Marathon champion can’t stop his thieving ways in THE ROBBER
DER RAÜBER (THE ROBBER) (Benjamin Heisenberg, 2010)
MoMA Film, Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53rd St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
Saturday, April 5, 4:00
Series runs through April 20
Tickets: $12, in person only, may be applied to museum admission within thirty days, same-day screenings free with museum admission, available at Film and Media Desk beginning at 9:30 am
212-708-9400
www.moma.org
www.kinolorber.com
Director Benjamin Heisenberg and star Andreas Lust take viewers on a breathless thrill ride in The Robber. Adapted from Martin Prinz’s novel about real-life 1980s Austrian marathon champion and bank robber Johann Kastenberger, The Robber focuses on Johann Rettenberger (Lust), a grim, ultra-serious man who has just been released from prison after serving six years for armed robbery. Although he tells his parole officer (Markus Schleinzer) that his thieving days are over, Rettenberger seems unable to stop grabbing his shotgun, donning his trademark facemask, and stealing cars and robbing banks. But his motives remain unclear, as he merely stashes the cash under his bed, not using it for himself or giving it away. He initially does not appear prone to violence either, but his cold-blooded stares and inability to really connect with others signal a man threatening to explode at any moment. When not robbing banks, Rettenberger is either training for or running in marathons, a skill that also helps him avoid the police. Despite Rettenberger’s intensely secretive personality, a social worker named Erika (Franziska Weisz) falls for him, putting him up in her house while she imagines he is looking for work and trying to get his life back together. But not even love can warm the frigid heart of this stone-cold thief.
Austrian-German drama is part of “Vienna Unveiled” series at MoMA
The Robber features several exciting, stunningly shot and edited chase scenes (courtesy of cinematographer Reinhold Vorschneider and Heisenberg, who also served as editor and cowrote the screenplay with Prinz) with Rettenberger on foot, especially the long finale, evoking such films as Marathon Man and The Bourne Ultimatum. (Bonus fact: Kastenberger’s story also inspired Kathleen Bigelow’s Point Break.) Lust turns Rettenberger into a complex antihero; even though there is nothing likable about the character, audiences will not be able to stop rooting for him to get away with it all. The Robber is screening on April 5 at 4:00 as part of the MoMA series “Vienna Unveiled: A City in Cinema,” being held in conjunction with Carnegie Hall’s recently concluded Vienna: City of Dreams festival, in celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the Austrian Film Museum. The series continues through April 20 with such other Viennese-related fare as Michael Winner’s Scorpio, Michael Haneke’s 71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance, and Ernst Lubitsch’s The Marriage Circle and The Smiling Lieutenant.
As writer-director Drew Tobia’s debut feature, See You Next Tuesday, opens, Mona (Eleanore Pienta) is standing still, staring straight ahead, mouth slightly agape, the camera pulling back ever so slowly as Brian McOmber’s sweetly European-sounding score plays, revealing that she is in a supermarket, out-of-focus shoppers passing by behind her. The scene beautifully sets the stage for what is to follow, an uncomfortable yet charming black comedy about a pregnant young woman who seems to exist in a different world from everyone else. A cashier at a Brooklyn Key Food, Mona is about to give birth, but she refuses to see a doctor or take care of herself in any way. She lives alone in a miserable apartment that doesn’t have its own bathroom or telephone. When she’s desperate, she goes to her loser mother, May (Dana Eskelson), an unpleasant alcoholic who lacks a maternal instinct; she wants to be Mona’s friend instead of parent. Mona also seeks out her sister, Jordan (Molly Plunk), who is estranged from their mother and is living with her older girlfriend, Sylve (Keisha Zollar). Mona, May, and Jordan are not exactly the brightest bulbs on the planet; they take family dysfunction to a whole new level. But at the center of it all is Mona, a young woman with something significantly off about her, unable to understand her very serious situation, acting out like a child when she doesn’t get what she wants, passing judgment on others without a filter, drinking and smoking even though her baby could come at any minute. But through all the nastiness, all the bitterness, all the cringe-worthy moments — and there are plenty — Tobia (Leperfuck, Ladyfemmes) still manages to make us care about this crazy family, even though we would never want to meet any of these women in real life. Pienta is dazzling as the overemotional, unpredictable Mona, immersing herself deeply into this mentally unstable character who has no boundaries (and whom Mona created for her own video and photograph series).
Forty-five years ago, brothers Albert and David Maysles and Charlotte Zwerin made the highly influential black-and-white documentary Salesman, an intimate portrait of four traveling door-to-door Bible salesmen: Jamie Baker, Raymond Martos, Charles McDevitt, and particularly Boston’s Paul Brennan. “Go out there and get ’em,” their boss, who doesn’t exactly follow the teachings of Jesus, declares as they prepare to spread the word of the Lord, although more to earn a living than as a religious calling. The shots of Brennan singing “If I Were a Rich Man” in the snow are priceless, but the end will haunt you. Without Salesman, there probably never would have been a Glengarry Glen Ross and so many other films. All these years later, this fascinating piece of Americana, which was added to the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress in 1992, still feels fresh and relevant in these hard times. The Maysles brothers went on to make a series of documentaries that redefined the genre, including Gimme Shelter and Grey Gardens, and Albert’s Maysles Cinema in Harlem is devoted to nonfiction filmmaking. Salesman is screening April 4 at 4:00 at Neuehouse in the First Exposure section of the second annual First Time Fest, which celebrates the debut work of writers, directors, and producers; the eighty-seven-year-old Maysles will be on hand to discuss the seminal film. Among the other First Exposure presentations are Julie Taymor’s Titus, Peter Bogdanovich’s Targets, James Toback’s Fingers, Kelly Reichardt’s River of Grass, Michael Moore’s Roger & Me, and Jennie Livingston’s opening-night Paris Is Burning, with all of those directors present at the screenings; cinematographer Fred Elmes will discuss David Lynch’s Eraserhead. Ten films by first-time directors from around the world are in competition at this year’s festival, which runs April 3-7 at Neuehouse and Loews Village VII.
