this week in film and television

CRIME: ICHI THE KILLER

Kakihara surveys the damage in Takashi Miike’s ultraviolent cult classic ICHI THE KILLER

NITEHAWK MIDNITE SCREENINGS: ICHI THE KILLER (Takashi Miike, 2001)
Nitehawk Cinema
136 Metropolitan Ave. between Berry St. & Wythe Ave.
Friday, September 2, and Saturday, September 3, 12:10 am
Series continues through October 30
718-384-3980
www.nitehawkcinema.com

Takashi Miike, who about fifteen few years ago had New York filmgoers rushing to Film Forum to see Audition — and then rushing to get out because of the violent torture scenes — did it again with Ichi the Killer, a faithful adaptation of Hideo Yamamoto’s hit manga. When Boss Anjo goes missing while beating the hell out of a prostitute, his gang, led by Kakihara (Tadanobu Asano), a multipierced blond sadomasochist, tries to find him by threatening and torturing members of other gangs. As the violence continues to grow — including faces torn and sliced off, numerous decapitations, innards splattered on walls and ceilings, body parts cut off, and self-mutilation — the killer turns out to be a young man named Ichi (Nao Omori), whose memory of a long-ago brutal rape turns him into a costumed avenger, crying like a baby as he leaves bloody mess after bloody mess on his mission to rid the world of bullies. This psychosexual S&M gorefest, which is certainly not for the squeamish, comes courtesy of the endlessly imaginative Miike, who trained with master filmmaker Shohei Imamura and seems to love really sharp objects. The excellent — and brave — cast also includes directors Sabu and Shinya Tsukamoto, composer Sakichi Satô, and Hong Kong starlet Alien Sun. The film is screening as part of the Nitehawk Midnite Screenings series “Crime,” which continues through October 30 with such other very different thrillers as William Friedkin’s The French Connection, Abel Ferrara’s Bad Lieutenant, George Lucas’s THX 138, John Boorman’s Point Blank, Richard Brooks’s In Cold Blood, Luc Besson’s The Fifth Element, and Gordon Parks Jr.’s Super Fly.

MODERN MATINEES — B IS FOR BOGART: UP THE RIVER

Humphrey Bogart and Spencer Tracy made their feature film debuts in John Fords comedy drama UP THE RIVER

Humphrey Bogart and Spencer Tracy made their feature film debuts in John Ford’s 1930 comedy-drama UP THE RIVER

UP THE RIVER (John Ford, 1930)
MoMA Film, Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53rd St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
Thursday, September 1, 1:30
Series runs September 1 – October 28
Tickets: $12, may be applied to museum admission within thirty days
212-708-9400
www.moma.org

MoMA begins its two-month Modern Matinees series “B Is for Bogart” with, appropriately enough, Humphrey Bogart’s full-length cinematic debut, Up the River, in which he appears with Spencer Tracy, in his first film as well. The 1930 prison comedy-drama was directed by John Ford, who of course made such all-time greats as Stagecoach, The Informer, How Green Was My Valley, The Quiet Man, The Searchers, and The Grapes of Wrath. There’s a reason why most people have never heard of Up the River; somehow, the big-time triumvirate managed to come up with a mediocre picture at best, but it’s still well worth watching for its historic value. Bogart plays Steve Jordan, a respected inmate who works for the Bensonata Penitentiary warden and takes an instant liking to new prisoner Judy Fields, portrayed by Claire Luce, a Ziegfeld performer and stage actress in her film debut. (Fields would go on to appear in only a few more movies, much preferring theater, particularly Shakespeare.) Tracy is Saint Louis, a convict who is determined to run things in prison, coming and going as he pleases, accompanied by his none-too-bright right-hand man, Dannemora Dan (Warren Hymer). Love blossoms, along with a financial scam involving Jordan’s family and Judy’s boss, Frosby (Gaylord Pendleton). Meanwhile, the prison is preparing for its annual baseball game, coached by Pop (William Collier Sr.). And yes, that’s longtime Ford regular Ward Bond in a key cameo. Up the River features a handful of cool shots, especially the opening; the director of photography was Joseph H. August, who went on to shoot such films as Gunga Din and The Hunchback of Notre Dame and cofounded the American Society of Cinematographers. The loose narrative — the script was written by Maurine Dallas Watkins, who is best known for penning Chicago — wanders all over the place as Tracy tries to yuck it up and Bogart plays it smooth and straight. Bogart never worked with Ford again; Tracy would team up with Ford one more time, for 1958’s political drama The Last Hurrah. “Modern Matinees: B Is for Bogart” continues through October 28 with such better Bogie films as The Petrified Forest, Dead End, Angels with Dirty Faces, They Drive by Night, The Maltese Falcon, and others, shown in chronological order.

KUROSAWA x 11: THE LOWER DEPTHS

THE LOWER DEPTHS is another masterful tour de force from Akira Kurosawa

THE LOWER DEPTHS (DONZOKO) (Akira Kurosawa, 1957)
Metrograph
7 Ludlow St. between Canal & Hester Sts.
Thursday, September 1, 1:15 & 8:00
Series runs August 31 – September 8
212-660-0312
metrograph.com

Loosely adapted from Maxim Gorky’s social realist play, The Lower Depths is yet another masterpiece from Japanese auteur Akira Kurosawa. Set in an immensely dark and dingy ramshackle skid-row tenement during the Edo period, the claustrophobic film examines the rich and the poor, gambling and prostitution, life and death, and everything in between through the eyes of impoverished characters who have nothing. The motley crew includes the suspicious landlord, Rokubei (Ganjiro Nakamura), and his much younger wife, Osugi (Isuzu Yamada); Osugi’s sister, Okayo (Kyôko Kagawa); the thief Sutekichi (Toshirō Mifune), who gets involved in a love triangle with a noir murder angle; and Kahei (Bokuzen Hidari), an elderly newcomer who might be more than just a grandfatherly observer. Despite the brutal conditions they live in, the inhabitants soldier on, some dreaming of their better past, others still hoping for a promising future. Kurosawa infuses the gripping film with a wry sense of humor, not allowing anyone to wallow away in self-pity. The play had previously been turned into a film in 1936 by Jean Renoir, starring Jean Gabin as the thief. A staggering achievement, The Lower Depths is screening September 1 as part of Metrograph’s Kurosawa x 11 series, which runs August 31 through September 8 and consists of such other gems as Throne of Blood, Rashomon, Sanjuro, I Live in Fear, High and Low, and Seven Samurai, a virtual crash course in all things Kurosawa.

MIA MADRE

Writer-director Nanni Moretti and Margherita Buy play siblings dealing with an ailing mother in MIA MADRE

MIA MADRE (MY MOTHER) (Nanni Moretti, 2015)
Angelika Film Center, 18 West Houston St. at Mercer St., 212-995-2570
Lincoln Plaza Cinema, 1886 Broadway between 62nd & 63rd Sts., 212-757-2280
Opens Friday, August 26
www.musicboxfilms.com

Several times throughout Nanni Moretti’s semiautobiographical Mia Madre, film director Margherita (Margherita Buy) says, “The actor must be next to the character.” It’s a line that Moretti, the Italian writer, director, and actor behind such international successes as Caro Diario and Palme d’Or winner The Son’s Room, has said that he uses all the time. It’s a concept that lies at the heart of Moretti’s latest, brilliantly intimate work, inspired by his own career and the death of his mother. Buy was named Best Actress at Cannes for her intense performance as Margherita, a divorced mother who is having difficulty balancing fiction and reality. She is making a film about an employee uprising at a factory run by a coldhearted boss, played by self-obsessed Italian American actor Barry Huggins (John Turturro), who keeps forgetting his lines and claims to have worked with Stanley Kubrick. Margherita is shuttling back and forth between the film shoot and the hospital, where her mother, Ada (Giulia Lazzarini), is slowly fading. A former teacher, Ada lights up only when discussing Latin with her granddaughter, Livia (Beatrice Mancini), Margherita’s teenage daughter, while Margherita has a difficult time communicating with both of them as well as with her ex-boyfriend, Vittorio (Enrico Ianniello), an actor in her movie. And Margherita’s brother, Giovanni (Moretti), has taken a leave of absence from his job in order to help take care of their mother. Margherita drifts in and out of what is real as imagined scenarios play out in her mind, but it is not always immediately clear what is happening in the film and what is happening in the film-within-a-film, with an additional layer of uncertainty because Moretti himself is often onscreen, further blurring the distinction of life versus cinema.

John Turturro is a problematic actor in Nanni Moretti’s MIA MADRE

Winner of the Ecumenical Jury Prize at Cannes, Mia Madre continues Moretti’s masterful exploration of the human condition through deeply personal narratives, even if they’re not fully autobiographical. Buy (A Five Star Life, Moretti’s We Have a Pope and The Caiman), who has won seven David di Donatello Awards (including a Best Actress trophy for Mia Madre) and has been nominated for another nine, is spellbinding as Margherita, carrying the complex film with her every look and gesture. It’s a dazzling, bravura performance, charged with powerful, raw emotion. Turturro (Barton Fink, The Big Lebowski, Passione) has a ball as the cranky ugly American who is not about to publicly admit his failings. Moretti, who wrote the script with Francesco Piccolo and Valia Santella, serves as a steady, calming influence as Giovanni, a soft-spoken man who understands the situation and always knows the right thing to do, which is not true of his sister. Mia Madre is a mesmerizing examination of family, grief, connection, and the very act of creation itself, in all its many forms and possibilities.

IS THAT YOU?

Myla (Naruna Kaplan de Macedo) and Ronnie (Alon Aboutboul) go on a road trip exploring regret and the past in IS THAT YOU?

IS THAT YOU? (Dani Menkin, 2014)
Cinema Village
22 East 12th St. between University Pl. & Fifth Ave.
Opens Friday, August 26
212-529-6799
www.cinemavillage.com
heyjudeproductions.com

In Dani Menkin’s Is That You?, young film student Myla (Naruna Kaplan de Macedo) is making a documentary, asking strangers what they regret. If she asked me, I might just have told her that I regret having watched Is That You? Nominated for an Israeli Academy Award for Best Picture and winner of Best Indie Film, Dani Menkin’s Is That You? is a convoluted road-trip movie that manipulates its paper-thin plot until almost none of it makes sense. Israeli film, television, and stage favorite Alon Aboutboul (London Has Fallen, The Dark Knight Rises) stars as Ronnie, an outdated analog man in an ever-more-digital world. After losing his job as a projectionist in an Israeli art house, Ronnie heads to the States, determined to find his lost love, Rachel, who he has not seen in nearly forty years. He picks up an old used car (no fancy new styles for him) from his brother, Jacob (Rani Bleier), and sets out on his mission. The lemon soon breaks down, and Ronnie is offered help by Myla, whose film is called The Road Not Taken. Moved by Ronnie’s story, Myla joins him on his journey, taking her brother’s SUV, without permission. As Ronnie and Myla try to track down Rachel, who can’t seem to settle down in one place for very long, they stop along the way so Myla can interview people on the street and in their homes, getting them to share what they would change in their lives if they could. But the hardest person to get to open up is Ronnie himself.

Myla (Naruna De-Macedo Kaplan) and Ronnie (Alon Aboutboul) reach another fork in the road in IS THAT YOU?

Myla (Naruna Kaplan de Macedo) and Ronnie (Alon Aboutboul) reach another fork in the road in IS THAT YOU?

Is That You? is a narrative mess from the start, as Menkin (39 Pounds of Love, Dolphin Boy) keeps trying to force square pegs into round holes; if a plot development doesn’t quite work, he forges ahead anyway, leaving viewers scratching their head in disbelief. Aboutboul (Out of the Blue, One of Us) is a wonderful actor, but Ronnie is just too dour and withdrawn, too uncommunicative, while Kaplan de Macedo, a real-life documentary filmmaker in her acting debut and a dead ringer for Zooey Deschanel, is fun to watch, although her character is overly quirky. Even the opening credits are a disappointment; Menkin uses the font associated with Woody Allen films, but there’s nothing in Is That You? that shares any of the wit and intelligence in even the Woodman’s lesser works. There are some interesting ideas in the film, but it probably would have worked better as a short instead of an eighty-three-minute feature. Is That You? opens August 26 at Cinema Village, with Menkin, Aboutboul, and other members of the cast and crew participating in several Q&As over the weekend.

FATIMA

Soria Zéroual makes a moving debut in Philippe Faucon’s César-winning FATIMA

FATIMA (Philippe Faucon, 2015)
Film Society of Lincoln Center, Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, Howard Gilman Theater
144 West 65th St. between Eighth Ave. & Broadway
Opens Friday, August 26
212-875-5050
www.filmlinc.org
www.kinolorber.com

Inspired by Fatima Elayoubi’s Prayer to the Moon, a collection of writings by a Moroccan woman trying to make a new life for herself and her family in France, Philippe Faucon’s Fatima is a tender, poignant look at the immigrant experience in the twenty-first century. In her film debut, nonprofessional actress Soria Zéroual, who was discovered after a massive talent search, stars as Fatima, a traditional woman raising two daughters in a small Muslim community in France. While her children, Nesrine (Zita Hanrot), who is starting pre-med, and Souad (Kenza-Noah Aïche), a typical disenchanted teenager who prefers hanging out with her friends and flirting with boys rather than studying, speak French and dress in contemporary styles, Fatima converses primarily in Arabic and wears a head scarf. Her ex-husband (Chawki Amari) has remarried, so she has taken on the primary responsibility of raising the kids, working several jobs as a cleaning woman in order to make money to improve their lives and offer them every possibility they deserve. On the surface, Fatima is simple and plain, struggling to communicate with her daughters, her employers, and her doctors. “If my daughter’s a success, my happiness is content,” she tells Nesrine. “You drive me so mad I could go out without a head scarf,” she says to Souad. But Fatima slowly begins revealing that there is much more to her when she picks up a pen and starts sharing her deepest thoughts in a notebook, writing poetry, letters, and short pieces about her life.

Fatima (Soria Zéroual) will do whatever it takes to make a better life for her daughters in French drama

Winner of Best Film, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Most Promising Actress (Hanrot) at the 2016 César Awards, Fatima is a beautifully made drama, written, directed, and produced (with Serge Noël) by Faucon, warmly photographed by Laurent Fenart, and edited with a soft gentleness by Sophie Mandonnet. Faucon (L’Amour, Samia), whose grandparents came from North Africa, maintains a patient, naturalistic pace throughout, centered by Zéroual’s sweetly innocent César-nominated performance, as Fatima faces racism from the French and shame from her fellow Muslims. She is a mother who would do anything for her children but is stuck in a world that traps and confines her, limiting her options, some of which Zéroual, who was cleaning banks when she auditioned for the role, has experienced herself. Hanrot excels as Nesrine, a young woman who is nervous about her future, while Souad wonderfully captures the angst and ennui of the rebellious teenager who loves her mother but wants to break free of old-fashioned traditions and outdated social mores. Although the film is not overtly political, it is clearly making a point, one that takes on ever-more-urgent meaning in the postcolonial age of Trump and Le Pen, when immigration, particularly concerning Muslims, is under attack every day.

NITEHAWK MIDNITE SCREENINGS — HOT HORROR: THE DESCENT

Sarah (Shauna Macdonald) searches for a way out in THE DESCENT

THE DESCENT (Neil Marshall, 2006)
Nitehawk Cinema
136 Metropolitan Ave. between Berry St. & Wythe Ave.
Friday, August 26, 12:10 am
718-384-3980
www.nitehawkcinema.com
www.thedescentfilm.com

Ostensibly a female Deliverance gone underground, Neil Marshall’s The Descent is a piss-poor piece of putrefaction. A year after Sarah (Shauna Macdonald) loses her husband and daughter in a terrible car accident, an adventurous group of friends go spelunking in the Appalachians (though the film was actually shot in England, at Pinewood Studios). But Juno (Natalie Mendoza) has pulled a fast one; instead of the well-traversed caves they thought they were going to, Juno has taken them to unexplored territory, where lying in wait for them are fast-moving mutant Gollums with hardy appetites. There is actually one genuine scare, but everything else is manipulatively mundane and morbidly mangled. Inexplicably, The Descent was a hit in its home country, garnering a handful of British film awards and nominations, and there was even a sequel made in 2009. Oh, and by the way, what ever became of the child’s laughter? The Descent is being shown August 26 at 12:10 am as part of the Nitehawk Cinema series “Nitehawk Midnite Screenings” and “Hot Horror,” but you must have something better to do with your time than descend into this disappointing maelstrom.