Category Archives: Up the Workers

SIFF 2014: Bad Hair **1/2

September 20, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Hullabaloo on May 17, 2014)

This naturalistic drama from Venezuelan writer-director Mariana Rondon concerns a 9 year-old named Junior (Samuel Lange Zambrano) who lives in the rough-and-tumble tower blocks of Caracas with his mother Marta (Samantha Castillo) and baby brother. Impoverished and recently widowed, Marta scrapes out a meager living cleaning rich people’s homes. She desperately wants her old job back as a security guard, but her sleazebag ex-supervisor will help her get reinstated only if she agrees to sleep with him. Adding to her stress, Junior is becoming obsessed with his hair; he wants it straightened, to emulate his favorite pop singer. Most worrisome to Marta, he’s showing an “unmanly” interest in singing and dancing. The increasing tension between mother and son is about to boil over. Using equal parts character study and kitchen sink drama, Rondon metes out subtle social commentary about slum life, class struggle and machismo in Latin culture.

Big Money, Drama, Family Issues, Up the Workers

Crimes and misdemeanors: Elena ***

September 1, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on July 14, 2012)

Life is sustained by the grinding opposition of moral entities.

-Anthony Burgess

It quickly becomes apparent in the opening scenes of Russian director Andrei Zvyagintsev’s Elena that you are settling in to watch a film wherein nothing is going to quickly become apparent.

He holds a static shot of a tree bathed in the cool light of dawn for what must be at least three minutes. Aside from the cackling of crows, there doesn’t seem to be anything of particular significance going on.

Wait a minute…is that a window, beyond the branches? It is, in fact, a balcony window, but we can’t quite see in; the glass only reflects the burgeoning sunrise. And (crows aside) it’s quiet…too quiet. This gives the viewer ample time to ponder: What’s going on behind that window? Are those crows an omen?

Interior shots reveal a decidedly less sinister scenario; a well-appointed luxury apartment, where a plain, unassuming middle-aged woman shuts off her alarm and gets out of bed. Again, the director takes his time, documenting the minutiae of her morning ablutions. Just when we are about to assume she lives alone, she enters a different bedroom, drawing the curtains open to awaken a gentleman who is a number of years her senior. There is minimal verbal exchange.

As she diligently begins to prepare breakfast, new questions arise. Is she his live-in housekeeper? Or maybe a caregiver for an elderly relative? While arguably a bit of both, turns out she’s technically neither. Despite their undemonstrative behavior, they are married. Vladmir (Andrey Smirnov) is an aloof, well-do-do patrician, and Elena (Nadezhda Markina), a retired nurse, hails from a working class background.

Mundane breakfast chat reveals that Vladmir and Elena each have an adult child from previous marriages. Vladmir has a daughter, with who he is rarely in contact with. According to him, she is a self-centered “hedonist”, who “takes after her mother”. Still, he spoils her; sending her money to support her party girl lifestyle.

Much to Vladmir’s chagrin, Elena is off after breakfast to visit her son Sergei (Aleksey Rosen). Sergei, who is unemployed, relies on the money Elena funnels him from her monthly pension check to support himself, his wife, infant and teenage son.

Vladmir, despite his wealth, refuses to give Elena’s son financial support; to him, Sergei is a useless lay about who needs to “get his ass off the couch” and provide for his family. Elena, who has heard this tirade before, absorbs it all with quiet resignation.

Then, she’s off on a long slog via bus, train and shoe leather express to just beyond the outskirts of urban renewal, where Sergei and his family live in a drab, rundown beehive apartment complex (which, with its twitchy youth gang skulking about the stoop and trashed, graffiti-scrawled lobby, is reminiscent of the building where Alex and his droogs held their confabs in A Clockwork Orange).

The stark contrast in living quarters, along with Vladmir and Elena’s disparate social backgrounds are metaphors for the central themes of Zvyagintsev’s screenplay (co-written by Oleg Negin): the chasm between the haves and the have-nots, and instinct vs. morality (echoes of Kurosawa’s High and Low).

All the poisons that lurk in the mud hatch out when Vladmir suffers a sudden heart attack. He is visited in the hospital by his estranged daughter (Elena Lyadova, in a standout turn). Despite her nihilist stance regarding Vladmir’s situation, father and daughter unexpectedly reconcile, inspiring Vladmir to make changes in his will.

This decision leads another character to make a moral choice that profoundly changes the family’s dynamics. When this decision occurs, it is so subtle and reflexive that you might miss it; but such is the banality of evil.

Zvyagintsev has served up a complexly flavored filet of dark Russian soul, spiced with a hint of Dostoyevsky, a sprig of Burgess and a dash of Hitchcock. You could describe his film as a “noir-ish thriller”, but not in the traditional sense.

For one thing, there are no suspenseful musical cues. In fact, save for a solitary Philip Glass piece that makes several brief appearances on the soundtrack, there’s no music to speak of (thankfully, the director is astute enough to realize that a little bit of Philip Glass goes a long, long way).

The deliberate pacing could be a deal-breaker for some; I’ll admit I found myself struggling a bit through the first hour or so. But if you are patient, you will come to realize that there is a Kubrickian precision to the construct. And you will finally grok what’s going on behind that window…it’s a primordial dance as old and familiar as human nature itself.

Biopic, On Politics, Up the Workers

Run Lula, Run: Lula, Son of Brazil **1/2

August 13, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on March 10, 2012)

Let’s dispense with this right off the bat: Lula, the Son of Brazil is an unabashed hagiography. Then again, it’s not like co-directors Fabio Barreto and Marcelo Santiago are trying to pretend like their glowing biopic is intended to be interpreted as anything but (especially when you have a tagline like “The story of Brazil’s most beloved president!”). It’s also touted as the highest budgeted Brazilian film production to date, at 5 million dollars (isn’t that like, the catering bill for your typical bloated Hollywood epic these days?). Still, it is hard to find fault with a film about a person whom it is hard to find fault with (yes, I know…no one is beyond reproach).

Indeed, Luis Inacio Lula da Silva’s life journey from dirt-poor shoeshine boy to benevolent world leader (he served as president from 2003-2010) seems tailor-made for the screen, with the major players in his life plucked straight out of Central Casting (sometimes, all you have to do is tell the truth, and no one will believe you). I suspect that Fernando Bonassi, Denise Parana and Daniel Tendler’s screenplay (based on Parana’s book) practically wrote itself. You have the Strong Saintly Mother (Gloria Pires), the Drunken Abusive Father (Milhem Cortaz), and the Childhood Sweetheart (Clio Pires, pulling double duty as The Young Wife Who Dies Tragically).

The film begins in Lula’s birth year, 1945. Lula, his mother Lindu and six siblings are left to fend for themselves after Aristides, his father, leaves (abandons?) the hard-scrabbling farm family to find work in the city. The family reunites when Lula (Felipe Falanga) is seven, after Aristides instructs Lindu to sell the house and land and move to the city (the meager proceeds are just enough to pay for their transportation). The boys are immediately put to work; an enterprising Lula shines shoes and sells flowers on the street.

Lindu secretly enrolls him in school; when Aristides (an illiterate who values work over education) finds out, he is apoplectic. Lindu stands her ground, keeping Lula in school. His teacher, sensing a high aptitude in the youngster empathetic to his poverty, makes an offer to adopt him. The proud Lindu refuses, opting to give all her children a chance at a better life by breaking free from the oppressive Aristides’ toxic orbit for good (you’ll feel like cheering). She gathers up the kids and moves to Sao Paulo, where they fare much better.

We watch Lula (played as an adult by Rui Ricardo Diaz) come of age; he graduates from a technical school, gets a factory job, loses a finger in a lathe mishap, and marries his childhood sweetheart. His first marriage ends tragically, after which he begins (at the encouragement of his brother and to the chagrin of his mother) to gravitate toward leftist politics. And we all know what that inevitably leads to…Lula becomes a (wait for it)…labor activist!

By the time he becomes a union official in the late 70s, he finds himself at loggerheads with the military-controlled government of the time. After officials identify him as one of the prime movers behind a series of major work strikes, he is arrested and jailed. After prison, the increasingly politicized Lula helps create Brazil’s progressive Worker’s Party in the early 80s, and then…and then…the film ends.

Ay, there’s the rub, and the main reason why political junkies may find this slick, well-acted production inspiring on one hand, yet curiously unsatisfying on the other. The intriguing end crawl, highlighting milestones in Lula’s subsequent climb to the top suggests that the filmmakers may have picked the wrong half of his career to cover. I found myself wondering “what happened next?!”, and asking questions like: What did he do to earn declaration as Brazil’s most beloved president, with an approval rating of 80.5% during the final months of his tenure? What inspired President Obama to greet him at the G20 summit with “That’s my man right there…love this guy…the most popular politician on Earth”?

Don’t get me wrong, because I do loves me a stirring, old-fashioned leftist polemic as much as the next progressive pinko; I was righteously “stirred”, and had a lump in my throat many times…but something was lacking. By the time the credits rolled, I didn’t feel I had insight as to what made Lula tick. What did make Lula run? Then again…the answer may lie in the three simple words that Lindu imparts to her beloved son, from her deathbed: “Never give up.”

Big Money, Family Issues, Thriller, Up the Workers

Sonatas for the servile class: The Housemaid **1/2

August 2, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on February 12, 2011)

So-are you searching for that perfect date movie? Korean director Im Sang-soo’s The Housemaid would not be my first pick (unless your idea of a “perfect date movie” is, say, Angels and Insects, or maybe Crimes and Misdemeanors). However, if you are in the mood for a stylish mélange of psycho-sexual melodrama, psychological thriller, Greek tragedy and class warfare allegory, this could be your ticket.

An unassuming, angel-faced young divorcee named Eun-yi (Jeon Do-yeon), who lives in a dingy, low-rent apartment where she shares a bed with her mother, is offered a position as a housekeeper/nanny for a wealthy couple (expectant with twins) with a five-year-old daughter. Eun-yi eagerly accepts the job, exuding an almost child-like wonderment at her new employers’ palatial digs.

Indeed, this family seems to “have it all”. The husband, Hoon (Lee Jung-Jae) is impossibly handsome. Although it is never made clear as to what he does for a living (he leaves the house every day via limo, surrounded by an entourage-but that’s all we know), he definitely carries himself with that self-assured air of a Master of the Universe who is used to always getting what he wants, when he wants it.

His wife Haera (Seo Woo), is young, beautiful, and has “high-maintenance trophy” written all over her. Every night after work, Hoon cracks open a vintage bottle from his wine cellar, and after sitting down to an opulent meal with wife and child, retires to his music room to play classical sonatas (note-perfectly, of course) on a concert grand piano. Now, I can guess what you’re thinking right now-likely the same thing I was thinking: “Oh…that is so much like my life.” But, as a great lady once said (to quote Queen Eleanor, from The Lion in Winter) “What family doesn’t have its ups and downs?”

There’s one member of the household who knows about all the “downs”. She is the long-time, long suffering elder housekeeper, Byung-sik (Yun-Yeo-Jong) who is giving Eun-yi the crash-course on the family’s quirks. Outspoken and wryly cynical whenever out of the family’s earshot, Byung-sik is like the career master sergeant who knows when to salute and how much to defer-just enough to make the captain think he’s the one actually running the company.

In the meantime, Haera and Hoon, while accepting of their new employee, essentially abandon her to Byung-sik’s tutelage and set about ignoring Eun-yi’s presence with that casual, chilly aloofness the filthy rich reserve for the help. Their daughter Nami (Ahn seo-hyeon), on the other hand, reaches out to the new nanny, reciprocated in kind by a delighted Eun-yi (although we are not sure whether this bond can be attributed to the non-judgmental mind of the five year old, or to the innocence of the childlike young woman).

Things appear to be going swimmingly, until late one sultry evening-when Eun-yi is startled awake by master Hoon looming over her bed, sporting that frisky “Speedos and open silk robe” look whilst coddling an open bottle of vintage (and two glasses). One thing leads to another, and…you can guess the rest. Surprise surprise, Hoon is yet another creepy, arrogant rich prick with an overdeveloped sense of sexual entitlement-but we also learn Eun-yi may not be as “innocent” as we initially thought. And once the family viper slithers into the pit-the Mother-in-Law (a scenery-chewing Park Ji-young), all the poisons that lurk in the mud hatch out.

Gosh, one might assume from watching this film that the rich and powerful are generally concerned with little else in this life than remaining so, ever vigilant to decisively quash any threat of exposure or usurpation, no matter who or what gets hosed in the process. Then again-perhaps I’m projecting my own world view as to where the root cause of all sociopolitical evil lies…sometimes a psychological thriller is just a psychological thriller.

At any rate, writer-director Sang-soo (who based his screenplay on the eponymous 1960 Korean thriller, swapping the personalities of several principal characters) has fashioned an involving (if a little slow on the boil) entertainment. The Grand Guignol in the film’s climactic scene, capped by an enigmatic fade-out may prove a dream for some, a nightmare for others. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Culture Clash, Dramedy, Social Satire, Up the Workers

The discreet charm of the bourgeoisie: The Women on the 6th Floor ***

July 30, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on December 3, 2011)

If there is one thing I’ve learned from the movies (at least ever since Alan Bates said “Zorba, teach me to dance” to Anthony Quinn) it’s that the Noble Peasant has much wisdom to impart to the Uptight Bourgeoisie (particularly when it comes to learning the sirtaki).

The latest example is a French import (set in 1960s Paris) called The Women on the 6^th Floor, an “upstairs/downstairs” social satire from director Phillipe Le Guay. In this case, the servile class occupies the uppermost floor of an apartment building owned by a staid middle-aged stockbroker named Jean-Louis (Fabrice Luchini). Jean-Louis, who inherited the property from his father, lives in a swanky downstairs apartment with his neurotic wife (Sandrine Kiberlane) and two spoiled teenage sons. After the family’s cranky long-time maid quits in a huff, he hires lovely Maria (Natalia Verbeke), who takes a room on the 6^th floor, where she joins a small group of fellow female Spanish émigrés.

It’s obvious from the get-go that Jean-Louis is quite charmed by the young Maria, who invites him upstairs to meet her friends. Although he has lived in the building since infancy, Jean-Louis has somehow never managed to venture up the 6^th floor. At least, that’s the only possible explanation for his “shock” when he discovers the relatively dismal living conditions endured by the nonetheless high-spirited coterie of Spanish maids who live in the servant’s quarters.

Well, mostly high-spirited. One maid gives him a cooler reception. “Oh, don’t mind her,” another one of the women cheerfully offers, “she’s a Communist” (with a heart of gold). At any rate, Jean-Louis is seized by a sudden urge to make amends for the disparity (yes, that fast) and, spurred by his newly found sense of altruism, begins making some capital improvements to the 6^th floor. Now that his armor has been breached, it’s only a matter of time until he’s hanging out with the gals, laughing, breaking out the good vintage from his cellar, and discovering the savory delights of authentic homemade paella. You know-he’s leaning how to dance the sirtaki.

With a trope this hoary, you’d better have something substantive to back it up with, and luckily, Le Guay offers assured direction and well-coaxed performances from his entire cast. Luchini (a 40-year film veteran) brings just the right amount of warmth, poignancy and self-effacing humor to his portrayal of a man coming to grips with an unexpected winter passion. The film’s secret weapon is Verbeke, a voluptuous Argentine who brings an earthy sensuality to the screen that reminds me of the young Sonia Braga. While this film doesn’t break any ground, it may teach you a few new steps.

Musical, Politics, Romantic Comedy, Up the Workers

Singing! Dancing! Oppression! Hipsters **1/2

July 30, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on December 3, 2011)

If the psychic energies of the average mass of people watching a football game or a musical comedy could be diverted into the rational channels of a freedom movement, they would be invincible. –Wilhelm Reich

Free your mind and your ass will follow. –George Clinton

Here are two things generally not mentioned in the same breath: “Colorful musical romp” and “Khrushchev-era Soviet Union”. But I have to say it…Hipsters is a colorful musical romp set against a backdrop of the Khrushchev-era Soviet Union. Lightly allegorical and doggedly retro, Valeriy Todorovski’s film is a mashup of Absolute Beginners and Pleasantville, with echoes of West Side Story, Grease and The Wall.

It’s 1955, and life is a bit on the gray side for 20-something Muscovites, especially within the ranks of the Young Communist League, whose idea of a good time is ruining everyone else’s. This is how we meet League member/star athlete Mels (Anton Shagin) and his (sort of) girlfriend Katya (Evgeniya Brik), who is the commissar of his particular auxiliary.

Lovely but priggish Katya is leading a patrol of saturnine League members, who are on the hunt for stilyagi (“hipsters”) who might be having a night out (god forbid) enjoying themselves. Their quarry will not be tough to spot; with their pompadours and peacock threads, they stand out from the drab, state-mandated conformity that surrounds them. Katya and her gang soon detect the telltale sound of forbidden American jazz, zeroing them in on their prey. Armed with scissors, they proceed to unceremoniously cut up their coiffed hair and flashy clothing.

It turns out that Mels may be conflicted; while giving chase to several hipsters, he is stopped in his tracks after he is smitten by one of them (Oksana Akinshina), a fetching blonde named Polza (you half expect Mels to break into “Maria”). Maybe this whole stilyagi scene ain’t so bad after all, he figures, and lets Polza go with a promise that he won’t narc her out. The free-spirited Polza reciprocates with an implication that if he gets hip, he might get lucky.

Well, you know how easy guys are. Cue the inevitable montage, wherein Mels enlists one of the hipster dudes to give him all the requisite grooming, fashion and dancing tips. His transformation complete, Mels sets off to win Polza’s heart. It’s a wafer-thin plot, but I can’t think of too many genre entries that allow obstacles like narrative to get in the way of the song and dance (at 125 minutes, there’s plenty of both).

If you love the song and dance, you’re sure to get a kick out of the energetic performances, over-the-top set pieces and eye-popping costumes. I found the song lyrics to be nonsensical at times; perhaps something literally got lost in the translation. Although the overall tone is fluffy, Todorovski saves room for political commentary (lines like “a saxophone is considered a concealed weapon” may elicit chuckles, but hold ominous undercurrents). I sense the film has deeper subtext in this regard (more attuned to, let’s say, Russian audiences?). Still, its prevalent theme, exalting self-expression and righteous defiance in the face of oppression whenever possible, is hard to miss. And, in light of the OWS movement (and our own ongoing culture wars) it’s a timely one as well.

Big Money, Documentary, On Politics, Up the Workers

The (toxic) loan arranger rides again: Inside Job ***1/2

July 16, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on November 6, 2010)

Rising up to break this thing

From family trees the dukes do swing

Just one blow to scratch the itch

The law’s made for and by the rich

–Paul Weller

I have good news and bad news about the documentary, Inside Job, Charles Ferguson’s incisive parsing of what led to the crash of the global financial system in 2008. The good news is that I believe I finally grok what “derivatives” and “toxic loans” are. The bad news is…that doesn’t make me feel any better about how fucked we are.

To their credit, writers Chad Beck and Adam Bolt don’t stoop to hyperbole (pandering to those steadily depressing, low down mind-messing, workin’ at the car wash blues that we’re already feeling as a result of this economic nightmare) but step back to give some actual historical perspective. The filmmakers start at the very beginning-all the way back to where the seeds were sown-during the spate of rampant financial deregulation during the Reagan administration (aka, “morning in America”-remember that?).

No POTUS (including Obama) who has led the country post-Reagan is let off the hook, either. The film illustrates, point by painful point, how every subsequent administration, Democratic and Republican alike, did their “part” in enabling the current crisis-mostly through political cronyism and legislative manipulation. The result of this decades long circle jerk involving Wall Street, the mortgage industry, Congress, the White House and lobbyists (with Ivy League professors as pivot men) is what we are now living with today.

The film is very slickly produced; it’s well-paced, nicely edited and Matt Damon’s even-toned narration helps to keep the somewhat byzantine threads of the story accessible. Ferguson was able to assemble a fascinating cross-section of talking heads, including financial insiders, economists, politicians, academics…and even a Wall Street madam (who comes off, relative to the kinds of people she provides services for, as one of the more virtuous and forthright interviewees).

In fact, the overall impression I came away with was that the entire financial system, taken along with its associative ties to lobbyists, legislators, economics professors and corporate-backed MSM lackeys, is nothing less than a glorified prostitution ring-funded by America’s working poor and middle class taxpayers.

This brings me to the film’s one flaw. Ferguson is very good at getting us riled up (there’s plenty here to get pissed about)-but doesn’t necessarily offer solutions (maybe some suggestions on how to fire up grassroots activism?). But I suspect that you already figured that out (that it’s up to “us”). Me? I’m kind of slow on this stuff-that’s probably why I just do movie reviews around these parts.

Documentary, Family Issues, Up the Workers

Salt of the earth: Last Train Home ***

July 3, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on October 23, 2010)

One of the best family melodramas I have seen this year is not fictional, but rather an absorbing, beautifully photographed documentary by Chinese-Canadian filmmaker Lixin Fan called Last Train Home.

The family in the spotlight is the Zhangs: Changhua (dad), Suqin (mom), their 17 year old daughter Qin, and their young son. Changhua and Suqin are two of the 130 million migrant workers who crowd China’s train depots and bus stations every spring in a mass, lemming-like frenzy to get back to their rural villages in time for New Year’s holiday. And like many of those workers, these are the few precious days they have per year to see their children, who, due to the fact that their parents lack urban residency status, do not qualify to attend the public schools in the cities where they work.

Changhua and Suqin toil away their days in the city of Guangzhou, working in a factory. Early on in the film, a wordless sequence, wherein we watch the couple performing their evening ablutions before turning in for the night, speaks volumes about the joyless drudgery and quiet desperation of their daily life. They appear to be bunking in a closet-sized cubicle (with only a curtain for privacy) within some kind of communal flophouse (possibly adjacent to, or perhaps part of, their factory building-which is an even more depressing thought). One colorless day blends into the next.

The only break in the monotony comes when the New Year arrives, and the couple attempt to make their way home in time-and I have to say, this is as far from a madcap John Hughes romp starring Steve Martin and John Candy that you can possibly get. After several frustrating setbacks, they eventually find a place on a train (at thrice the usual rates). The scenes at the train stations are surreal and harrowing; the press of so much humanity, crammed into one finite space, and all of one mind (to claim a seat and stash their luggage no matter who gets injured) is mind boggling. Happy New Year.

The real drama, however, unfolds once the bedraggled parents reach their destination. They are greeted by a young son who is much more excited about the toys they have brought than he is in seeing them again (it’s been three years since he’s seen his mother) and a sullen, hostile Qin, who resents their prolonged absences.

The children are much closer to their grandmother, who has been taking care of them while Changhua and Suqin work in the city. When Qin announces that she has decided to quit school and follow in her parents footsteps by finding a job in the city, the shit hits the fan (like parents anywhere else in the world, they live in hope that their kids will achieve more than them).

The director was given an amazing degree of latitude by the family n filming their lives; to the point of feeling almost too close for comfort at times (especially during an intense family row that gets physical). As difficult as some of it is to watch, however, the end result is an engrossing portrait of what happens in a country like China, which has seen so much rapid industrialization and exponential economic growth in such a relatively short period of time that the infrastructure and social policies have fallen light years behind.

And the saddest (and most ironic) part is that the millions of working poor like the Zhangs, who made the country’s new prosperity possible, are in no position to benefit from it. Hold on sec. Maybe we have more in common with China than I thought…

Dystopian, Sci-Fi, Up the Workers

Blu-ray reissue: Metropolis (1927) ****

June 29, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on December 11, 2010)

The Complete Metropolis – Kino Lorber Blu-ray

For film buffs, the news that a “complete” print of Fritz Lang’s visionary expressionist 1927 sci-fi masterpiece had been discovered languishing on a dusty shelf in a film historian’s personal collection in Argentina in 2008 was akin to hearing that the Holy Grail had turned up at a church rummage sale. A box-office flop upon its first run, it was famously butchered for time by its original U.S. distributor, and censored for content by German authorities. Happily for fans, the film is now likely as close as it is ever going to get to its original presentation as intended by Lang.

Kino has one-upped their previous “definitive” DVD version with this new Blu-ray transfer of the Murnau Foundation’s latest re-tweaking, which now shores up previously choppy scenes by incorporating 20+ minutes of the Argentine footage. A recently discovered copy of the censor’s notes (containing all of the original inter-titles) was an equally valuable tool for the restoration team (especially for syncing up the original music score, which has been beautifully re-recorded). This all adds up to a new total running time of 147 minutes (compared to the tacky 90-minute Georgio Moroder-scored version that floated around for years, this is a godsend).

There is one caveat you should be aware of. The recovered Argentine footage was a 16mm copy of a tattered 35mm print. They cleaned it up as best they could without compromising image; be warned that these new inserts are relatively “gauzy”, albeit essential. Still, this (nearly) complete version, with its absorbing companion documentary, makes it a worthwhile investment for collectors.

Comedy, Corporate Intrigue, Horror, Up the Workers

SIFF 2010: Miss Nobody *1/2

June 27, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on June 12, 2010)

“Black comedy” is a fickle art form. Too dark-nobody laughs. Too “ha-ha” funny, and it’s just comedy. One thing that does not work for black comedy is “cute”-although it can provide a touch of irony, if the doses are carefully measured (see John Waters). Miss Nobody, which premiered at SIFF this week, is just too cute for its own purposes.

Leslie Bibb stars as mousy (but cute) secretary Sarah Jane, a “nobody” in the food chain at a large pharmaceutical company. At the urging of her workplace confidante (Missi Pyle) she applies for an open junior executive position. Much to her surprise, she gets the job-only to have it snatched from her by a weaselly, Machiavellian corporate climber (Brandon Routh) who offers her a job as his executive assistant with transparent pseudo-sincerity. Sarah Jane swallows her humiliation and disappointment and takes the offer anyway. Her mother (Kathy Baker) sees a silver lining, urging her to go ahead and dig for the gold. WTF, Sarah Jane figures, if she can hook up with her new boss, she can at least become “Mrs.” Machiavellian corporate climber (besides-he’s, you know, so cute).

Her “plan B” however is dashed when, in the midst of putting the moves on her in his apartment late one night, her boss lets it slip that he already has a fiancee. While physically struggling to put the kibosh on his advances, Sarah Jane inadvertently causes his death by freak accident. She is still in shock the next day at work, fully expecting to be “found out”. She receives an even bigger shock when she is called into the chief executive’s office, not to be turned over to the authorities, but to be congratulated on her promotion-to her late boss’ position. The gears in her brain click, and a more sinister “plan B” for climbing the ladder emerges. What a kooky setup!

It’s been a while since I sat so stone-faced through a “comedy”. I could sense that director Tim Cox and writer Doug Steinberg were going for a Serial Mom vibe, but their film plays more like a glorified episode of Sex in the City, right down to the chirpy narration by the protagonist. Cox’s film has a slick, glossy look, but the flat and predictable story line drags it down. Even the usually dependable Adam Goldberg (or as I like to call him, “Gen Y’s Joey Bishop”) can’t save this one. The film seemed awfully similar to a 1997 indie starring Carol Kane, called Office Killer (which I rather enjoyed). Maybe it’s just bad timing-the employment situation is grim enough these days.