Based on a true story, Nancy Kelly’s fascinating American independent feature, written by Anne Makepeace and set in the 1880s, portrays a beautiful young Chinese woman (Rosalind Chao) sold into slavery by her destitute father and auctioned off in San Francisco to a mule skinner, who purchases her for a saloon keeper in a mining town in the northern Rockies. She and the mule skinner fall in love en route to their destination, but he delivers her to the saloon keeper nonetheless, and the ensuing story, with dialogue in Cantonese as well as English, depicts the woman’s courage and resourcefulness in creating a life for herself (1990). (JR) Read more
This Austrian docudrama by Robert Dornhelm, shot only weeks after the events it shows, is a political thriller and a mystery story that has been compared to both Z and The Thin Blue Line, although one could also perhaps establish certain links with Medium Cool. The Romanian-born Dornhelm (played by cowriter Felix Mitterer) returns to his homeland to meet a childhood friend, only to discover that this friend is accused of being a terrorist who killed 80 of his colleagues. Costarring Viktoria Schubert as a journalist who proceeds to investigate what happened, this movie certainly gains in immediacy through its frequent cuts to documentary video footage of the real events, but also creates a certain zone of uneasiness (as do Z and The Thin Blue Line) in the halfway house it inhabits between straight reportage and entertainment (1990). (JR) Read more
This 1967 feature was one of the first by Hungarian filmmaker Miklos Jancso to have some impact in the U.S., and the stylistic virtuosity, ritualistic power, and sheer beauty of his work are already fully apparent. In this black-and-white pageant, set during the aftermath of the Russian Revolution, the reds are the revolutionaries and the whites are the government forces ordered to crush them. Working in elaborately choreographed long takes with often spectacular vistas, Jancso invites us to study the mechanisms of power almost abstractly, with a cold eroticism that may suggest some of the subsequent work of Stanley Kubrick. If you’ve never encountered Jancso’s work, you shouldn’t miss this. He may well be the key Hungarian filmmaker of the sound era, and certain later figures such as Bela Tarr would be inconceivable without him. In Hungarian with subtitles. 90 min. (JR) Read more
For all of John Cassavetes’s concern with acting, this 1977 film is the only one of his features that takes it on as a subject; it also boasts his most impressive cast. During the New Haven tryouts for a new play, an aging star (Gena Rowlands), already distressed that she’s playing a woman older than herself, is traumatized further by the accidental death of an adoring teenage fan (Laura Johnson). Fantasizing the continued existence of this girl as a younger version of herself, she repeatedly changes her lines onstage and addresses the audience directly, while the other members of the companythe director (Ben Gazzara), playwright (Joan Blondell), costar (Cassavetes), and producer (Paul Stewart)try to help end her distress. Juggling onstage and offstage action, Cassavetes makes this a fascinating look at some of the internal mechanisms and conflicts that create theatrical fiction, and his wonderful castwhich also includes Zohra Lampert as the director’s wife, assorted Cassavetes regulars, and cameos by Peter Falk and Peter Bogdanovich as themselvesnever lets him down. 144 min. (JR) Read more
This 1930 feature was Josef von Sternberg’s first American film with Marlene Dietrich, and some purists might declare it the best; certainly the visual exoticism is thick enough to tastein layers yet. Gary Cooper at his most effective costars as a foreign legionnaire who wins Dietrich’s heart, and Adolphe Menjou plays a wealthy rake who competes for her affection; Dietrich, as a cabaret singer, does three numbers. 92 min. (JR) Read more
This 1965 feature doesn’t have much of a critical reputation, yet it’s an unusually gripping and compelling thriller of the diabolical puzzler variety, about a man (Gregory Peck) who suffers amnesia during a New York power blackout, during which an executive plunges to his death from a skyscraper. The ensuing conspiracy plot is full of disquieting and effective twists as the hero’s memory gradually leaks back into consciousness and various goons try to kill him; there’s also a nice actorly turn by Walter Matthau as a private detective. The denouement is something of a corny letdown, but prior to that Edward Dmytryk’s direction is adroit and purposeful. Scripted by Peter Stone; with Diane Baker, Walter Abel, Leif Erickson, Jack Weston, George Kennedy, and Kevin McCarthy. 108 min. (JR) Read more
Without being a masterpiece, this 1961 British drama about a former child molester (Stuart Whitman) trying to make a fresh start after a prison term is an example of intelligent and compassionate liberal filmmaking that seems especially rare nowadayswhich suggests that it warrants a second look. Whitman received an Oscar nomination for his performance, but the usually overwrought Rod Steiger may be even better in the low-key part of the hero’s sympathetic psychiatrist; Maria Schell is effective as well. Thoughtfully written by Sidney Buchman and Stanley Mann, and not at all badly directed by Guy Green. (JR) Read more
The great Senegalese filmmaker Ousmane Sembene directed this 1968 feature about a poor man who receives a money order in the mail but whose attempts to cash it are thwarted by the bureaucratic elite. In Wolof with subtitles. 90 min. (JR) Read more
The underrated and neglected Robert Mulligan (To Kill a Mockingbird, Inside Daisy Clover, Summer of ’42, Clara’s Heart) may be one of the only American directors left with a fully achieved style that is commonly (if misleadingly) termed classical. Indeed, he is a master of carving out dramatic space with liquid camera movements and precise angles, a mastery that’s matched by a special sensitivity in handling adolescents. These qualities are fully apparent in this tender treatment of the romantic heartbreak experienced by a 14-year-old girl (Reese Witherspoon) in rural Louisiana during the 50s, although Mulligan is less than ideally served by a script (by Jenny Wingfield) that at times borders on the obvious and simplistic. The heroine is infatuated with the 17-year-old boy (Jason London) who runs a neighboring farm, but he’s more interested in her older sister (Emily Warfield). Mulligan does a fine job both with the nonprofessionals playing the kids and with Sam Waterston, Tess Harper, and Gail Strickland as their parents (1991). (JR) Read more
A vintage film noir item (1946) directed by John Brahmfamous, or at least notorious, for having a flashback within a flashback within a flashback. The ploy pivots on the emotional distress of a bride (Laraine Day) on her wedding day as she remembers her past lovers and indiscretions, though these events are perceived mainly through the eyes of her former lovers. Scripted by Sheridan Gibney and costarring Robert Mitchum, Brian Aherne, Gene Raymond, and Ricardo Cortez. (JR) Read more
A nearly hour-long video documentary by Sachiko Hamada and Scott Sinkleralternately fascinating and depressing in its intimate details and unsentimental candorchronicling two and a half years in the life of an impoverished extended family camped out in an impromptu shelter on an empty lot in lower Manhattan. One of the most potent documents of its kind (1988). (JR) Read more
Nicole Garcia, an actress who has worked for Jacques Rivette and Alain Resnais, directs Nathalie Baye, an actress who has worked for Francois Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard, and most of what’s interesting about this first featurescripted with critic Jacques Fieschi and othersderives from their close collaboration. Baye plays a divorced actress with a faltering career who is allowed only limited custody of her two young children. On a whim she runs off with them for a few days in a stolen car, trying to win back their love. While this doesn’t offer a lot of narrative momentum, Baye often works wonders with her part, and Joachim Serreau and Felicie Pasotti are fine as the two kids (1990). (JR) Read more
John Sayles’s seventh feature (1991, 130 min.), his first in ‘Scope, is a highly ambitious and grimly powerful look at urban corruption, representing a marked improvement over most of his earlier efforts despite his relative lack of skill in directing actors, framing, and editing. Set in the fictional Hudson City, New Jersey, which suggests a combination of Hoboken (where Sayles lives) and nearby Jersey City, the film centers on the troubled son (Vincent Spano) of a successful contractor who gets involved in an attempted burglary, which sets off a chain of events that ultimately involves politicians, policemen, hoods, teachers, street people, and assorted other characters in this densely populated film. Though it depends on an overall orientation that’s about as up-to-date as leftist thinking of the 30s, the film is nonetheless highly persuasive. (The raving street person employed as a choral figure seems straight out of Clifford Odets.) With Tony Lo Bianco, Joe Morton, Angela Bassett, Gloria Foster, and Sayles himself (in a very effective turn as a villain with a perfect New Jersey accent). (JR) Read more
If there’s such a thing as a standard-issue cutesy feminist comedy, this 1991 British picture, directed by Beeban Kidron from a Marcy Kahan script, pretty much fills the bill. The title heroines, played respectively by Saskia Reeves and Imelda Staunton, are lifelong friends who share the same psychiatrist and express their irritation as well as affection for each other as they usher in flashbacks recounting their relationship. There’s nothing really wrong with this pleasant movie if all you’re looking for is a light romp through the subject with inflections that recall Woody Allen, but don’t expect many dividends. (JR) Read more
