Tammy Blanchard and Mira Sorvino play estranged sisters in UNION SQUARE
UNION SQUARE (Nancy Savoca, 2011)
Angelika Film Center
18 West Houston St. at Mercer St.
Opens Friday, July 13
www.theunionsquaremovie.com
www.angelikafilmcenter.com
Nancy Savoca’s Union Square arrives like an unwanted relative suddenly showing up on the doorstep carrying a heavy suitcase. But, as in real life, family often wins out as long-standing issues rise to the surface and are dealt with in both painful and humorous ways. As the film opens, the wild and wacky Lucy (Mira Sorvino) emerges from the Union Square subway station, ready for some shopping and a tryst with Jay, who angers and frustrates her by not wanting to see her. In a rage, an out-of-control Lucy visits her estranged sister, the tightly wound Jenny (Tammy Blanchard), insinuating herself into her life, deciding that she and her dog, Murray, just have to stay there for a little while until she gets herself together. Jenny is disgusted, embarrassed, and annoyed by her freewheeling, overemotional sister, who drinks, smokes, and says what’s on her mind, whereas Jenny has carved out a carefully constructed existence for herself, pretending she is a good girl from Maine instead of a woman with a past from the Bronx, as she prepares to marry the preppy, organic, and health-obsessed Bill (Mike Doyle). Things come to a head on Thanksgiving, when secrets are revealed and everyone has to face some hard truths. Although inconsistent and, like Lucy, extremely annoying at first, Union Square, featuring a bumpy script by Savoca (Dogfight, Household Saints) and Mary Tobler and cameos by Daphne Rubin-Vega, Michael Rispoli, and Patti LuPone, eventually settles down as the two sisters slowly reconnect. The eighty-minute film was made on a shoestring budget with a skeleton crew and shot by Lisa Leone in HD using the small, handheld Canon 5D, with much of it set in producer Neda Armian’s real loft overlooking Union Square. Stick around for Madeleine Peyroux’s lovely rendition of Warren Zevon’s “Keep Me in Your Heart for a While,” which plays over the closing credits. Savoca will be on hand opening night at the Angelika for a Q&A following the 7:00 screening.
Brazilian filmmaker Eryk Rocha’s feature narrative debut, Transeunte (Passerby), is a beautifully poetic, lyrical examination of loneliness and connection. Fernando Bezerra gives a brilliant performance as Expedito, a sixty-five-year-old man who spends his days in Rio de Janeiro walking the streets and riding buses as he puts flowers on his mother’s grave, picks up his benefits check, takes a nap on his couch, goes to the doctor, listens to his old-fashioned transistor radio, and stops by a bar for a few drinks. A simple man who seems to be content in his small life, Expedito is an innocent bystander in the world; Rocha often cuts to extreme close-ups of Expedito’s eyes as the character watches and listens to other people singing, dancing, preaching, celebrating a birthday, and just having regular conversations as he takes it all in from a distance. He rarely even speaks, saying only what is absolutely necessary as he goes about his daily business. Yet he does all this with a quiet confidence, his deeply chiseled face, rigid brow, and slow gait (in opposition to his name) revealing him to be a simple man with simple pleasures instead of a sad, lonely man leading a nowhere life. Rocha, who has made such documentaries as Rocha que Voa and Pachamama and has also been an editor, actor, composer, and cinematographer (though still only in his thirties), uses that varied background to create a mesmerizing tale that mixes fiction and reality, set to a lively score and shot in a lush black-and-white, recalling such seminal films as Charles Burnett’s 
