Star City Blog

Two Views from the Iranian Screen: “This is Not a Film” and “A Separation”

by Justin Senkbile

With talks of an Israeli attack on Iran filling newspapers in recent months, not to mention the continued human rights abuses of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's regime and the ever-present nuclear paranoia, what better time could there be to take a look at Iran for ourselves? And what better way to do that than to see their films? Fortunately for us, two of the most talked-about Iranian movies of 2011 open this week at the Ross: Jafar Pahani's “This is Not a Film” and Asgar Farhadi's “A Separation”.

Many Iranian directors have found their working situations greatly changed since Ahmadinejad came to power in 2005. Among the high-profile ones, Mohsen Makhmalbaf has been living in self-imposed exile since '05, and last year Abbas Kiarostami made his first film entirely produced and shot outside his home country (“Certified Copy”). Jafar Panahi's story is a bit different.

In December of 2010, Panahi was given a six-year prison sentence and a 20-year ban on writing screenplays, directing movies, leaving the country or giving any domestic or foreign interviews. According to the Ministry of Culture, Panahi was thought to be making a film about the widely disputed 2009 presidential election, and was thus considered a subversive element.

“This is Not a Film” finds him at home after being released on bail, attempting to stay productive after months of being unable to work, and awaiting the results of his appeal. One afternoon, he invites over documentarian Mojtaba Mirtahmasb. With an iPhone and a slightly more professional video camera, they attempt to make something out of Panahi's last un-produced script.

Which doesn't exactly work out. He starts out by reading the script and describing the scenes but, “if we could tell a film, why make a film?”, he ends up wondering. What the small cameras are able to catch is far more revealing than his script. This is a film about a restlessly creative man who's legally forbidden from being publicly creative, and the well-worn world he resides in (the film takes place entirely in his apartment building).

Throughout the film, Panahi himself seems most skeptical that this footage they're collecting could ever be cobbled into something resembling a “film”. But “This is Not a Film” is a film... I think. At the very least it isn't an ordinary film. It's a daring, funny, dazzling political statement; equal parts video confessional and textured study of a very specific time and place.

“This is Not a Film” was smuggled into the 2011 Cannes festival on a USB drive hidden inside a cake. But even that amazingly dramatic move isn't the end of the story. Mirtahmasb (along with several other documentarians) was arrested in September of 2011, en-route to the film's Toronto premiere. And in October, a Tehran appeals court upheld Panahi's sentence.

With that in mind, the first striking thing about Asgar Farhadi's “A Separation”, which won the Best Foreign Film Oscar this past Sunday, is how far it takes us into Iran's chaotic legal world. The film opens with a bit of virtuosic acting, a simple shot where Simin (Leila Hatami) lays out her argument for divorce while her husband Nader (Peyman Moadi) offers his stubborn half-objections.

They decide to split up instead. Which precipitates the need for Nadir to hire a maid (Sareh Bayat as Razieh) to look after his ailing father. So begins the snowball effect of confusion: neglect leads to violence, which leads to injury and police reports. Insults and exaggerations are hurled in the court hearings while the real facts of the matter are divulged privately, and kept hidden by vows and family ties.

The power of the performances in that first scene actually keeps up for the entire two hours. And much of that time is spent in similarly cramped judge's offices, or in the couple's apartment in the heat of an argument. Both of these films offer their own extremely precise sense of daily life in the heart of Tehran. But in “A Separation”, through simple observation, we also learn the ways in which family, religion, law and human nature frequently intersect but rarely see eye-to-eye.

“A Separation” actually came pretty close to censorship too. For a time in 2010, Farhadi was banned from making it after comments he made in support of Makhmalbaf and Panahi. The ban was later lifted, and now “A Separation” scoops up Iranian festival awards and gets showered with praise by hometown critics. And more importantly, it actually gets screened for Iranian audiences in Iranian cinemas, something “This is Not a Film” won't be able to do for the foreseeable future.

“This is Not a Film” is playing through March 8^th and “A Separation” is playing through March 15^th at the Mary Riepma Ross Media Arts Center, 13^th and R streets.

 

A Negative Prognosis, A “Declaration of War”

by Justin Senkbile

How's this for a knot of art, life and imitation: not only did Valérie Donzelli direct, co-write and co-star in “Declaration of War”, but the film is based on her actual experiences with Jérémie Elkaïm... who also co-wrote and co-starred. This kind of work/life fusion is dangerous territory to be sure, but Donzelli not only seems to have come out of it with her sanity in tact (presumably), she's made quite an amazing film.

In “Declaration of War”, Donzelli plays Juliette and Elkaïm plays Romeo (the name joke isn't lost on them). They're a pair of young lovers who suddenly find themselves to be young parents. But not just that – they're the young parents of a child with a brain tumor. After a grueling series of tests and panicked drives to the train station, their son Adam's cancer (played at different ages by César Desseix, Gabriel Elkaïm and Henri Hooreman), is revealed to be of a rare and particularly aggressive variety.

Which leads to further manic behavior on the part of Juliette and Romeo, to the point that they sell their apartment, and gradually lose contact with friends and family. Adam, still not yet at speaking age, seems brave enough to trudge along, and his parents are determined to trudge right along with him.

With a synopsis like that, you might be surprised to learn what a joyful, hopeful movie this is. More accurately, it's a whirlwind of disparate feelings, which Donzelli orchestrates expertly (both as director and star) with a weight and precision her compatriot and stylistic forefather François Truffaut would be proud of. In fact, with its confident blend of youthful exuberance, savagely matured perspective and off-the-rails approach to film craft, “Declaration” feels like a close cousin to Truffaut's much-loved Antoine Doinel films.

Packed with quick cuts, music, a pinch of narration, and even an eccentric moment where the actors break gently into song, it's the film's style that hooks on and lingers longest in the memory. But, moment to moment, Donzelli and Elkaïm's vulnerable performances, their inarguable chemistry and their amazingly dense script are what leave you feeling melancholy and uplifted; elated and exhausted.

“Declaration of War” is playing at the Mary Riepma Ross Media Arts Center, 13th and R streets, through March 1st

 

“Once Upon a Time in Anatolia”, Deep in the Turkish Countryside

by Justin Senkbile

“Once Upon a Time in Anatolia”, the new film from Turkish photographer turned filmmaker Nuri Bilge Ceylan, is a thrilling film about police and procedure – as opposed to a thrilling police procedural. As if it were even possible to confuse this movie - a thick, moody study in time and texture - with the likes of “The French Connection”.

The first half, once you realize where it's going, plays out with Sisyphean absurdity. A small caravan travels the hilly backroads at dusk. Periodically the three vehicles stop, a small group gets out, goes looking around, and eventually returns to their cars. They drive on and repeat.

They're looking for a body, we eventually learn, but as we're figuring that out, we're getting to know the principal figures in the group. The first one to stand out is Naci (Yilmaz Erdogan), the police officer who seems most distressed by the evening's events, or lack thereof. He's carting around a handcuffed man, Kenan (Firat Tanis), the apparent killer, who may or may not be leading these men on a wild goose chase as he navigates them to his victim's grave.

As Naci and Kenan shuffle in the dark, leading one another, we also spy two other figures hanging around. Nusret (Taner Birsel), the state-appointed prosecutor in the case, commands far more respect than Naci (in fact, he's referred to simply as Mr. Prosecutor for most of the picture), and is losing his patience with the loose-nerved cop. Dr. Cemal (Muhammet Uzuner) waits quietly and patiently as well, for the role he has to play as medical examiner once the body is discovered. Rounding out the bunch are a few military guards, a couple additional cops and a pair of hired grave diggers.

It's all a loose framework on which Cyelan drapes layer upon layer of texture and mood. Dusk eventually turns to night, and a storm slowly follows them along the countryside, though it miraculously never reaches them until their work is done. At the home of a provincial politician, as the group takes an evening break, we simply observe: the host tries to talk policy with “Mr. Prosecutor”, for example, and the prosecutor, eating voraciously, does his best to politely shrug him off.

Ceylan's band of searchers is organized like a social cross-section, with its day-laborers hired to dig, its middle class cops and the somewhat better-off lawyer and doctor all crammed together. What arises from these similarities and differences is most certainly what makes the film so funny, but its only half of what constitutes the richness of the experience. The other half can be described much more simply: there have been several very good looking movies in recent memory, but the photography in “Anatolia” is jaw-dropping.

“Once Upon a Time in Anatolia” is playing at the Mary Riepma Ross Media Arts Center, 13^th and R streets, through March 1^st.

The Trials of a “Tomboy”

by Justin Senkbile

“Tomboy” is the second film from French director Celine Sciamma, and it opens at The Ross as Glenn Close's gender-bending performance in “Albert Nobbs” continues for another week. Which is interesting because both films deal explicitly with people who, for entirely different reasons, maintain precarious secret identities. More specifically, both of these movies are about women pretending to be men.

But “Tomboy” fells like a sort of antidote to the polished charms of “Albert Nobbs”. This is a beautiful, charming film, but with a healthy amount of jagged edges. And part of what makes it hit in such a visceral way probably has a lot to do with the fact that instead of Glenn Close's aging butler Nobbs, “Tomboy” has an arguably more confused heroine in its ten-year-old Laure (Zoé Héran)

With her short, spiked hair, sharp features and penchant for baggy shorts and tank tops, it's not surprising that the kids in the neighborhood know her better as the new boy in town, Mikael. In fact, she's so completely convincing as a rough-and-tumble little boy that we're not even informed of her true gender until about a third of the way through (if the title of the movie hadn't already tipped you off, that is).

When Laure isn't at the family's new apartment, passing the time with little sister Jeanne (Malonn Lévana), she's out with the neighborhood kids as Mikael. A girl named Lisa (Jeanne Disson) takes a liking to this scrawny, athletic boy, and the rest of the gang seems all too happy to have him on their soccer team. Laure does her best to maintain the misunderstanding.

Sciamma wisely eschews waxing psychologically with this kid. We're never drug through any speculations on why Laure wants to be a boy, or what her budding relationship with Lisa is. Her family life (which includes mom and dad, played by Sophie Cattani and Mathieu Demy) is, if not totally stable, warm and supportive enough. But even if it wasn't, could the sort of situation Laure finds herself in ever be fairly explained in adult terms?

As the distance between childhood and adulthood keeps growing, it seems harder and harder to understand the idea of aimless, joyous “playing”. Sciamma, by a combination of the freedom given to the kids and her own patience behind the camera, conjures up this mysterious spirit flawlessly and with such richness that, for this reviewer, it often felt a bit like rediscovering a home movie. We can almost feel these little brains in motion, inventing as they go along, making a whole world out of a few toys, or a completely fulfilled afternoon out of a dozen splashing water bottles.

Throughout “Tomboy”, we spend a lot of time watching these impressive child actors playing, talking and simply being. These are the richest scenes in an already vibrant film.

“Tomboy” is playing at the Mary Riepma Ross Media Arts Center, 13th and R streets, through February 23rd

 

Who is “Albert Nobbs”?

by Justin Senkbile

Stuffed into a rigid suit and moving with immaculate austerity, Albert Nobbs (Glenn Close) works as a waiter at the Morrison Hotel, somewhere near Dublin, Ireland in the 19^th century. Though an essential fixture in the functioning of the household for years, Albert is private to the point of eccentricity, so its only natural that no one would suspect this timid waiter is in fact a woman, wrapped up tightly in a corset.

The center of “Albert Nobbs”, a film directed by Rodrigo Garcia (who made a pretty good movie in 2009 called “Mother and Child”) is Albert's dream: to open a tobacco shop with her hard-earned savings, and find a bride to share it with. The idea comes by way of an encounter with another woman in hiding, a housepainter going by the name of Hubert Page (Janet McTeer). Hubert has managed to find a willing wife who knows about her secret, and has made a comfortable life for herself. But how exactly such a feat was pulled off, Albert isn't entirely sure (“Do I tell her I'm a woman before or after the wedding?”).

So with a clumsy and frequently touching naivete, Albert stumbles along in pursuit of a young maid at the hotel named Helen (Mia Wasikowska) without really knowing how to and, one senses, without really knowing why. For her part, Helen begins accepting the advances only to secure a few new hats and boxes of chocolates. She has her own problems, after all, particularly her fiery boyfriend Joe (Aaron Johnson), and hasn't much interest in her strange, aging co-worker.

“Albert Nobbs” is a textbook Oscar hopeful, with impeccable period costumes, jokes that don't always hit the mark, and even it's own Sinead O'Connor song (“Lay Your Head Down”). And its all built around Close's “prestige” performance in such a way that it can't help but feel calculated. But this is something of a passion project for Close: not only does she star in it, she's credited as a co-writer of the script (along with John Banville and Gabriella Prekop) and of the above mentioned song. And fortunately, her passion wasn't all for naught, because behind the preciousness of it all, there are a smattering of truly touching moments.

Most come by way of Albert's interactions with Hubert, and Close and McTeer's palpable platonic chemistry on screen. For my money, Wasikowska's is the stellar performance here. Her Helen shifts flightily from harmlessly childish to calculatedly cruel, often within the same scene. Brendan Gleeson turns in a notably good supporting performance as Dr. Holloran, a resident at the Morrison.

Most of all, “Albert Nobbs” is a film about identity. “You don't have to be anything but who you are” counsels Hubert. And therein lies Albert's problem. The reason that she has assumed this male identity certainly has a lot to do with the gender politics of her era. But the film focuses instead on the big, broad questions. Who is she? And how is one, male or female, expected to behave outside of the endless duties of the hotel? The tragedy of the film isn't so much the well-handled finale as it is the sense that Albert has begun tackling these questions a bit too late in the game.

“Albert Nobbs” is playing at the Mary Riepma Ross Media Arts Center, 13^th and R streets, through February 23^rd.

 

“Addiction Incorporated” and the Man who Blew the Whistle

by Justin Senkbile

As a smoker who's just recently begun considering kicking the habit, I'll admit I was a little anxious as I approached Charles Evans Jr's documentary, “Addiction Incorporated”. Imagining some kind of traumatic, tobacco-stained version of “Food Inc.” (images of grotesque lungs, interviews with emphysema patients – that sort of thing), I was surprised to find this film is something quite different, though no less troubling.

Not exactly an anti-smoking film, and not really even an expose of big tobacco (though it provides more than enough ammunition for either cause), “Addiction Incorporated” simply and compellingly traces the story of one tobacco company's in-house nicotine research, and the domino-effect it caused over the next twenty-odd years.

Our principal figure is an affable scientist named Victor DeNoble. Hired to run a secret lab within Phillip Morris in the 80's, DeNoble made some earth shaking discoveries about the way nicotine interacts with one of the many other chemicals present in cigarettes. Not only did Phillip Morris keep the research from publication, they used it to further manipulate the chemistry of their products. In short, DeNoble inadvertently showed big tobacco how to make their products more addictive.

He and a few colleagues were sacked shortly thereafter. But journalists caught wind of the story, and after many uphill battles and several dramatic congressional hearings in the mid-nineties, the unbreakable power and influence of big tobacco finally began to wane. DeNoble became known as the first insider to blow the whistle on the tobacco industry. Even if you didn't catch the TV coverage at the time, the story may feel familiar, as this is the one Russel Crowe, Al Pacino and director Michael Mann brilliantly dramatized in 1999's “The Insider”.

“Addiction Incorporated” has an awful lot of animation in the first half, an ingredient added to most non-fiction films these days, and rarely to good effect. Here, some of it works quite well, in the form of graphs and charts that illustrate the concepts DeNoble is describing. But there's quite a lot of needless junk too, which serves only to disrupt the already riveting narrative in progress. It's the second half where we really get into the good stuff, as Evans serves up a wealth of archive footage of the hearings, and features plenty of talking heads, including a former Phillip Morris attorney.

Information on the health hazards of smoking is so ubiquitous these days (thanks in large part to the story detailed here) that it's striking the way “Addiction Incorporated” hardly touches on it at all. DeNoble talks a lot about the science of addiction, and of nicotine in particular, but this ends up being a corporate integrity story, as opposed to a public health one. Smoking is framed here as a moral issue, exactly like the ones that keep you recycling or buying organic produce, for example.

That's right: no graphic photos or detailed health statistics here. “Addiction Incorporated” generates outrage simply by detailing the actions of a few very powerful companies.

“Addiction Incorporated” is playing at the Mary Riepma Ross Media Arts Center, 13^th and R streets, through February 9^th.

 

Oscar Nominated 2012 Short Films Opening at The Ross

Fifteen short films earned Oscar nominations last Tuesday in three shorts categories, each with their own trend toward films from particular countries. The contenders hail from a variety of countries and have varying degrees of experience, from first-time directors to three-time Oscar nominees.

For the seventh consecutive year, Shorts International and Magnolia Pictures present the festival of the Oscar-nominated live-action, animated, and documentary short films, OSCAR NOMINATED SHORT FILMS 2012. These feature-length programs include all of this year's nominated films, as well as several additional titles that were short-listed for this year's awards.

The films will show in more than 200 theaters across the U.S. and Canada—including at The Ross beginning on Friday, February 10—up until the Oscars telecast on Feb. 26 and will be organized into three programs by their Academy category (live action, animated, and documentary).

It’s the second year the documentary shorts have been part of the screening series, which began in 2005. Last year, the initiative took in $1.35 million nationally, breaking records and marking an 800 percent growth in attendance since the series’ first year.

“I love short films,” opined Danny Lee Ladely, Director of the Mary Riepma Ross Media Arts Center.  He continues, “At their best they can be sublimely poetic, enormously entertaining, and they’ve been around since the dawn of cinema.”

OSCAR NOMINATED SHORT FILMS 2012 are showing at the Mary Riepma Ross Media Arts Center on Friday, February 10 through Thursday, February 16. 

Interview with James Crews, 2012 Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Poetry

By Ladd Wendelin

Prairie Schooner, the nationally and internationally-recognized literary journal and publication of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln English Department, will hold the 2012 Book Prize Celebration on Monday and Tuesday, January 30^th and 31^st on the UNL main campus, with readings, dance and visual interpretations of prose and poetry from three of this years honorees. Recipients include Greg Hrbek (Writer-in-Residence, Skidmore College) whose book of short stories won the 2010 Book Prize in Fiction, and Shane Book (filmmaker, New York Times Fellowship in Poetry), whose book of poems won the 2009 Book Prize in Poetry.

Lincoln-resident and award-winning poet James Crews will receive the 2012 Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Poetry. He is also the recipient of the Prairie Schooner Bernice Slote Award for Emerging Writers, and author of What Has Not Yet Left (2009 Copperdome Prize), One Hundred Small Yellow Envelopes, and Bending the Knot (2008 Gertrude Press Chapbook Prize). His new book of poetry is The Book of What Says, published by the University of Nebraska Press, which will be honored at the Book Prize Celebration this week. Mr. Crews answered some questions for Star City Blog readers via e-mail about the craft of poetry, writing it all down, and channeling his inner Buddhist.

SCB: When did you first begin writing poetry?

I love this question. I first began writing poems in the third grade. My teacher, Mrs. Brown, required us to memorize a poem each week and I got the bright idea of writing and memorizing my own poems. She was so encouraging, handing me books by Shel Silverstein and Robert Frost, that I got addicted to the process and (though I've always been shy) reading it to the rest of the class was pure pleasure. I've been writing poetry ever since then.

SCB: Do you remember your first poem? How was it received? 

My first poem, I believe, was "Ode to Summer" and Mrs. Brown loved it. My family also loved the fact that I was writing poems, making greeting cards of my own for everyone's birthday with little rhymes inside. I'm afraid I don't remember any of the text of that first poem, but I'll bet my mother still has it in a box somewhere.

SCB: Who in your career as a poet inspired or encouraged you to continue writing poetry?

I've been surrounded by folks who have encouraged me at every turn, and I feel grateful to all of the teachers and friends who have never told me how ridiculous it is to want to sit at a table and write poetry every day. My first poetry teacher, David Clewell, has been instrumental in my growth as a poet. I thought I wanted to be a fiction writer until I took his class and he reminded me of my first love, helped me to fall in love with language again and get to know what was happening in contemporary literature. He's now the Poet Laureate of Missouri, my home state, and it's a well-deserved post for someone who's been such a champion of young poets.

SCB: In "Paradoxical Undressing", you revisit the 2005 deaths of Janelle Hornickel and Michael Wamsley, who froze to death in rural Sarpy county during a snowstorm after abandoning their vehicle. It was later discovered that the couple was high on crystal meth. Briefly walk us through the composition of this poem. Despite the tragedy of this incident, what tone did you want to achieve in the reader's mind by the end of the poem?

I began this poem during a long, snowy winter in Wisconsin. I remember watching a 20/20report about the death of Janelle and Michael here in Nebraska and listening to the garbled 9/11 calls they had made once they realized they were lost. It was heartbreaking, but the detail that stuck with me was that idea of "paradoxical undressing": once we get cold enough, our body begins to tell us we're hot, burning up even, and we take off all of our clothes. I've always tried to find the silver lining in things and at the time I thought this was such a kindness our bodies do for us even in the midst of extreme pain. The poem finally found its legs, so to speak, when I realized it was all about this couple, that I wanted to capture their last tender moments together. I suppose that trying to describe their love, that last kiss, was my way also of helping the two of them find redemption in this horrible moment, even if only through my imagination. As Wallace Stevens said, "The world imagined is the ultimate good."

SCB: In several poems ("Palamino", "Sex in the Rain"), you allude to not wanting to forget, of capturing the moment, striving against how time can diminish our memory. In "Against Seizing", you write "As these waves illustrate / the endless cycle of give and take, realize that you / no longer trust in seizing each day and do not need a sun's pulse to offer warmth, or to feel it." As a poet, what's the greatest challenge in capturing feeling and emotion? Is language elusive, not enough, or does it do our senses justice at all?  

The greatest challenge is capturing a feeling without being sentimental, using image and narrative to do so; I hope I have succeeded in this. The failure of language is certainly not an original theme among writers since words can never live up to the real thing. But what else do we have, when that moment has passed? We can describe it, tell a story to bring it back. I've always been someone who's abhorred change, and even as I realize it's the nature of everything--time passes and we will pass away--some stubborn part of me wants to hold on for dear life and never let go. "Against Seizing" was born after a day spent observing the tide pools at a beach outside Malibu. Every time a new wave swept in, the tide pools would change completely and of course nature has no choice but to accept this. We are encouraged to "seize the day," but what if we didn't? What if we didn't cling so tightly to our fixed ideas of how things should be and just accepted things as they are, without forcing it? I suppose the Buddhist in me is starting to come out.

SCB: Robert Frost once described poetry as beginning as a "lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, homesickness, lovesickness." Where does poetry begin for you? Where does it originate? 

I love Frost's description, and I would absolutely agree. For me, poetry begins as that lump of wanting to hold onto something, someone. I'd say the homesickness and lovesickness both originate from a place of craving safety and solid ground which none of us will ever have when it comes to love (our partner's always changing) or even home for that matter: Our notions of home shift just as the place changes. More and more, though, my poems begin with a line or two that I just find mystifying or intoxicating and feel a need to follow to its logical conclusion. And then I just chip away and chip away until the poem feels finished and makes sense and has that extra charge of the something-or-other (which can take years to bring about).

SCB: What was the last poem you read by another poet, and what was the one line that stuck out at you? 

I was reading an anthology this morning called The Book of Luminous Things, edited by Czeslaw Milosz, and these lines from Mary Oliver's poem, "Wild Geese" stood out. It's good advice for a poet:

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.

SCB: Compose a haiku. 

It is difficult
to pull silver from the sky
Try being the moon 

 ***

Thank you, James! For more information on The Book of What Says, James Crew, and to read an excerpt, visit http://prairieschooner.unl.edu/?q=book-what-stays

The 2012 Prairie Schooner Book Prize Celebration runs Monday, January 30th and Tuesday, Jan. 31st, 2012. The Celebration is Free and Open to the Public.

Author meet-and-greet/Q&A is Monday, January 30th, from 2-4 p.m. at Dudley Bailey Library, Andrews Hall, UNL Campus. Readings and performances (visual interp, modern dance) begins at 8 p.m., Room 15, Anderson Hall, UNL Campus. 

 

 

 

 

            

 

“A Dangerous Method” to Obtain a Talking Cure

by Justin Senkbile

David Cronenberg's “A Dangerous Method” is a detailed history of the development of Sigmund Freud's “talking cure”, better known today as psychoanalysis. And as such, it ends up being a film about the psychology of psychologists, and the ways in which their own relationships and neuroses formed what would eventually be remembered not just as a touchstone in psychology, but a fundamental part of much of twentieth century thought.

In yet another role that plumbs psychosexual depths (his starring role in “Shame” continues at the Ross for another week), Michael Fassbender here plays newbie analyst and Freud protege Carl Jung. We meet him shortly after a troubled young woman, Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightly), is being admitted into his care. With her, he begins experimenting with Freud's psychoanalytic method.

Freud shows up shortly afterwards, played by frequent Cronenberg collaborator Viggo Mortensen. Already well-established as the father of this brave new method, Freud takes a supportive but strictly authoritarian role in Jung's life. It's Jung's fascinating sessionswith Spielrein that will bring him together with his Austrian father figure. And its his quick burning affair with her that will eventuallyhelp drive the two men apart.

Based on actual events, as documented in letters between these historically heavyweight figures (Spielrein went on to become a noted psychoanalyst as well), “A Dangerous Method” has a very exciting sense of immediacy to it. Especially when we're listening in as Jung and loose-cannon analyst Otto Gross (Vincent Cassel) discuss the moral and psychological implications of an extramarital affair. Or as we eavesdrop while Jung and Freud casually dissect a recent dream, as friends would.

Most of all, we watch as Jung experiments with his work through his life. His relationship with Spielrein seems based on just as much professional curiosity as sexual attraction. Like an insatiable explorer, Jung delights in burrowing deeper into analysis of his own desires and behavior. So what better way to test the mettle of his ideas than having an affair with a madwoman (one played by Keira Knightly, no less)?

That's the sort of thing that's most fascinating here, the way that “A Dangerous Method” so often illustrates theory being fleshed out, filled in and adjusted by experience. That's no short order for an actor, but seems like child's play for Fassbender, a performer capable of communicating enormous complexity with his presence.

Her forceful Russian accent is a bit startling at first, but Knightly gives a full body performance here, spending much of the early scenes writhing and convulsing under the weight of her psychosis. The kind of “bodily horror” we're used to from previous Cronenberg films like “Dead Ringers” and “The Fly” finds a home in this film too, right there in Knightly's startling, contorting face.

As far as intellectual adventure films go, this is about as compelling as they come. And for its performances, its visceral power and its graceful final notes, “A Dangerous Method” emerges as Cronenberg's best film in recent years.

“A Dangerous Method” is playing at the Mary Riepma Ross Media Arts Center, 13^th and R streets, through February 9^th.

 

The “Shame” of Addiction

by Justin Senkbile

Director Steve McQueen's “Shame” is a film with a focus on sex, but it plays out with icy stares and teeming silences instead of rapturous moans and cleverly-lit thrusts. Because, although we see quite a lot of it, this movie isn't about sex at all. And though its central character is undoubtedly an addict, this really isn't about addiction either. It actually took me most of the 101 minute running time to realize what should be obvious: “Shame” is about shame.

Michael Fassbender, who also starred in McQueen's first film, 2008's “Hunger”, plays Brandon, a young-ish professional living a robotic existence in Manhattan. As an archetypal “modern man”, it's only appropriate that he should work in a sterile office and live in a mostly bare, white-walled apartment, as he does. But Brandon is a slave to the pleasures (or, in his case, curses) of the flesh. He hires high-class prostitutes, picks up girls in bars and gorges on any kind of pornography he can get his hands on. But he's never satisfied, and succeeds only in becoming even more distanced, more confused and more self-loathing.

At the beginning, Brandon is set up so perfectly as a creature defined only by his addiction that it's a little jarring to learn he's a person too, which we discover while observing him out with co-workers or simply holding the door open for a neighbor. It's equally disorienting to realize he has a sister, Sissy (Carey Mulligan), who has barged back into his life, in need of a couch to sleep on. Her presence is a burden in his eyes (he even tells her as much), but she's serving a twisted purpose that he may or may not realize: he gets a chance to beat up on someone besides himself for a while.

Detractors of the film point to a few particular elements in their criticism, one of them being the notion that McQueen, with all the clean, empty rooms and ostensibly blank silences that populate the film, is using ambiguity as an end in and of itself; in short, that he has nothing to say, and worse yet, not even a compelling style. It's an appealingly succinct idea, but to accept it only means that you aren't paying attention to Fassbender and, to a lesser extent, Mulligan.

Because it's true: nothing McQueen has done here has any value without his actor. But creating that very situation is a feat only a remarkably skilled director would be able to pull off. At the risk of being reductive with such a powerful performance, I'll put it this way: Fassbender fills in McQueen's gaps. It's his eyes, his clenching jaws and most of all his simple presence that are communicating everything worth receiving here. In one excruciatingly visceral scene, where Sissy sadly sings “New York, New York” in an upscale bar and Brandon watches, it's the faces alone providing volumes of history, feeling and conflict.

In the wake of “Shame”, it's clear how rare such pictures actually are today. We see a lot of money movies that have built themselves around a star, but this is a real movie that builds itself around an actor. Since most of us are hard-wired us to approach challenging films with the director's intentions in mind, a movie like this is particularly tough to grapple with, hence the claims that McQueen is a director with no style and no substance.

All that being said, there is a bone to pick. “Shame” really could've benefitted by showing Brandon's carnal advances getting turned down at least once. In this Manhattan, it seems every female body we encounter is immediately melted under the guy's icy, objectifying stare. Obviously Fassbender is a flawlessly handsome dude, but such an oversight not only deprives us of an even fuller picture of the character (imagine how Fassbender would play such a scene!) but indicate an unsettling concept of women, one that might fall in line with Brandon's urges, but is not likely true to his actual perceptions.

I know we're only a few weeks in, but I don't think we'll see a sadder movie this year. This is certainly among the saddest I've seen. But “Shame” isn't a cruel film, its an illuminating one. Dark, rough and challenging, yes, but also immensely rewarding.

Shame” is playing at the Mary Riepma Ross Media Arts Center, 13^th and R streets, through February 2^nd