FILM NEWS: JACC ANNOUNCES PROGIE WINNERS

A scene from Even the Rain.

JACC jumps over what Oscar picks

By Ed Rampell and John Esther

After failing to make the final cut for this year's Academy Awards for Best Film in a Foreign Language (or any other category for that matter), Even the Rain, a smashing Spanish film about an uprising in Bolivia has swept the James Agee Cinema Circle’s fourth annual “Progie” Awards for Best Progressive Films and Filmmakers of 2010.

The James Agee Cinema Circle is an international, independent umbrella group of progressive film critics, reviewers, scholars and historians dedicated to raising public awareness about films dealing with political, social and cultural issues such as: Human rights, workers’ struggles, women’s rights, environmentalism, ethnic rights, free speech, gay rights, civil liberties, immigrant rights, people’s activism and peace.

The JACC annually presents The Progies to the year’s Best Progressive studio features, indies, documentaries and artists. The Progies are the “un-Oscar”, the “people’s alternative Academy Awards,” honoring movies and talents of conscience and consciousness whereas the Best Picture Oscar, for example, consistently goes to movies with centrist-right sensibilities (e.g. Ordinary People; Dances with Wolves; Shakespeare in Love; American Beauty; The Departed; The Hurt Locker) or even politically reactionary films (e.g. Forrest Gump; Driving Miss Daisy; Silence of the Lambs; A Beautiful Mind; Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King; Crash; No Country for Old Men; Slumdog Millionaire) at the Annual Academy Award Ceremony. Of course, this year's Academy Award nominations are not significantly different.

Below is a complete list of all of the 2010 Progies winners, followed by the nominees in every category. (There is an initial nomination process with other films not mentioned below). Each Progie is awarded in a category named after a great cinema artist or film that made a contribution to movies that inspire, enlighten and entertain audiences.

The Trumbo: The Progie Award for Best Progessive Picture is named after Oscar-winning screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, a member of the Hollywood Ten, who was imprisoned for his beliefs and refusing to inform. Trumbo helped break the Blacklist when he received screen credit for Spartacus and Exodus in 1960.

Winner: Even The Rain

Other nominations: Social Network, Casino Jack, Made In Dagenham.

The Garfield: The Progie Award for Best Actor in a progressive picture is named after John Garfield, who rose from the proletarian theater to star in progressive pictures such as Gentleman's Agreement and Force of Evil, only to run afoul of the Hollywood Blacklist.

Co-Winners: Mark Wahlberg, The Fighter; Kevin Spacey, Casino Jack.

Other nominations: James Franco, Howl; Geoffrey Rush, The King’s Speech.

The Karen Morley Award: The Progie Award for Best Actress in a film portraying women in a progressive picture is named for Karen Morley, co-star of 1932’s Scarface and 1934’s Our Daily Bread. Morley was driven out of Hollywood in the 1930s for her leftist views, but maintained her militant political activism for the rest of her life, running for New York’s Lieutenant Governor on the American Labor Party ticket in 1954.

Winner: Naomi Watts, Fair Game.

Other nomination: Sally Hawkins, Made In Dagenham.

The Renoir: The Progie Award for Best Anti-War Film is named after the great French filmmaker Jean Renoir, who directed the 1937 anti-militarism masterpiece, Grand Illusion.

Winner: The Green Zone.

Other nominations: Route Irish, Miral.

The Gillo: The Progie Award for Best Progressive Foreign Film is named after the Italian director Gillo Pontecorvo, who lensed the 1960s classics, The Battle of Algiers and Burn!

Winner: Even The Rain.

Other nomination: Tears Of Gaza.

The Dziga: The Progie Award for Best Progressive Documentary is named after the Soviet filmmaker Dziga Vertov, who directed 1920s nonfiction films such as the Kino Pravda (“Film Truth”) series and The Man With the Movie Camera.

Winner: Inside Job.

Other nominations: Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer; South Of The Border.

Our Daily Bread Award: The Progie Award for the Most Positive and Inspiring Working Class Screen Image is named after director King Vidor’s 1934 classic about an American collective farm, which starred Karen Morley and was produced by Charlie Chaplin.

Winner: Made In Dagenham.

Other nominations: Even The Rain; The Fighter, Fish Tank.

The Robeson: The Progie Award for the Best Portrayal of People of Color that shatters cinema stereotypes, in light of their historically demeaning depictions onscreen. It is named after courageous performing legend, Paul Robeson, who starred in 1936’s Song of Freedom and 1940’s The Proud Valley.

Winner: Even The Rain.

Other nominations: Night Catches Us; Miral; Guy And Madeline On A Park Bench; Frankie & Alice.

The Buñuel: The Progie Award for the Most Slyly Subversive Satirical Cinematic Film in terms of form, style and content is named after Luis Buñuel, the Spanish surrealist who directed 1967’s Belle de Jour and 1972’s The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie.

Winner: The Social Network.

Other nominations: Enter the Void; Hitler in Hollywood. 

The Pasolini: The Progie Award for Best Pro-Gay Rights film is named after Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini, who directed 1964's The Gospel According to St. Matthew. 

Winner: The Kids Are All Right.

Other nominations: Howl; I Love You Philip Morris. 

The Lawson: The Progie Award for Best Anti-Fascist Film is named after John Howard Lawson, screenwriter of 1938’s anti-Franco film, Blockade, and the 1940s anti-nazi films, Four Sons, Action in the North Atlantic, Sahara and Counter-Attack. 

Winner: Even The Rain.

Other nominations: The King’s Speech, Casino Jack, The Last Circus. 

The Langlois: For Best Progressive Picture Deserving Theatrical Release in the US and distribution in other countries and platforms is named after film archivist Henri Langlois, co-founder of Paris’ Cinémathèque.

Winner: Film Socialisme.

Other nominations: Amigo, Vlast, Cleveland Versus Wall Street, Nostalgia For The Light.

 

The Sergei: The Progie Award for Lifetime Progressive Achievement On or Off Screen is named after Sergei Eisenstein, the Soviet director of masterpieces such as Potemkin and 10 Days That Shook the World.

Winner: Jean-Luc Godard.
Other nominations: Sean Penn, Mike Leigh, Ed Asner.

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PSIFF 2011: THE HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGER

A scene from The Human Resources Manager.

Backtrack in the Post-USSR

By John Esther

Winner of five 2010 Israeli Film Academy Awards and Israel's Oscar entry for Best Foreign Language Film, director Eran Riklis' The Human Resources Manager moves from Israel to Russia at a tank's pace, offering little more than meandering musings and mawkish meanings about work, duty, honor and human value.

Based on the novel, A Woman in Jerusalem, by A.B Yehoshua, screenwriter Noah Stollman situates The HR Manager (Mark Ivanir) at Jerusalem's largest bakery between a hard spot and rough space when one of the bakery's ex-employees is killed during a suicide bombing.  Under attack at work and by the local press, The HR Manager (his job is his identity) must return the woman back to Russia for a burial. Promises to his own estranged daughter (Roni Koren) may not be fulfilled, again.

Once in Russia, The HR Manager encounters various sorts of sordid shenanigans by various Russian characters who are only going to make his task that much more difficult.  Of course, there is that Russian bureaucracy. The victim's Ex-Husband (Bogdan Stanoevitch) is a brute. The victim's son (Noah Silver) is an angry adolescent. The victim's mother (Irina Petrescu) thinks the return of her daughter's body for burial is a mistake, food poisoning, etc. And here he thought he was doing something good for which everyone would thank him. At least he has all the spending cash he needs to make things right.

Slowly becoming a world-renown director, Riklis has made successful and moving films about self and group identity in such films as The Syrian Bride and Lemon Tree. Those films centered on the plight of women under pressure by society and self. They did not offer any easy answers and they were engaging. It seems Riklis lost some purpose with his latest film. An exercise in overstated ironies, hindered by contrivances and caricatures, The Human Resources Manager does not offer those merits.

(The Human Resources Manager screens Jan. 11, 4 p.m. Palm Springs Regal 9. For more information: THRM)

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SCANDINAVIAN FILM FESTIVAL LA 2011: MAMMA GOGO

Mamma Gógó (Kristbjörg Kjeld) in Mamma Gógó.

Wave bye

By John Esther

Iceland's Oscar entry for Best Foreign Language Film, Mamma Gógó is Fridrik Thór Fridriksson's (Children of Nature; Niceland) semi-autobiographical tale about The Director (an unimpressive Hilmir Snaer Gunason) who tries to balance his ever increasing debt over Children of Nature, a film he has just released, and his mother, Mamma Gógó (Kristbjörg Kjeld), who is rapidly losing her mind to Alzheimer's.

For the most part, Mamma Gógó is mildly engaging for its 88-minute running time. Some of the inside jokes are funny and the tragedy of the titular character should cause concern for anyone who knows somebody facing old age – parent or otherwise. Aging is not without its consequences. (At least The Director does not have to worry about his mother's health care bills.)

Unfortunately, in order to, somewhat pretentiously, tie in The Director's precarious plight as some sort of a direct link with Icelandic film history, Fridriksson uses scenes of Kjeld as Girl Gógó from her 1962 feature film debut, 79 AF Stoddini. While that may have worked if this film had been rewritten without box office sales and Oscar nominations in mind (I am speculating on Fridriksson's motivations), what we get with Mamma Gógó as a result is a film with one of the most inane, embarrassing conclusions in recent international film history. How gross? Suffice it to say, Mamma Gógó winds up making True Grit look like Biutiful. 

(Mamma Gógó screens Jan. 9, 12:30 p.m., WGA Theatre. For more information: 323/661-4273 or Gógó)

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PSIFF 2011: UNDERTOW

Marieta (Tatiana Astengo) and Miguel (Christian Mercado) in Undertow.

Against the current

By John Esther

Written and directed by Javier Fuentes-Leon, Undertow (Contracorriente) walks a thin line between taking a stance against homophobia and holding homosexuality accountable for its disruption to tradition.

Peru's pick for Oscar submission in the Best Film in a Foreign Language category, Undertow tells the tale of Miguel (Christian Mercado), who is madly in love with his wife, Marieta (Tatiana Astengo). She is pregnant and is about to give him a son. But then Miguel falls for an artist named Santiago (Manola Cardona). The community frowns on this kind of relationship.

The way most Peruvians in the Peruvian coastal town treat Santiago is deplorable. Rooted in superstition they are cruel to the artist. They ignore him. They throw things at his house. They consider him a pervert. Conversely, Santiago is selfish, expecting Miguel to throw away everything for a love, which Miguel resists; Miguel does not consider himself gay. To compound matters, Marieta is very sympathetic and, thanks to Santiago, her life is being ruined by her husband’s homosexual urges.

This strain of sympathies continues until the very end with Santiago getting the better of Miguel at the expense of Marieta. Santiago may have gotten what he wanted, but it is not what Marieta wanted and the film makes it clear whose demands were more justifiable.

Marked by strong performances yet plagued with troubled conceits, rather than promote understanding, it is easy to see how this film could be used by anti-GLBT organizations to keep the GLBT down. 

(Undertow screens today, 1:30 p.m., Camelot Theatres; Jan. 9, 7:30 p.m., Camelot Theatres. For more information: Undertow)

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PSIFF 2011: THE BORDER

A scene from The Border.

Over theirs

By John Esther

On August 30, 1946 the town of Velke Siemence was divided by Russia's Red Army. On one side was Velke Siemence, which remained in former Czechoslovakia/current Slovakia.  The other part was set in a part of the Ukraine (formerly a part of the Soviet Union) and called Male Siemence. 

All of a sudden and without warning, family and friends were divided by an armed border. If you wanted to walk a few feet in one direction to visit family or friends you would have to travel hours in another direction, often multiple times, in order to acquire the proper papers. If you spoke out against the border your living space would become a lot smaller in some far away place.

Slovakia's entry for Best Foreign Language Film, this documentary chronicles the history of the divide up until the present where it has once again become unified, but at what cost? 

Maybe it was just a bad day, but I had a hard time staying awake for The Border's running time of 72 minutes. 

(The Border screens, Jan. 8, 11:00 a.m., Camelot Theatres; Jan. 10, 8 p.m., Camelot Theatres. For more information: http://www.psfilmfest.org)

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PSIFF AND SFFLA 2011: STEAM OF LIFE

A scene from Steam of Life.

Hot air

By John Esther

In the highly entertaining 1991 feature film, Night on Earth, one of the five segments is set in Finland. Unlike the previous four segments, which are variably comical, this one by writer-director Jim Jarmusch has two Finnish men lament away in a taxicab. The second monologue is more tragic than the first. Amusing and making a sort of "independent" film by ending on a down note, I think the scene lasts about 25 minutes. 

It was about 26 minutes into Joonas Berghäll and Mika Hotakainen's 84-minute documentary, Steam of Life, when I started to get bored.  

Set in a series of seemingly random saunas, various naked Finnish men deliver monologues about the some tragic tale: the loss of a loved one (alive or dead), a traumatic experience, personal problems, etc. Some of the men can tell their tale well, some of the men are clearly there to talk on cue, and other men are sometimes there to listen to his friend's problem – something many of them have seem to have heard numerous times already. 

Sure, there is something to be said about allowing a film of full of naked men into American theaters without garnering an NC-17 rating (Steam of Life is Finland's Oscar entry for Best Foreign Language Film to boot), and hearing men bare their calamities (and cocks) for all the world to view, and some of the sauna locations are humorous and there is even a bear here for laughs, but eventually the scenery and stories, well, run out of steam. 

Steam of Life will also screen at the Scandinavian Film Festival L.A. 

(Steam of Life screens at the PSIFF Jan. 9, 4:30 p.m., Regal Palm Springs 9; Jan. 11, 1:30 p.m. Regal Palm Springs 9; Jan. 12, 6 p.m., Regal Palm Springs 9. For more information: http://www.psfilmfest.org)

(Steam of Life screens at the SFFLA Jan. 8, 7:30 p.m., WGA Theatre. For more information: http://www.scandinavianfilmfestivalla.com)

 

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PSIFF 2011: PEEPLI LIVE

Natha (Omkar Das Manikpuri) in Peepli Live.

Caste away

By John Esther 

Thanks to a lifetime of hardship resulting in hopelessness and a controversial government program, thousands of Indian farmers continue to commit suicide for money. The number of farmers who have committed suicide in India between 1997 and 2007 now stands at 182,936. That is about one suicide for every 31 minutes.

A fictional account of the capitalist crisis met with government response, writer-director Anusha Rizvi's Peepli Live tells the tale of two brothers, Natha (Omkar Das Manikpuri) and Budhia (Raghubir Yadav), who are about to lose their plot of rural land and want to take advantage of the government program.  

After the brothers decide which one will die, the story breaks out with the media, government, politicains and entrepenuers descending on the small rural village to see if a suicide will take place. Sadly humorous, everybody has an agenda. Votes, ratings and money are at stake and nobody cares if a nobody sends back the gift of life. 

A better writer than director, the strength of Rizvi's Peepli Live is the film's unsentimental portrayal of the poor. Far more Émile Zola and Shohei Imamura than John Steinbeck and Michael Moore, the films depicts India's lowest cast as ignorant and brutish, with adults and children prone to yelling, violence, excessive inebriation and self preservation at any cost. This honesty prevents sympathy for the self/society-doomed protagonist, which translates into a more complex look at the issues at hand.

India's Oscar submission for Best Foreign Language Film is about despair and doom. And while that may sound like a depressing time at the movies, consider that with its 104-minute running time, over three Indian farmers will have, on average, committed suicide during the film. 

Recommended.

(Peepli Live screens Jan. 7, 1:30 p.m., Palm Springs Regal 9; Jan. 8. 10:30 a.m., Palm Springs Regal 9. For more information: http://www.psfilmfest.org/

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