara Sukowa. But he maintains "We have no reason to complain." The end comes far too suddenly. I would have liked more build-up to it but it does have an impact. 3 ½ out of 5
A SERIOUS GAME: This film shows us a classic of Swedish literature. Taken from a 1912 novel and already filmed twice before, it’s said to be the great Swedish love story. Fans of old movies will especially delight in it because the visual style and storytelling feel so retro. Young lovers are kept apart by their own misdeeds—they both marry richer partners-- and later commit adultery to get back together. There are consequences.
Pernilla August directs Sverrir Gudnason as a young journalist and Karin Franz Körlof as an artist’s daughter into a hot affair much like the operas they attend and he reviews. At one point she’s reduced to working as a chambermaid. “It’s the only thing I can do.” Later there’s domestic melodrama in each of their families and a heart-aching missed encounter on a railway ride. It’s a supremely poignant moment to cap off the teary drama. There are references to syndicalist demonstrations outside and women clamoring to get the vote. They may have been inserted as modern touches because the lovers aren’t involved in any of that. 3 out of 5
THE PAGAN KING: Another film with new-to-me information. I've learned that in the 13th Century a part of Latvia, then called Semigallia, was a target of the Northern Crusades. Armies were sent by the Pope, and led by his bastard son (played by Englishman James Bloor), to convert the pagans to Christianity. The film shows the locals fight back, under an inexperienced leader just appointed by a dying king.
This is a large-scale production from Latvia, entirely in English and a big hit in the Baltic region. The story tells one version of a well-known legend of the “Namejs Ring” and the tricky task of uniting the tribes against the invaders. They wanted to do business not fight a war. Occasionally it has the look of a historical pageant and you have to put up with a lot of bellowing, but the history lesson lands well. (2 ½ out of 5)
Also now playing …
THE POSSESSION OF HANNAH GRACE: A new twist on your standard exorcism movie. A young woman cop fresh out of rehab gets the graveyard shift at the morgue and a cadaver that, after an exorcism gone wrong, may be host to a demon. Ugh. No wonder the studio didn’t preview this one.