FAR FROM MEN (David Oelhoffen)
With such recent films as Jauja, Viggo Mortensen has proven himself to be one of the world's finest and most versatile actors. Far From Men brilliantly continues this trend. Adapted from Albert Camus' short story "The Guest," this film is set in 1954 Algeria, on the cusp of the war of independence from France. Daru (Mortensen), a schoolteacher on the countryside, is ordered by the French gendarmes to deliver Mohamed (Reda Kateb), an Algerian prisoner to the nearest town to be tried for the crime of killing his cousin.
Far From Men, with its rugged North African landscape and its plot of delivering a prisoner to the authorities, evokes classic Westerns in its form. It's essentially a two-hander which slowly reveals the histories and personalities of its two characters, and how they are shaped by their own stories of violence and the sweeping changes that are about to visit their country. The film is a beautifully evocative piece, with mesmerizing central performances and use of landscape, enhanced by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis' brooding and haunting score.
VIAJE (Paz Fabrega)
In San Jose, Costa Rica, Luciana (Kattia Gonzalez) and Pedro (Fernando Bolanos) meet at a costume party. They try to hook up afterward, but it doesn't quite happen; they just end up falling asleep. The next morning, Pedro asks Luciana to accompany him as he works on his thesis at Rincon de la Vieja, a national park with a volcano a few hours outside San Jose. On an impulse, Luciana agrees to spend the weekend with him.
This simple story, barely a plotline, forms the spine of Paz Fabrega's witty, and lushly black-and-white photographed Viaje. Fabrega creates an elegant and penetrating portrait of young people who reject the normal trajectory of "settling down" and conforming to society's demands of conventional living. These demands are given voice in a very funny early scene in which a cab driver, eavesdropping on their conversation, upbraids them for their casual attitude towards having kids. However, though they eschew marriage and monogamy, they aren't really sure of what to replace this with, and the poignant driftlessness that results from this forms a melancholic undertow to the lightly comic surface of this brief, but wonderfully rich film.
STRANDED IN CANTON (Mans Mansson)
Fictional and documentary elements collide in this fascinating film set in Guangzhou, China, among a community which is rarely, if ever, depicted on film: the expatriate African entrepreneurial community. There is such a sizable population of sub-Saharan African merchants in the city that the districts where they reside are locally referred to as "Chocolate City." Sales of electronics and garments in China have replaced emigration to the U.S. or Europe in these people's quest for riches.
Lebrun (Lebrun Iko Isibangi) is one of these ambitious strivers, having left the Congo to seek his fortune and to leave his former life as a farmer. However, as the film begins, things have gone very wrong. Lebrun has gotten badly burned by his Chinese partner, who's stuck him with tons of useless T-shirts, printed for the Congolese election, but held up in production until months after the election. The increasingly impatient warehouse owner is now demanding payment for the storage of the items. Lebrun comes up with a plan to repurpose the shirts to be soold to the opposition for the next elections. Meanwhile, Lebrun meets and falls in love with Sylvie (Nana Nya Sylvie), a Cameroonian garment merchant in the area. As more problems arise and he becomes ever more mired in his state of limbo, he whiles away the time drinking and hanging out in karaoke bars.
Co-written by Chinese filmmaker Li Hongqi (Winter Vacation), Stranded in Canton brilliantly captures the current state of global commerce and the hybrid identities this engenders. The film is cast entirely with non-professionals playing portraying versions of themselves, with Lebrun as its charismatic center. The environment is observed with sardonic, deadpan humor, making for a rich, memorable experience. Also, this film makes the best use of Lionel Richie's song "All Night Long" in recent memory.
IN TRANSIT (Albert Maysles, Nelson Walker, Lynn True, David Usui, Ben Wu)
The late, legendary documentarian Albert Maysles was a champion and superb practitioner of what he termed "Direct Cinema," an intimate and penetrating presentation of history and humanity, achieved with handheld cameras and available light. In Transit, Maysles' final project before his passing earlier this year, shows that he followed through with this methodology until the very end, and the film itself demonstrates the myriad, moving insights that this kind of filmmaking lends itself to.
Co-directed by Maysles and four other accomplished directors, In Transit follows the route of the Empire Builder, the busiest long-distance train route in America, running from Chicago to Seattle. Along the way, we are introduced to a number of passengers, whose stories are intricately weaved together, all of whom are "in transit," both literally and metaphorically. We meet a New York photographer capturing the landscape on what will be his last long-distance trip; a very pregnant woman on her way to visit relatives; a young woman from China with wide-eyed optimism about her future; a young man mentored by a colleague of Martin Luther King; a woman coming back from meeting the daughter she gave up for adoption 47 years ago; and many others.
In Transit captures a wide swath of humanity and shows that even the most seemingly ordinary existence is full of compelling drama. Its gifts of observation represent a moving testament to the enduring legacy left by Albert Maysles of brilliantly insightful films created from the materials of reality.
AMONG THE BELIEVERS (Hemal Trivedi and Mohammed Ali Naqvi)
The current headlines are full of news about the latest attacks of, and the fight against, extremist Islamist organizations such as ISIS, Boko Haram, and the Taliban. Usually, these stories are presented as an opposition between Islamic and non-Islamic forces, but the often disturbing documentary Among the Believers illuminates an equally important part of this story: the fight withing Islam against violent extremism.
The film tells this story through opposing figures: Abdul Aziz Ghazi, a Pakistani cleric who founded the Red Mosque network of madrassahs (Islamic seminaries) around the country, whose curriculum seems to consist solely of endless recitation of the Quran and anti-West rhetoric. His drive to impose strict Shariah law throughout the country is as much personal as it is religious; when the government destroyed his flagship mosque, they took with it is closest family and 150 of his students.
Opposing Aziz is Dr. Pervez Hoodbhoy, a nuclear physicist and activist against extremist Islam. Through lectures, media appearances, and direct debate with Aziz, he passionately advocates for an eradication of, and government action against, the forces of religious extremism in Pakistan. The December 2014 massacre of schoolchildren in Peshawar by the Taliban intensifies the call to arrest Aziz and others, sparking mass protests among the public.
The film also follows two 12-year old children affected by these events: Talha, a boy who becomes a true believer in jihad, in opposition to his moderate Muslim family; and Zarina, who escapes her madrassah and joins a regular school, which is regularly threatened by the Taliban.
This is a nuanced and illuminating look at its subject, and puts the lie to the notion of Muslims as an undifferentiated monolith, showing that there is indeed a fierce opposition among believers in Islam against those who use the religion for violent political purposes.
NECKTIE YOUTH (Sibs Shongwe-La Mer)
Shot in crisp black-and-white, and infused with brash, punk-rock energy, this is a vivid portrait of the generation of young South Africans who came of age after the end of apartheid. Educated, affluent, and Westernized, these young people drift without direction, lacking a larger purpose to their lives that those before them had. The end of legalized discrimination hasn't eliminated racism or other problems, and the hedonistic pursuits of sex, drugs, and partying prove inadequate to numb pain and depression.
A live-streamed suicide binds the characters in this piece, all of whom struggle to make sense of this event, which starkly lays bare the unresolved issues of their society. This is a remarkable, stylishly made debut.
KING JACK (Felix Thompson)
King Jack superficially follows the contours of the familiar coming-of-age story, but it is greatly enlivened here by an evocative sense of place, and a much more diverse set of characters, in both racial and personality terms, than is the norm for films such as this.
Unfolding over the course of a weekend, Jack (Charlie Plummer), whose mother is often away at work and whose father is absent, is tasked with looking after his cousin Ben (Cory Nichols), when Ben's mother falls ill. Jack whiles away the days riding bikes, playing ball, pursuing a girl he likes. He's also regularly terrorized by Shane (Danny Flaherty), the town's resident bully, and this undercurrent of violence runs throughout the film, culminating in an inevitable showdown. King Jack continually, and impressively, makes the familiar feel fresh.
A NAZI LEGACY: WHAT OUR FATHERS DID (David Evans)
This documentary examines the legacy of the Holocaust from an unusual angle: by observing the sons of two senior Nazi officials, both of whom deal with the actions of their fathers in vary different ways. Human rights lawyer Philippe Sands, who had members of his family perish during the Holocaust, befriended Niklas Frank and Horst von Wachter, whose fathers were Nazi governors and close advisers to Hitler. Frank's father, Hans Frank, was eventually tried and executed at Nuremberg, while Otto von Wachter managed to escape that fate.
The two sons deal with their father's legacy in opposite ways: Frank harshly criticizes his father, while von Wachter makes excuses and insists his father tried to change things from within. All three men, including Sands, are connected through the tragic fates of Sands' family and the actions of Frank and von Wachter's fathers, which turn out to be directly related. This film viscerally demonstrates that history is not a function of a distant past, but a very present force that must be continually reckoned with and confronted.
SUNRISE (Partho Sen-Gupta)
This riveting, psychological thriller/police procedural has an ironic title, given that the film takes place almost entirely at night, full of noirish shadows. We follow Inspector Joshi (Adil Hussain), investigating a child kidnapping ring, and haunted by the disappearance of his own daughter years earlier. He must also contend with the psychological damage of his wife (Tannishtha Chatterjee) as a result of this tragedy.
The film freely drifts between reality and the dreams and fantasies of its protagonist, often deliberately confusing them. It's also set against the backdrop of the all-too-real epidemic in India of child kidnapping and trafficking, which affects tens of thousands of children every year. Sunrise marks the emergence of a major talent with a masterful grasp of cinematic style.
PRESCRIPTION THUGS (Chris Bell)
Chris Bell follows up his 2008 documentary Bigger Stronger Faster, which examined steroid abuse, with this latest film, which looks at America's collective addiction to prescription drugs. A statistic early in the film states that the U.S. IS 5 percent of the world's population but consumes 75 percent of the world's prescription drugs. Through interviews, archival footage, and interviews with a number of people, including revealing his very personal connection to this subject, Bell vividly illuminates how Big Pharma, through advertising, and powerful government lobbying, and other tactics, has successfully become the world's largest legal drug dealers.