Silicon Valley’s own major film festival, Cinequest, is underway. I’ll be linking more festival coverage to my Cinequest 2017 page, including both features and movie recommendations. Follow me on Twitter for the very latest coverage.
On March 6, the 2017 Cinequest will feature The Commune, the latest from Danish director Thomas Vinterburg. So my video pick this week is Vinterburg’s The Hunt, which was the high point of the 2013 Cinequest. The Hunt is available to rent on DVD from Netflix and to stream from Amazon Video, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
In theaters:
La La Land: the extraordinarily vivid romantic musical staring Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling.
Lion: an emotionally affecting family drama that makes the audience weep (in a good way).
Hidden Figures: a true life story from the 1960s space program – a triumph of human spirit and brainpower over sexism and racism; the audience applauded.
Winner of the Best Picture Oscar, the remarkably sensitive and realistic indie drama Moonlightis at once a coming of age tale, an exploration of addicted parenting and a story of gay awakening. It’s almost universally praised, but I thought that the last act petered out.
The Salesman is another searing and authentic psychological family thriller from Iranian writer-director Asghar Farhadi (A Separation, The Past). It won the Best Foreign Language Oscar.
On March 5, Turner Classic Movies presents Babette’s Feast (1987), one of my Best Foodie Movies. Two aged 19th century Danish spinster sisters have taken in a French refugee as their housekeeper. The sisters carry on their father’s severe religious sect, which rejects earthly pleasures. After fourteen years, the housekeeper wins the lottery and, in gratitude, spends all her winnings on the ingredients for a banquet that she prepares for the sisters and their friends. As the dinner builds, the colors of the film become warmer and brighter, reflecting the sheer carnality of the repast. The smugly ascetic and humorless guests become less and less able to resist pleasure of the epicurean delights.The feast’s visual highlights are Caille en Sarcophage avec Sauce Perigourdine (quail in puff pastry shell with foie gras and truffle sauce) and Savarin au Rhum avec des Figues et Fruit Glacée (rum sponge cake with figs and glacéed fruits). This was the first Danish film to win Best Foreign Language Oscar.
On March 6, the 2017 Cinequest will feature The Commune, the latest from Danish director Thomas Vinterburg. So my video pick this week is Vinterburg’s The Hunt, which was the high point of the 2013 Cinequest. Mads Mikkelsen plays a man whose life is ruined by a false claim of child sexual abuse. You’ll recognize Mikkelsen, a big star in Europe, from After the Wedding and the 2006 Casino Royale (he was the villain with the tears of blood). He won the 2012 Cannes Best Actor award for this performance.
The story is terrifyingly plausible. The protagonist, Lucas, is getting his bearings after a job change and a divorce. He lives in a small Danish town where everyone knows everyone else, next door to his best friend. The best friend drinks too much and his wife is a little high-strung, but Lucas embraces them for who they are. He’s a regular guy who hunts and drinks with his buddies and is adored by the kids at the kindergarten where he works. He’s not a saint – his ex-wife can get him to fly off the handle with little effort.
A little girl hears a sexual reference at home that she does not understand (and no one in the story could ever find out how she heard it). When she innocently repeats it at school, the staff is alarmed and starts to investigate. Except for one mistake by the school principal, everyone in the story acts reasonably. One step in the process builds upon another until the town’s parents become so understandably upset that a public hysteria ensues.
Director Thomas Vinterburg had previously created the underappreciated Celebration (Festen).The Hunt is gripping – we’re on the edges of our seats as the investigation snowballs and Lucas is put at risk of losing everything – his reputation, his job, his child, his friends, his liberty and even his life. Can Lucas be cleared, and, if he is, how scarred will he be? The Hunt is a superbly crafted film with a magnificent performance by Mikkelsen.
The Hunt is available to rent on DVD from Netflix and to stream from Amazon Video, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
I’ve already seen over twenty offerings from Cinequest 2016, and here are my initial recommendations.
AUDIENCE-PLEASERS
Andrew Keatley and Jacob Casselden in FOR GRACE
For Grace: a winning British dramedy about an adoptee’s search for his biological family that doesn’t go as expected. First feature for director Sebastian Armesto. North American premiere at Cinequest.
Quality Problems: a remarkably successful indie dramedy that is equally funny and insightful. First feature film for directors Brooke and Doug Purdy. World premiere at Cinequest.
The Twinning Reaction: a startling and moving documentary about a Mad Men-era research project and its profound human impact. World premiere at Cinequest.
THE BEST OF WORLD CINEMA
THE TEACHER
The Teacher: a gripping Iron Curtain Slovak-language drama with a brilliant, award-winning performance from Zuzana Mauréry in the title role. I’ve seen over twenty Cinequest films so far, and this one is probably the best.
Exiled: a gripping and haunting Latvian drama. One of the most emotionally powerful and visually arresting films at this year’s Cinequest. North American premiere.
SOMETHING YOU HAVEN’T SEEN BEFORE
Painless: in this indie thriller about obsession and loneliness, a man cannot experience physical pain – and, in this movie, freedom from pain is a BAD thing. First narrative feature film for director Jordan Horowitz. World premiere at Cinequest.
Prodigy: this indie psychological thriller Prodigy features a potentially lethal game of wits between a psychologist and a superhuman sociopath – who is nine years old. First feature film for directors Alex Haughey and Brian Vidal. World premiere at Cinequest.
Aloys: a Swiss drama where a lonely surveillance expert (think The Conversation) is dared by an unknown woman to use aural clues to visualize himself in places and situations and, ultimately find her. His imagination is unleashed, and he creates fantasies at once both more real and more outlandish. First feature for director Tobias Nölle.
GET OUT THE HANKIES
Memento Mori: this documentary about organ donation must be the most emotionally shattering film at Cinequest. First feature film as solo director for Niobe Thompson. US premiere at Cinequest.
Several Cinequest films already are planned for theatrical release later this year. I haven’t seen them yet, but you can see them first at Cinequest: The Zookeeper’s Wife, The Last Word, Carrie Philby, Tommy’s Honour, The Promise, The Ottoman Lieutenant and (Re)assignment. The Communeand Unaalso have US distributors. I’m especially looking forward to these movies (that I have not yet seen):
The Commune: Director Thomas Vinterberg has directed two of my favorites: Celebration and the 2014 Cinequest triumph The Hunt. This one is about a Danish commune in the 1970s.
(Re)Assignment (soon to be released as The Assignment): From the master of the genre thriller Walter Hill (The Warriors, The Long Riders, Southern Comfort, 48 Hrs.). A vengeful plastic surgeon (Sigourney Weaver) captures a hit man (Michelle Rodriguez) and performs sexual reassignment surgery on him, releasing a new hit woman (also Michelle Rodriguez) into the world.
Take a look at the entire program, the schedule and the passes and tickets. (If you want to support Silicon Valley’s most important cinema event while skipping the lines, the tax-deductible $100 donation for Express Line Access is an awesome deal.)
As usual, I’ll be covering Cinequest rigorously with features and movie recommendations. I usually screen (and write about) over thirty films from around the world. Bookmark my Cinequest 2017 page, with links to all my coverage. Follow me on Twitter for the latest.
The Movie Gourmet asked the folks who pick the movies at Cinequest about this year’s program.
MIKE RABEHL is Cinequest’s Director of Programming/Associate Director.
Is there any remarkable new filmmaking talent with a first or second film (like Lost Solace or The Center) that I should seek out?
Rabehl: Personally, I think there are so many discoveries this year, so it would be hard to pick just a couple, but if I have to give you just a few titles, I think I’d look at:
Aloys
All the Beauty
Exiled
Fixed
For Grace
Quality Problems
The Moderns
Painless
Seat in Shadow
Hunting Flies.
I know that is a few more than a couple, but seriously have a huge list of “favorites” this year.
What are your predictions for the biggest audience pleasers? Something like The Grand Seduction, Wild Tales/Batkid Begins? What might be the festival’s biggest surprise hit?
Rabehl:: I am almost always wrong on this, so if you quote me, I know something else is going to be the big hit, but I think: For Grace or Quality Problems.
Is there anything that we haven’t seen before in a movie?
Rabehl: I won’t say too much about them, but the films that are completely original and like nothing I, personally, have not seen before:
Aloys
Exiled
Menento Mori
Any Can’t Miss movies from the Spotlight films?
Rabehl:
Opening (The Last Word)
Closing (The Zookeeper’s Wife)
Carrie Pilby
Una
The Commune
Goldstone
(Re)Assignment (this one is a button-pusher and going to really stretch minds a bit).
I see that you’ve pulled in your usual haul from Belgium and Norway. Any Must Sees this year from those national film programs or other world cinema?
Rabehl: My personal picks…
King of the Belgians (Belgium)
Hunting Flies (Norway)
All the Beauty (Norway)
Past Imperfect (Belgium)
Flemish Heaven (Belgium)
Anishoara (Germany, Moldova)
The Citizen (Hungary)
The Nurse (Turkey)
Secluded (Denmark)
The Teacher (Slovakia, Czech Republic)
That Trip We Took With Dad (Germany, Romania, Hungary, Sweden)
I must say that this is really just a paired down list, and there are SOOOOO many others I could do in each genre, break it down by experience, etc… So, choosing favorites is not always my thing, because we’re fans of so many of them.
THE TEACHER
CHARLIE COCKEY is Cinequest’s International Film Programmer.
Some of Cinequest’s highlights always come from international cinema – IDA, of course, and THE HUNT, HEAVENLY SHIFT, IN THE SHADOW and the exquisite CORN ISLAND. What should we be looking for at Cinequest 2017?
Cockey: Five URGENTLY recommended, listed alphabetically. Don’t miss ANY of these!!
Aloys– Switzerland – 2016
Magical minimalist film that manages to breathe new life into a tired idiom. Visually riveting, it casts a truly unique spell with straightforward images and brilliant editing to convey its heart. That it is a first film makes it all the more remarkable. If you give yourself over to it I think you’re in for a wonderful experience.
The Citizen – Hungary – 2016
In my opinion, this one is a must. Suffice to say that I gave it a 9.75 rating. The non-professional actors bring a nobility to their characters that gives the film added weight. Really, don’t miss this one.
King of the Belgians – Belgium – 2016
Another wonderful one, another must-see. Plus which, it’s the perfect antidote to the cynicism and disappointment surrounding us these post-election days, a breath of fresh air equally welcome to the festival-goer. During festivals sometimes we NEED some light and freshness. This wonderful film has both in spades.
The Teacher – CR, Slovakia – 2016
Consider this a companion piece to “Identity Card”, the wonderful Czech film from several years back about the teenage boys in 1974. This one is set in the same year, but reveals a much darker aspect. A portrait of a schoolroom Stalin, it is a fine examination of manipulation and corruption whose parallels with Trump are inescapable. This must count as one of Hřebejk’s best films since his Oscar-nominated “Musíme si pomáhat” (the film during which I first met Helena – so of course this film is special for me). Don’t miss it. It’s really fantastic.
That Trip We Took With Dad – Romania, Germany, Hungary, Sweden – 2016
Easily the best Romanian film I saw this year, it has a deftness similar to “Identity Card”, though of course, being Romanian, it’s completely different. A widower-father with a medical condition that needs attention sets out with his two sons head from Bucuresti headed for Germany. But it’s 1968, and just about everything that can go wrong does, including Russia sending tanks into Czechoslovakia, and our hapless family cannot help but fall afoul of just about every bump in the road they encounter. Done in a wonderful understated retro style, by film’s end EVERYONE has changed: grown, learned, gained, lost. A truly wonderful film
Cockey: These are STRONGLY recommended:
Anișoara – Germany, Moldava – 2016
This is the followup to Panihida, which I brought to Cinequest, and which I hope you saw. The same young woman, now some years older, is at the heart of this film as well. Though this one has more overt narrative than Panihida, it’s told in an elliptical, indirect fashion that sometimes seems almost without a story. As before, the sounds, rhythms of the village are at its heart, but here with a darker edge.
The Listen Project: The First Five Years – MULTI – 2016
A gathering of music from around the world, local musicians from all over. What comes across along with the joy of making music – and of hearing it – is how there are so many differences, so many varieties, and yet, underneath, how similar they are at their heart.
Loop – Hungary – 2016
Science fiction with almost no “special effects”, and none needed. See it for its mindbending clockwork aspects as our hero gets caught up in a sort of time loop, that gets pretty wild at times. Definitely great fun.
Cockey: And these are recommended as well.
Queen Anne’s Lace – USA – 2016
US Indie of lesbian interest.
Train Driver’s Diary – Serbia – 2016
I only saw the beginning of this and knew it was going to be something Cinequest would want. I sent it ahead, and it turns out I was right, since here it is!
And one SHORT film:
Urban Cowboys– Poland – 2016
A wonderful film – 30 minutes. It’s a very unusual subject, and a lovely treatment of it. In fact, I was profoundly moved watching it. I’ve no idea which shorts program has it, but it’s worth finding. [Note: Urban Cowboys is part of Shorts Program 2.]
THE TWINNING REACTION
SANDY WOLF is Cinequest Documentary Programmer.
Last year’s doc program was very strong, especially The Brainwashing of My Dad, Chuck Norris Vs. Communism, Dan and Margo and The Great Sasuke. What do you see as the strongest 2-3 documentary features this year?
Wolf: The first doc I am going to recommend is Shorts Series 6, which is the short doc series and includes Bayard and Me. That is the only short doc I have seen, and I can not only vouch not only for the film, which is coming directly from premiering at Sundance, but for the filmmaker himself, who goes by the name of Matt Wolf (and unless there is a change of plans, Matt will not be here, as he has a work commitment which conflicts with Cinequest). [Note: Sandy’s son is the noted documentarian Matt Wolf (Teenage).]
Wolf: The following two docs were my two favorites this year:
The Bullish Farmer
The Twinning Reaction.
Wolf:I am also recommending these other docs (there are a few other which I
haven’t seen):
New Chefs on the Block
Levinsky Park
Cradle of Champions
Honest Struggle.
Bookmark my Cinequest 2017 page, with links to all my coverage. Follow me on Twitter for the latest.
Cinequest veterans will notice two entirely new aspects to this year’s festival.
First, although Cinequest maintains its Downtown San Jose roots, much of the festival will expand to Redwood City. When the beloved Camera 12 Theater closed, that left a huge gap in Cinequest’s screening capacity that was filled by the addition of several screens at Redwood City’s Century 20 and a screen at CineArts in San Jose’s Santana Row.
This means that Cinequest attendees can no longer walk from to and from every screening – all within four blocks in downtown San Jose. There are actually more total Cinequest screenings now, but more planning is required by festival goers.
All of the major events – opening, closing, the one-screening-only Spotlight Films and the celebrity appearances will remain in Downtown San Jose. So will the Tito’s Vodka and cheese cubes in the VIP Lounge. And almost (I’ve found only one exception so far) all the feature films will screen at least once in San Jose.
So now we can say that Cinequest, literally (in the original sense), ranges from one end of Silicon Valley to the other.
The second major change is the new, additional focus on virtual reality, which has even been incorporated into the name “Cinequest Film & VR Festival”. Cinequest is presenting a whopping TEN programs of short virtual reality films. These short film programs will be presented in about a hundred different screenings in the Green Room at the California Theatre. In addition, Cinequest will present a series of VR-themed workshops, panels and forums. There’s also a VR Canteen with hospitality and VR gaming.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve never sat with forty other goggle-adorned people and shared the same virtual reality cinema. I’m looking forward to sampling the program and mitigating my own ignorance about the media. There are so many screenings of the VR programs, there’s really no excuse not to.
The startling and moving documentary The Twinning Reaction tells the story of a Mad Men-era research project and its profound human impact. To perform a longitudinal study of nurture vs. nature, researchers INTENTIONALLY separated identical twins and placed them with families that the researchers kept in the dark. The placements occurred AFTER the twin babies had bonded together in the crib for many months. Legally and ethically sketchy at the time, this is monstrous by today’s standards, and, in fact, caused harm to the adoptees.
Somehow, some of these twins learned the truth as adults and located their birth siblings.
In The Twinning Reaction, we meet three sets of separated identical siblings. Because we meet the subjects of the study, the effects of separation are clearly apparent and highly personalized.
Writer-director Lori Shinseki has found an amazing story and source material to match. She weaves it into a coherent and compelling story. Only 52 gripping minutes long, The Twinning Reaction’s world premiere is at Cinequest.
The German dramedy That Trip We Took with Dad reminds the American audience that Iron Curtain-style communism was NOT monolithic. The story takes place during a significant historical moment, when the Prague Spring was slammed shut by the Soviet invasion in August, 1968. Two Romanian brothers are taking their dad to a surgical procedure, which necessitates a road trip from Romania through Hungary, Czechoslovakia and into East Germany.
The primary point of view is from one of the brothers, a young doctor. Feeling responsibility beyond his years, the doctor is very, very practical. He will do what it takes to protect his father and brother, even if it means the distasteful task of informing to the secret police.
His younger brother is a naive artist who keeps criticizing OTHER Eastern European commie regimes in the knuckle-headed belief that the Romanian commies will leave him alone. The father is a once-true believer who now blames communism for the death of his wife.
Since the brother and the father are likely to blurt out the most provocative thing at any moment, each border crossing becomes dreadfully tense for the doctor – and for the audience. As with any Odd Couple (or Odd Trio) road trip, there is also humor.
That Trip We Took with Dad is a social and political satire of Iron Curtain communist societies. Our doctor also encounters some West German lefties who naively reject Western capitalism for its exploitation and inequality, ignoring or apologizing or minimizing the lack of free expression behind the Iron Curtain.
The family in the movie is Romanian of German ethnicity, and the story stems from writer-director Anca Miruna Lazarescu’s own family. Her introduction of the film for Cinequest is on this post just below the trailer.
In the superb drama The Teacher, it’s the mid-1980s and the Iron Curtain is still defining Czechoslovakia; (The Teacher is a Czech movie in the Slovak language). The title character’s position as a high school teacher makes her a gatekeeper to the children’s futures, and she’s unaccountable because she’s a minor Communist Party functionary. Wielding blatant academic favoritism and even overt blackmail, she uses the advantage of her political status for her own petty benefit – coercing shopping errands, car rides, pastries and other favors from the parents of her students. Finally, she causes so much harm to one student that some of the parents rebel and seek her ouster.
Will the other parents support them? What of the parents who benefit from the regime? And what of the majority of the parents who must decide whether to risk their own futures? The risk is real: the regime has already reassigned one parent, a scientist, to a menial job after his wife had defected.
The Teacher benefits from a brilliant, award-winning performance from Zuzana Mauréry in the title role. What makes this character especially loathsome is that she’s not just heavy-handed, but grossly manipulative. Mauréry is a master at delivering reasonable words with both sweet civility and the unmistakable menace of the unspoken “or else”.
The acting from the entire company is exceptional, especially from Csongor Kassai, Martin Havelka and the Slovak director Peter Bebjak as aggrieved parents. Writer Petr Jarchovský has created textured, authentic characters. Director Jan Hrebejk not only keeps the story alive but adds some clever filmmaking fluorishes as he moves the story between flashbacks and the present.
The Teacher is one of the highlights of Cinequest 2017.
In the dark, dark Swiss comedy Sweet Girls, the two teenage besties are lazy and unmotivated – even by teenage standards. They will do ANYTHING to avoid an entry-level job that might plunge them into the adult workaday drudgery that they despise. Left to their own devices with a deadline looming, the two take unseemly advantage when an elderly woman dies in their apartment building. Absurdly self-involved, the two start harvesting all the apartment building’s elderly in an absurdly harsh scheme. Think Arsenic and Old Lace and Sweeney Todd.
Both girls are brats of the first order, but Elodie, the ringleader, also has an experience in her past which has scarred her feelings about the geriatric set. Neither is a sympathetic character. The humor here comes from the absurdist plot and from the social satire, which is probably more accessible to a Western European audience.
The psychological thriller Prodigy begins with a psychologist (Richard Neil) being brought to a secret government “black site” to interview a dangerous prisoner. When he receives an orientation, he and we expect to see a superhuman sociopath like Hannibal Lector. But he enters the secure room to face a freckled-face nine-year-old girl (Savannah Liles). Her arms are pinned to her chair with restraints. We learn that there is an understandable reason for this.
She is abnormal in every way – in her super intelligence, in her telekinetic powers and in her capacity for performing monstrous and lethal acts. The two embark on a game of wits with very high stakes. There’s a deadline (literally) so the game is also a race against the clock.
It’s the first feature for writer-directors Alex Haughey and Brian Vidal, and Cinequest hosts Prodigy’s world premiere. Haughey and Vidal have bet their movie, in large part, on the performance of a nine-year-old actor. Savannah Liles is exceptional as she ranges between a very smart little girl and a monstrous psychopath and between a vulnerable child and a person who has made herself invulnerable. It’s a very promising performance.
In the Cinequest program notes, Pia Chamberlain describes Prodigy as “reminiscent of a cerebral episode of the Twilight Zone“, which is pretty apt. Just like the best of Rod Serling, Prodigy’s compact story-telling takes us to an environment that we can recognize, but which has different natural laws than the ones under which we operate.
Filmmakers have shocked us before with the juxtaposition of innocent looking children and their heinous deeds Sometimes those children have been created fundamentally evil (The Bad Seed, Rosemary’s Baby, The Omen) and sometimes possessed by evil (The Exorcist). Prodigy takes a different tack – exploring how a trauma can produce monstrous behavior and whether evil behavior is reversible.
Prodigy is a thinking person’s edge-of-the-seat thrill ride. I’m looking forward to the next work from Haughey and Vidal. Note that this trailer is in color, but the version of the movie that I screened is in black and white.
