Film Review: Of Gods and Men (2010)

"A Bedtime Story for Grown-ups"

By: Jordan Overstreet
Published: October 27, 2010

If a good night’s sleep is on your Christmas list, skip the pharmacy and treat yourself to a nap out on the town this January by seeing "Of Gods and Men." Based on true events, Xavier Beauvois’ "Of Gods and Men" seeks to explain the mysterious 1996 execution of seven French Catholic monks by a radical Muslim group in remote Algeria. You would imagine with a logline like that, focusing on the story would be a simple task; however, this 2010 Festival de Cannes Grand Prix winner is visual Ambien.

The French film follows the lives of nine monks, lead by veteran actor Lambert Wilson, who run a monastery in a small, rural area of Algeria. There is nothing sexy about watching what I consider to be the AARP sect of the French Catholics in Algeria. They sing, chant, and pray far more than they actually articulate speech. Granted, monks lead relatively quiet lives, but couldn’t Beauvois have lied just a little and made them more interesting or at least, dare I say it, sexy?

Being an American citizen, I was unfamiliar with the events surrounding the disappearance of these monks. Although any introductory level history class will teach you that French-Algerian relations have been strained (to say the least) since the Algerian fight for their independence in the 1950’s, Beauvois provides the spectator with little background information surrounding the conflict. I am not asking that he hand us a syllabus; I would like for him to consider for the importance of the historical context. Time and time again, we are asked to feel threatened by these radical Muslim sects through the use of violence; however, without any background information or sub-plot to help the audience understand the characters on screen, the threat of death does not feel believable.

As the film wore on, I kept being reminded of Michael Powell’s drama “Black Narcissus,” which follows the trials of a group British nuns, headed by Deborah Kerr, in imperial India. Underscored by the plight of British imperialism in the East, Powell’s film explores how these nuns cannot cohabitate with the wild, untamed environment that surrounds them, proving that the jungles of India are no place for God. However, Powell’s film possesses a sub-plot, a commodity desperately needed in “Of Gods and Men” to allow the spectator to better understand the characters on screen. For instance, when Kerr leaves the Indian jungle at the close of the film, I understand who the woman I see before me is, and when she cries, I can feel empathy for her--she has failed God.

In contrast, Beauvois does not give us a sub-plot or flesh out his characters, but relies on shots of terrorists with guns juxtaposed by the reaction shots of crying monks to bolster our fear of violence. He clearly wants us to see these men as martyrs, but their characters, due to a lack of dialogue, are never really developed, so how are we, as an audience, expected to feel for them? As the cowardly tears pour down the monks’ faces, they lose any hope of appearing heroic and (forgive me for sounding like Lady Macbeth) come off as weak. You would think nine grown men had the balls to fight off a few intruders.

Beauvois attempts to place a French perspective on the end of the Francophone empire and Algeria’s involvement in that plight. With the lack of heroism on the part of the monks, they become cowardly sacrifices that limp along in this lifeless drama, and Beauvois fails at delivering this perspective. “Of Gods and Men” is successful in providing further evidence that the Franco-Algerian conflict is far from dormant. So whatever France and Algeria have going on, I think its time they engage in a dialogue, preferably in a shrink’s office and not on the silver screen.

"Of Gods and Men." Directed by Xavier Beauvois; written for the screen by Xavier Beauvois and Etienne Comar; produced by France 3 Cinema; starring Lambert Wilson, Michael Lonsdale, Olivier Rabourdin, Philippe Laudenbach, Jacques Herlin, Loïc Pichon, Xavier Maly, and Jean-Marie Frin. Rated R for a scene of graphic violence. Run time 2 hours and 2 minuets.

Film Review: Love Ranch (2010)

"Not Another Cougar Movie"

By: Jordan Overstreet
Published: October 14, 2010

Helen Mirren, brothel madam.

Not the two words you would usually associate with the Academy Award-winning Dame of the British realm; however, in Taylor Hackford's recent film "Love Ranch," Mirren makes the leap from Queen Elizabeth II to Nevada brothel owner Grace Bontempo.

With the collapse of the film's distribution company in early 2009, "Love Ranch" was placed on the shelf for over a year; and finally saw its release this past May in the market at the 62nd Festival de Cannes. Based on the real life events surrounding the 1976 murder of Argentine heavy weight Oscar Bonavena at Joe and Sally Conforte's Mustang Ranch, the film follows Grace and Charlie Bontempo (Mirren and Joe Pesci) as they run the first legal brothel, the Love Ranch, in 1976 Nevada.

While perhaps an unlikely vehicle for Hackford, whose last directorial venture was 2004's "Ray," his marriage to Mirren must have influenced him to take on the project. Nonetheless, it is Hackford's direction of the film that makes what sounds like another installment of the sleazy Home Box Office (HBO) series, "Cathouse" (which captures the daily ups and downs of the Bunny Ranch in Nevada), actually plausible and dramatically entertaining. "Love Ranch" is, at its core, a story about the dissolution of a marriage.

The film begins with Grace, sporting a sleek auburn bob, confessing to the audience, "Selling love will make you rich...that's what my mother taught me...just don't put your heart into it." As the title credits saunter across the silver screen and the sounds of Kool and the Gang become audible, we are transported to the brothel's 1976 New Year's celebration, during which Charlie, on a whim, announces his plan to make the brothel a high-class destination by investing in a new attraction for his clientele-a boxer. As Grace, recently diagnosed with terminal cancer, glares from the sidelines, Hackford gives the audience a sense of the union between the Bontempos. While rough around the edges (Charlie is a known bed partner to many of the ladies of the Ranch), their marriage is based on a strong business partnership, with Charlie as the face of the brothel and Grace working as the engineer behind the operation.

Mirren and Pesci are well matched to portray these middle-aged felons. Mirren is able to shed her royal persona and reinvent her onscreen image through the role of Grace Bontempo. Upon first glance, Mirren is unrecognizable. With her red hair coiffed in a beehive up-do and her eyelashes coated in mascara, Mirren could be Tammy Faye Messner's doppelganger.

No victim from the 1970's makeover, Pesci conjures up images of an older Elvis as he sports a purple leisure suit with matching cowboy hat and boots. Pesci, the great character actor of crime moguls, is up to his usual tricks in his role as Charlie. It as if he has aged to perfection and Mark Jacobsen's dialogue allows Pesci to open up like a good reserve wine. Similarly, Jacobsen has crafted such witty one-liners for the two to sling at each other that even in the most heated of arguments, Mirren and Pesci are still fun to watch onscreen.

However, the partnership between the Bontempos begins to crumble with the arrival of Charlie's newest attraction-the boxer, Armando Bruza (Sergio Peris-Mencheta). Focused on his effort to legitimize the business of prostitution, Charlie leaves Grace in charge of managing Bruza's boxing career. While Grace complains, "I've got twenty five psychotic whores to manage," she ultimately takes on training the Argentine Neanderthal. Then the writers from "Days of Our Lives" must have hijacked Jacobsen's script and proceeded to write in a love story between the sixty-five year old Grace and the thirty-three year old Bruza.

In spite of the recent circulation of photographs of a very toned Mirren clad only in a bikini, there is nothing sexy about Mirren bedding Peris-Mencheta. As they tussle in scarlet satin sheets, I can feel my gag reflex kick into high gear. Their liaison is totally unbelievable, and when Grace plans to actually run off with Bruza, Mirren just looks pathetic and, while I hate to say it, old. I will forever be indebted to Charlie's bodyguard, who finally puts the audience out of its misery, by shooting Bruza and restoring reality. While Mirren sobs over her lover's lifeless body, there is not a wet eye in the theatre. Regardless of Mirren's appeal, she cannot make Grace's relationship with Bruza work; perhaps no actress can.

"Love Ranch," despite its flaws, is a campy piece of entertainment. That is, of course, if you can allow yourself to get wrapped up in the cinematic experience and actually believe that everything you are seeing on screen, even the bizarre union of Mirren and Pers-Mencheta , is plausible. For the more enlightened movie-goers, this may be a difficult feat; however, for the housewives of suburbia (and my mother), I suspect it will be a hit. While "Love Ranch" will be released on DVD in November, I hope the problems Hackford and others experienced in releasing the film is a sign from the movie God that the era of the cougar is coming to an end.

Love Ranch. Directed by Taylor Hackford; written for the screen by Mark Jacobsen; released by E1 Entertainment International; starring Helen Mirren, Joe Pesci, Gina Gershon, Taryn Manning, and introducing Sergio Peris-Mencheta. Rated R; run time: 117 minutes.

Film Review: I Am Love (2010)

"Tilda, the Great"

By Jordan Overstreet
Published: September 30, 2010

While many critics have coined Meryl Streep as ‘chameleon-esque' in her acting abilities, it appears another reptile has entered the cinematic aquarium and may possess the power to uproot ‘the world's greatest living actress' from her throne. This force is art house pioneer, Tilda Swinton.

Since her move to mainstream films in 2000, Swinton has re-invented the feminine image on screen. Her Academy-award winning performance as the ruthless Karen Crowder in 2007's "Michael Clayton" not only exposed the softer side of the stock businesswoman prototype, but also gave audiences a taste of her talent; she promptly delivered the main course in the 2008 French indie thriller, "Julia," in which Swinton portrays an alcoholic party girl on the brink of self-destruction. Her Oscar has proved to be invaluable and has allowed Swinton the rare opportunity to bring art house cinema to the megaplex in Luca Guadagnino's "I Am Love," which comes to DVD on October 12th.

Shedding her natural complexion, boyish figure, Swinton adopts the trappings of an haute bourgeois matriarch caught in a ‘May-December romance' with her son's business partner in the recent Italian drama. While set in Milan at the turn of the 21st century, the presentation of the title credits and the traditional lettering of "I Am Love" invite the audience to return to an older era of women's films starring the likes of Ingrid Bergman or Deborah Kerr, which capitalized the allure of an extra-marital affair as a vehicle for the leading lady to embark on voyage of self-discovery despite ultimately returning to the arms of her husband. However, Guadagnino's protagonist, Emma Reechi (Swinton), evades this fate, placing a modern spin on the woman's melodramatic formula.

When we first meet Emma, her servants surround her in her kitchen, evoking an image of upper class Italian domesticity. While she speaks perfect Italian, hosts the family dinner soirees, and sports the uniform of the bourgeois women (a Chanel shift dress with a coordinating quilted tote in hand), her Russian descent - red hair and harsh bone structure - keep her from truly becoming a member of the Reechi dynasty that she has married into. Emma's comfort zone is the kitchen, for her only outlet for expressing her Russian heritage is through the art of cooking (she is known for her traditional Russian fish soup which later becomes the indicator of her deceit).

Eventually Emma's son, Edo (Flavio Parenti) develops a strong friendship with a chef, Antonio (Edo Gabberiellini), and the two decide to open a restaurant. When Emma encounters Antonio for the first time, there is a flirtation; however, once Emma tastes Antonio's cuisine, an intense attraction exists between the two. This attraction is further bolstered when a chance meeting leads Antonio to invite Emma to his home, where once inside Emma strips off her clothing, further distancing herself from the Reechi clan.

After working for eleven years with Guadagnino to create, and later finance the drama, Swinton finally had her day in the megaplex. Despite her British heritage, Swinton is no stranger to foreign cinema and is very much at home in this Italian drama. The language rolls off her tongue with ease. Her "Emma" conjures the likes of a Virginia Woolf heroine trapped in her daily domestic routine; similarly, Swinton's performance taps into the Wollstonecraftian school of thought regarding the rights of women.

Interestingly, it is the sexual awakening of Emma's daughter, Betta (Alba Rohrwacher) that truly leads Emma into liberation. Betta returns form art school sporting a pixie haircut and engaging in a new sexual preference; moreover, Rohrwacher outshines her supporting consorts as she confides in Emma of her love for her female professor. Betta's transgression from the social norm inspires Emma to embrace her erotic nature and dive into bed with Antonio. Betta's transformation foreshadows Emma's departure from her long strawberry locks, and this change in Swinton's appearance signifies her not only her sexual awakening, but also her return to her true identity--one that is independent of the Reechi family.

The script, written by Guadagnino, is simple--perhaps too simple--and much of the subtext is communicated by the facial expressions of the actors. Dining together is a ceremony for the Reechis, during which only the male members of the family happen to have any dialogue, and Guadagnino overpopulates the film with this tradition. Ironically, the family dining scenes are verbally anorexic. They rely heavily on continuous close-ups and reaction shots of the attendants as means to further the plot. The casual eye roll becomes a deadly weapon and can inspire the most exaggerated responses from those who witness it being used.

Guadagnino continues to pour salt in our wounds by underscoring this ceremony with the boisterous chords of John Addams' classical score. He seems to be trying to add an operatic component to the image on screen. Instead, Guadagnino blasts the audience with so many cinematic elements that without the clever hand of Swinton to guide us through, we become overwrought and lost in the melody of the score.

Nevertheless, "I Am Love" successfully breaks the mold of the traditional woman's picture by illustrating a philandering wife who actually leaves her husband by the time the final credits roll. Our leading ladies of the era are no longer constricted by flawed relationships, but have the opportunity to play in traffic and transgress their promises of fidelity. Like Bette Davis empowered the wartime widows of the 1940's, I predict that Tilda Swinton will, in due time, have the same ability to reach out to her audience and inspire a new generation of female movie-goers.

"I Am Love." Directed by Luca Guadagnino; written for the screen by Luca Guadagnino and Barbara Alberti; released by Sony Pictures Classic. Starring: Tilda Swinton, Flavio Parenti, Edoardo Gabberiellini, Alba Rohrwacher, Pippo Delbono, and Marisa Berenson. Running time: 2 hours. Rated R for sexuality and nudity.

Film Review: An Education (2009)

"A Sophisticated Seduction"

By Jordan Overstreet
Published : September 16, 2010

One of the fossils left behind from the grandeur of the Golden age in Hollywood is the educator- pupil relationship. It has been reproduced, reinvented, and rejuvenated for decades. The 1960's brought us Clark Gable who wanted to be Doris Day's "Teacher's Pet," while the 1970's ushered in a new era of sexual promiscuity and the student-teacher relationship found a new precedent with Mrs. Robinson's iconic seduction of Dustin Hoffman in "The Graduate." Fast-forward to the new millennium, and the student-teacher formula has been repackaged to fit Julia Roberts in "Mona Lisa Smile." The relationship between educator and pupil, which began as merely a complication in Doris and Gable's meet-cute, has journeyed to the bedroom, and with this knowledge of sexuality, has returned to the screen through Lone Scherfig's 2009 film, An Education.

Capitalizing on America's fixation with the 1960's drama "Mad Men," Scherfig sets his ‘coming of age' drama in 1961 London, a time when the city was untouched by the forthcoming Beatle-mania. As the opening credits begin to roll over images of young schoolgirls balancing books over their heads, baking cupcakes, and practicing their ballroom dance skills, Scherfig transports us to an era of innocence. We first meet Jenny (Carey Mulligan in an Academy-Award nominated role) in the classroom where her intelligence sets her apart from the other students. As an only child, Jenny is the sole mutual interest between her parents (Alfred Molina and Cara Seymour) and her goal to attend Oxford University has become the epicenter of their lives. When Jenny playfully suggests indulging in herself for the afternoon, her father laments, "What would Oxford think?" Jenny's only escape from her sheltered life is her Juliette Greco vinyl record and her dreams of one day reaching the height of sophistication.

Enter David Goldman (Peter Sarsgaard) a much older, mature vagabond in a scarlet Bristol roadster. David is a graduate of the "University of life"; he lives the sophisticated lifestyle that Jenny wants so much to experience. When David invites her to attend a concert in the West End along with his two friends Danny and Helen (Dominic Cooper and Rosamund Pike), Jenny willingly agrees; thus catapulting herself into the unknown sophisticated world of 1960's London where nothing is as it appears on the surface. Sarsgaard's charm and delicious dimples mask his bad boy persona, so even when he lies to Jenny, the audience is hypnotized by his spell. Soon Jenny comes to embody the lyric, "You've Got Me Wrapped Around Your Little Finger" as she is inducted into a new family nucleus--David, Danny, and Helen--abandoning her goal of attending Oxford.

A native of the British Isles, Mulligan is a newcomer to the American screen. Despite being a woman of twenty-four, Mulligan's reprise of her teenage years feels fresh. As Jenny blossoms out of her humble school-girl upbringing and into a chic Audrey Hepburn-esque young woman, Mulligan's performance proves that naivety and a loss of innocence are still two very powerful elements to be explored on screen; and even if she may be sleeping with and older man, she embarks on the taboo relationship with class.

While some actors would leave the character as a heartbreaker, Sarsgaard layers this wayward adulterer with a level of sadness that allows David to be multidimensional and make it that much worse when we learn that he has been conning Jenny and her family all along. Pike plays a terrific foil for Jenny in her presentation of the wise fool Helen, who is knowledgeable about sex but when it comes to literature is a complete dunce. When Jenny reveals she has gotten a "B" in her Latin class, Helen consoles her saying, "someone told me that in about 50 years, no one will speak Latin, probably. Not even Latin people." Helen's idiotic statements are just a few of many witty lines crafted by screenwriter, Nick Hornby ("Fever Pitch," "About A Boy").

Hornby adapted his screenplay from Lynn Barber's autobiographical short story, "An Education," in which she recounts her torrid affair with an older man during her final years of high school education. Hornby is far too faithful to his original source; thus, when he attempts to take liberties with Barber's tale, such as the row between Jenny and her head mistress, Ms. Walters (Emma Thompsen), he confuses the spectator into reading the film as a feminist critique of female education in the 1960's.

During the heated exchange, Ms. Walters claims, "there is nothing worth doing without a degree," and suggests that Jenny has few options--she can either work in education or the civil service. Jenny explains that she can "work hard and be bored" or live the lavish lifestyle she has created with David. Like any sixteen year-old, Jenny chooses the latter, exposing the lack of career options for women. This claim would support the notion that Jenny's education comes not from the lips of David but from the help of her mousey English teacher, Miss Stubbs, who steps in at the end of the film to help Jenny rewrite her setback. In contrast, Barber's cites her David as the teacher who exposed her to the harsh reality of life and truly educated her about the way the world worked. Barber saw these experiences as her education. Jenny seems to fall into a similar category.

So what exactly is "An Education" trying to say? Any enlightened movie-goer will recognize that it is not just the facts we learn in the classroom, but the application of these lessons and the street smarts we pick up along the way that truly shape us into the people we are today. The cinematic experience allows filmmakers the rare opportunity to challenge the audience's perceptions about life and society at large, yet "An Education" does not ponder any life altering questions. It merely warns us not to get wrapped around the finger of a well-meaning stranger, a pitiful end to a film that began so potent with possibilities.

An Education. Directed by Lone Scherfig; written for the screen by Nick Hornby; based on the memoirs of Lynn Barber; released by Sony Pictures Classic. Starring: Carey Mulligan, Peter Sarsgaard, Dominic Cooper, Rosamund Pike, Alfred Molina, Cara Seymour, Olivia Williams, and Emma Thompson. Running time: 1 hour and 40 minutes.