FILM REVIEW: BELOVED SISTERS By: Faiz No comments

A scene from Beloved Sisters.

Sibling ribaldry

By Miranda Inganni

Charlotte von Lengefeld (Henriette Confurius) and her equally attractive older (and married) sister, Caroline (Hannah Herzsprung), have an agreement to share everything they have with each other.  Enter the German poet and philosopher Friedrich Schiller (Florian Stetter), a man who both women desire and, subsequently, share.

While there is an undeniable bond between sisters (and often their mother as well), this bond is difficult to accept at facade value – even if this episode is based on a potentially true story. What we do know is that in real life, Charlotte became Schiller’s wife and Caroline his biographer. But in this version, they clearly mean a lot more to each other than categories can imply.

Written and directed by Dominik Graf, German's Oscar entry for Best Foreign Film, Beloved Sisters is period porn – lush and brightly hued. It is like a PBS miniseries (and might be better suited for such a platform). All three leading ladies (Confurius, Herzsprung and Claudia Messner as their mother) turn in lovely, nuanced performances as the three ladies that steer the ship of Schiller’s life. Stetter is charming as the flawed Schiller and there is chemistry betwixt the three. The soundtrack (Sven Rossenbach and Florian van Volxem) is annoying drivel, but the costumes (Barnara Grupp) and production design (Claus Jürgen Pfeiffer) are fantastic.

FILM REVIEW: THE CIRCLE By: Faiz No comments

A scene from The Circle.

 

Round and round history blows

By Ed Rampell

Switzerland's Official Submission for Best Foreign Language Film at the 87^th Academy Awards, Swiss co-writer/director Stefan Haupt’s The Circle (Der Kreis) is a fact-based, strong drama about the struggle for gay rights in Switzerland.

The film’s title refers to an actual gay self-help organization that arose in 1930s Zurich, founded by the renowned St. Gallen-born actor Karl Meir (who used the pseudonym “Rolf” and is portrayed onscreen by an avuncular Stephan Witschi). The group’s activities included publishing a multi-lingual magazine called The Circle and operating a gay bar which provided a regular meeting place and venue for annual costume balls which took place during the 1950s (when most of the story is set), attended by up to 800 gay men who traveled from all around Europe to dress up and dance.

At the heart of The Circle is a true life love story between teacher Ernest Ostertag (Matthias Hungerbuhler) and cross dressing performer Robi Rapp (Sven Schelker). Throughout Haupt’s film the narrative is intercut (or, some might say, “disrupted”) by contemporary interviews with the actual Ostertag and Rapp, talking heads who are now elderly gentlemen. The departure from feature format to documentary style was due to financial constraints, according to helmer Haupt. Some may find Haupt’s mixture of techniques to be jarring while other viewers will presumably think it enhances this gay liberation saga’s veracity.

During The Circle the organization experiences ups and downs, as do Ostertag and Rapp and their relationship. The long term romance of the educator and drag artist, through thick and thin, appears to be admirable and is reminiscent of the love between John Lithgow and Alfred Molina’s characters in the recent feature, Love is Strange, as well as 1978’s La Cage aux Follesand its 1996 Hollywood version The Birdcage, starring Robin Williams, Nathan Lane and Gene Hackman.

The Circle also calls to mind a great pro-gay play presented in 2011 at L.A.’s Blank Theatre called The Temperamentals. In that drama American gay rights pioneer Harry Hay is also shown to have been a card carrying, dues paying Communist Party member. Similarly, in The Circle motorcycle riding Felix (played by Anatole Taubman, who has matinee idol looks) is a hothead pushing for equality and a Marxist, whose confrontational tactics clash with those of the more moderate, older Rolf.

As The Circle was “the Mother of European gay organizations," why did it thrive for decades in Switzerland? Because this Alpine nation is a bastion of neutrality and democracy that was never conquered by Hitler’s hordes. Of course, that doesn’t mean this Swiss pro-gay group didn’t run into its fair share of, shall we say, circle jerks.

The people of The Circle endured many hardships, including a few homophobic-inspired murders that went unpunished (sound familiar?). But, at least, history went on to be kinder to our star couple when Ostertag and Rapp became the first gay married couple in Switzerland.

             

 

FILM REVIEW: THE MISSING PICTURE By: Faiz No comments

A scene from The Missing Picture.

Phnom Penh, mon amour

By John Esther

One of my favorite films of 2013, writer-director Rithy Pahn film is finally getting a proper release in the United States. 

On April 17, 1975, the 13-year-old Panh, his family and others were evacuated from Cambodia’s capital, Phnom Penh, to the countryside where they could finally learn what it meant to be loyal to the Khmer Rouge. A pseudo-communist regime, the Khmer Rouge was anti-bourgeois in the extreme. While they shared a similar distaste for middle-class materialism that many left-wing groups did, they took it to the extreme and out of context. All comfort was anti-revolutionary. 

More importantly, as a peasant uprising run amok, the Khmer Rouge was horribly anti-intellectual. Learning beyond man as a tool for the agrarian socialist revolution was subversive and must be eliminated by any means necessary. According to the Khmer Rouge, and their leader Pol Pot, who was actually an educated person, people of culture, humanities, the arts, music, literature, etc., were better off dead. The supposed left had become extremely right. 

This would be one of the lessons Panh would learn over the next four years as nearly all of his family perished one way or another. And to his credit, he emphasizes how deadly a mistrust of the intellect existed in the country.

Since nearly everything was destroyed during those years, Pahn recreated his childhood memories through the use of figurines. A painstaking endeavor, Pahn uses hundreds of figurines set in elaborate dioramas to convey his characters and extras.

The result is a stunning mediation on loss and memory, with no shortage of anger to boost the narrative.

Paradoxically, this was Cambodia’s Oscar entry for this year’s Oscars in the Best Film in a Foreign Language category, but it lost to Italy’s much happier, bourgeois-friendly and inferior film, The Great Beauty.

PSIFF 2013: LORE By: Faiz No comments

Lore (Saskia Rosendahl) in Lore.

(N)eins kinderverhaal

By Miranda Inganni

Set at the end of World War II in Germany, Lore is the story of five siblings who must fend for themselves when their SS officer father (Hans-Jochen Wagner) and Nazi sympathizer mother (Ursina Lardi) are off to prison for war crimes.

The eldest child, 14-year-old Lore (Saskia Rosendahl), must lead younger sister Leisel (Nele Trebs), her twin brothers, Günter (André Frid) and Jürgen (Mika Seidel), along with baby Peter (Nick Leander Holaschke) through the forests and mountains from their home to Hamburg and their awaiting Grandmother (Eva-Maria Hagen). Along the way, they meet Thomas (Kai Malina), a mysterious man with Jewish papers. Lore knows they need Thomas’ help in order to survive, but she struggles with her hatred for the Jews.

While the younger siblings can barely grasp the reality of what has caused them to be in this situation, Lore slowly comprehends her family’s new position and what it means. Once important and admired in Hitler's Germany, they are now the enemy.

All the children suffer, but it seems that only Lore is allowed to express it. While her character initially is unsympathetic, through her journey to save herself and her siblings, Lore's quest for survival brings out a sensitivity that can only be brought on through experiencing deep pain.

Lore looks at the toll of war from a perspective most audiences have not seen. Additionally, the cast does a remarkable job, especially considering their youth. Rosendahl is expertly cast as Lore and she strikingly captures her character’s physical and emotional journey. Kudos also goes Adam Arkapaw's lush, beautiful cinematography.

Based on “The Dark Room” by Rachel Seiffert, director and co-writer Cate Shortland’s Lore is Australia’s Official Selection for the 85^th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film. (It did not make the short list.) The film is a co-production between Australia and Germany and the dialog is almost entirely in German.

 

Lore screens at the Palm Springs International Film Festival: Jan. 7, 7:30 p.m., Camelot Theatres; Jan. 9, 10:30 a.m., Camelot Theatres. For more information: PSIFF 2013.