this week in film and television

BIG BAD WOLVES

Cop (Lior Ashkenazi) must determine how far he will go to get the truth out of suspected child killer (Rotem Keinan) in brutal black comedy

BIG BAD WOLVES (Navot Papushado & Aharon Keshales, 2013)
Cinema Village, 22 East 12th St. between University Pl. & Fifth Ave., 212-924-3363
Film Society of Lincoln Center, Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, 144 West 65th St. between Broadway & Amsterdam Aves., 212-875-5600
Opens Friday, January 17
www.magnetreleasing.com

Israeli film critic Aharon Keshales and his former student Navot Papushado follow up their 2011 Israeli slasher flick, Rabies, with the gory, ultraviolent black-comedy thriller Big Bad Wolves. Award-winning actor Lior Ashkenazi stars as Miki, a cop who is sure that Bible teacher Dror (Rotem Keinan) is behind the grisly kidnap, rape, and murder of a young girl. Miki and his partner, Rami (Menashe Noy), and two thugs try to beat the truth out of Dror, against the direct orders of their commanding officer, Zvika (Dvir Benedek). When the illegal interrogation winds up on YouTube, Miki is relieved of duty — with Zvika’s blessing to continue to go after Dror. But when Gidi (Tzahi Grad), the father of the dead girl, joins the chase, things threaten to get out of control — and quickly become even crazier. Big Bad Wolves is a sly, smart take on such genre pictures as Oldboy, Se7en, and Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, and Inglourious Basterds, featuring generous amounts of brutal torture along with some very funny bits involving Jewish mothers. Writer-directors Keshales and Papushado keep the audience guessing right up to the very end as the main characters rarely do what is expected and hysterical comic scenes show up at rather inopportune moments. While playing with the standard elements of the revenge flick and the cop-on-the-edge tale, the dark, atmospheric Big Bad Wolves also explores the unbreakable bond between parents and children, lending more than a touch of gravitas to the wild, unpredictable proceedings, which are not for the faint of heart.

EDGAR G. ULMER — BACK FROM THE MARGINS: PEOPLE ON SUNDAY

PEOPLE ON SUNDAY (MENSCHEN AM SONNTAG) (Robert Siodmak & Edgar G. Ulmer, 1930)
Film Society of Lincoln Center
Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, Howard Gilman Theater
144 West 65th St. between Broadway & Amsterdam Aves.
Friday, January 17, 5:15
Series runs through January 17
212-875-5601
www.filmlinc.com

In 1930, a group of young filmmakers from Germany and Austria-Hungary got together to make an extremely low-budget silent picture about men and women just like themselves, the petite bourgeoisie of Berlin. Influenced by such documentaries as Dziga Vertov’s Man with a Movie Camera and such photographers as August Sander, the men — who would go on to become Hollywood legends — came up with the delightful seventy-three-minute People on Sunday, a light, refreshing mix of fiction and nonfiction about regular life in Germany on the heels of the Great Depression and at the dawn of the rise of National Socialism. A collaboration between directors Robert Siodmak (The Killers, Criss Cross) and Edgar G. Ulmer (The Black Cat, Detour), screenwriter Billie (Billy) Wilder (Double Indemnity, Sunset Boulevard), writer Kurt (Curt) Siodmak (The Wolf Man, The Beast with Five Fingers), cameraman Fred Zinnemann (From Here to Eternity, A Man for All Seasons), and cinematographer Eugen Schüfftan (Metropolis, Eyes without a Face), People on Sunday focuses on five ordinary folks who had never acted on-screen before, and each of whom returned to their jobs after filming was over: Somewhat goofy taxi driver Erwin Splettsdösser, flirty blond record salesgirl Brigitte Borchert, dashing wine merchant Wolfgang von Waltershausen, snooty film extra Christl Ehlers, and lackadaisical model Annie Schreyer. When Wolfgang comes upon Christl looking lost in the middle of the street, he asks her to join him at an outdoor café, and soon they have a date for the next day, Sunday. Wolfgang decides to bring along his friend Erwin, who is only too happy to leave his sleepy, bored wife, Annie, in bed. Christl, in the meantime, has brought along her friend Brigitte, and the four go on a double-date picnic that takes them to the beach, a lake, the woods, a park, and other outdoor locations. But when Wolfgang starts paying too much attention to Brigitte, Christl is none too happy.

Soon-to-be-legendary Hollywood filmmakers examine a recreational day in the life of Berlin on PEOPLE ON SUNDAY

Directors Siodmak and Ulmer intersperse scenes of real urban life in Berlin with the picnic, giving the film a cinéma vérité quality. The characters both perform from a script and improvise as they get to know one another and their surroundings. It gets a little racy and it’s clearly male-centric, but People on Sunday is a splendid little tale whose place in cinema history is now being reexamined, not merely as a film by so many future superstars but also because it paved the way for the French New Wave and has influenced generations while offering a fascinating view of 1930 Berlin. People on Sunday is screening January 17 at 5:15 as part of the Film Society of Lincoln Center series “Edgar G. Ulmer: Back from the Margins,” which runs through January 18. Also being shown on January 17 is Ulmer’s Beyond the Barrier, The Light Ahead (Fishke the Lame), and Murder Is My Beat in addition to Michael Palm’s 2004 documentary, Edgar G. Ulmer: The Man Off-Screen. The series is presented in collaboration with Noah Isenberg, author of the new book Edgar G. Ulmer: A Filmmaker at the Margins (University of California, January 2014, $34.95), who wrote in a Criterion essay that “People on Sunday certainly tested the limits of filmmaking at the time. It broke new ground in the final phase of silent film production, introducing a fresh model of independent cinema (well before the term, as we understand it today, even existed) and a bare-bones realism that had a deep impact both contemporaneously and for many years after.” On January 19, Isenberg will take part in the panel discussion “The Afterlives of Edgar G. Ulmer” with Arianné Ulmer Cipes and Stefan Grissemann at the Center for Jewish History.

VENGEANCE IS SHOHEI IMAMURA: A MAN VANISHES

A MAN VANISHES (NINGEN JŌHATSU) (Shôhei Imamaura, 1967)
Asia Society
725 Park Ave. East 70th St.
Saturday, January 18, free with advance RSVP, 6:30
Series runs January 17 – February 1
212-288-6400
www.asiasociety.org

Japanese filmmaker Shohei Imamura blurs the lines between reality and fiction in his cinéma vérité masterpiece, A Man Vanishes. The 1967 black-and-white documentary delves into one of Japan’s annual multitude of missing persons cases, this time investigating the mysterious disappearance of Tadashi Ôshima, a plastics wholesaler who vanished during a business trip. Imamura sends out actor Shigeru Tsuyuguchi (The Insect Woman, Intentions of Murder) to conduct interviews with Ôshima’s fiancée, Yoshie Hayakawa, who develops an interest in her inquisitor; Yoshie’s sister, Sayo, who quickly finds herself on the defensive; business associates who talk about Ôshima’s drinking, womanizing, and embezzling from the company; and several people who remember seeing Sayo together with Ôshima, something she adamantly denies despite the building evidence. Throughout the 130-minute work, the film references itself as being a film, culminating in Imamura’s pulling the rug out from under viewers and calling everything they’ve seen into question in an unforgettable moment that breaks down the fourth wall and explodes the very nature of truth and cinematic storytelling itself. It also explores individual identity and just how much one really knows those closest to them. Originally supposed to be the first of a twenty-four-part series exploring two dozen missing-persons cases, A Man Vanishes ended up being such a challenging undertaking that it was the only one Imamura made, but what a film it is; it would be more than a decade before he returned to fiction, with 1979’s Vengeance Is Mine, which led the way to a spectacular final two decades that also included The Ballad of Narayama, Eijanaika, Black Rain, The Eel, Dr. Akagi, and Warm Water Under a Red Bridge. The amazing A Man Vanishes is screening January 18 at 6:30 as part of the free Asia Society series “Vengeance Is Shohei Imamura,” a five-film, three-weekend salute to the two-time Palme d’Or winner, who passed away in 2006 at the age of seventy-nine, that begins January 17 with Endless Desire and continues with Vengeance Is Mine on January 24, The Ballad of Narayama on January 25, and Black Rain on February 1.

NORDIC OSCAR CONTENDERS: THE HUNT

Mads Mikkelsen was named Best Actor at Cannes for his portrayal of a teacher falsely accused of child abuse (photo by Per Arnesen)

THE HUNT (JAGTEN) (Thomas Vinterberg, 2012)
Scandinavia House
58 Park Ave. at 38th St.
Thursday, January 16, $10, 7:00
Series concludes January 22
212-779-3587
www.magpictures.com/thehunt
www.scandinaviahouse.org

After losing his job as a teacher and going through a difficult divorce, Lucas (Mads Mikkelsen) begins working at a kindergarten in a small, tight-knit community and starts dating a coworker, Nadja (Alexandra Rapaport), but his life quickly hits rock bottom when he is falsely accused of child abuse in Thomas Vinterberg’s harrowing drama The Hunt. Mikkelsen was named Best Actor at the Cannes Film Festival for his deeply sensitive portrayal of a gentle man who suddenly finds himself in the crosshairs of virtually everyone in town immediately after little Klara (Annika Wedderkopp), the daughter of his best friend, Theo (Thomas Bo Larsen), claims that Lucas did bad things to her. Grethe (Susse Wold), the school administrator, doesn’t even give Lucas a chance to defend himself before he loses his job and is ultimately arrested, his only supporters being his son (Lasse Fogelstrøm) and his longtime friend Bruun (Lars Ranthe). Mikkelsen (Pusher, A Royal Affair, After the Wedding) goes from utter disbelief to quiet desperation to all-out rage as Lucas, an everyman who can’t believe what is happening to him, not understanding how nearly everyone has turned their back on him, many attacking him in public and private for something that he didn’t do. Dogme 95 cofounder Vinterberg (Dear Wendy, Festen), who cowrote the Cannes award-winning script with Tobias Lindholm (R, A Hijacking), expertly builds the tension as Lucas’s, and the town’s, growing paranoia threatens to explode. He personalizes the drama in a way that avoids blanket statements about child abuse and faulty and repressed memories while instead focusing on how a young girl’s lie can spiral horrifically out of control. The Hunt, which is on the Oscar shortlist for Best Foreign Language Film, is screening January 16 at 6:00 as part of the Scandinavia House series “Nordic Oscar Contenders,” which began January 8 with the Swedish entry for the Academy Awards, Gabriela Pichler’s Eat Sleep Die, and continues January 22 with Iceland’s Of Horses and Men, directed by Benedikt Erlingsson.

Nominated for one Academy Award: Best Foreign Language Film (Denmark)

WILD DAYS — COMING OF AGE IN 2014: COMMITMENT

K-pop star T.O.P., aka Choi Seung-hyun, stars as a teenage assassin in COMMITMENT

KOREAN MOVIE NIGHT: COMMITMENT (DONG-CHANG-SAENG) (Park Hong-soo, 2013)
Tribeca Cinemas
54 Varick St. at Laight St.
Tuesday, January 14, free, 7:00
212-759-9550
www.koreanculture.org
www.wellgousa.com

After their father (Park Sung-woong) is declared a traitor to North Korea and killed, Lee Myung-hoon (Choi Seung-hyun) and his younger sister, Lee Hye-in (Kim Yoo-jung), are placed in a forced labor camp. When Myung-hoon is nineteen, North Korean agent Moon Sang-chul (Jo Sung-ha) offers him a way out: if he agrees to be a spy/assassin for Kim Jong-Il’s regime, he and his sister will eventually be freed. Accepting the mission, Myung-hoon goes to Seoul, where he attends high school as a cover and makes friends with a loner girl (Han Ye-ri) with the same name as his sister. This Hye-in wants to be a dancer, which brings up memories of Myung-hoon’s childhood dreams of becoming a successful pianist — a long way from being an expert killer, as he carries out his jobs with pinpoint precision. But as Kim Jong-il suddenly falls ill and his son, Kim Jong-un, prepares to take over as supreme leader, all bets are off and it gets harder and harder to know who’s on which side. One day Myung-hoon is messing with a group of tough students who are bullying Hye-in, and the next he is in the middle of a complex plot involving drugs, laundered money, diamonds, and double crosses. Also known as Alumni, Park Hong-soo’s Commitment is an exciting if bumpy thriller about family, loyalty, and friendship. Choi, who is better known as K-pop star T.O.P. of Big Bang, is dark and moody as the teenage assassin who will do anything to protect his sister, while Kim’s character goes through a sudden, hard-to-believe change about halfway through the film. Things get far too convoluted in the final scenes, the plot heading off in all kinds of ridiculous directions, but Choi manages to make it all worthwhile. Commitment, which is playing in several New York City theaters right now, can be seen for free on January 14 at 7:00 at Tribeca Cinemas, kicking off the Korean Movie Night series “Wild Days: Coming of Age in 2014.” Presented by the Korean Cultural Service, the series continues on January 28 with Kwak Kyung-taek’s Friend: The Great Legacy and February 11 with Won Shin-eon’s The Suspect before concluding February 25 with Kang Yi-kwan’s Juvenile Offender.

THE CONTENDERS 2013: OLD DOG

An old man (Lochey) would rather sell himself than his canine companion in Pema Tseden’s OLD DOG

OLD DOG (LAO GOU/KHYI RGAN) (Pema Tseden, 2011)
MoMA Film, Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53rd St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
Sunday, January 12, 3:30
Series continues through January 16
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

Pema Tseden’s Old Dog is a beautifully told, slowly paced meditation on Buddhism’s four Noble Truths — “Life means suffering”; The origin of suffering is attachment”; “The cessation of suffering is attainable”; and “There is a path to the cessation of suffering” — that ends with a shocking, manipulative finale that nearly destroys everything that came before it. In order to get a little money and to save the family’s sheep-herding dog from being stolen, Gonpo (Drolma Kyab) sells their Tibetan nomad mastiff to Lao Wang (Yanbum Gyal), a dealer who resells the prized breed to stores in China, where they’re used for protection. When Gonpa’s father (Lochey) finds out what his son has done, he goes back to Lao Wang and demands the return of the dog he’s taken care of for thirteen years. “I’d sell myself before the dog,” he tells his son. And so begins a gentle tale of parents and children, set in a modern-day Tibet that is ruled by China’s heavy hand. Gonpa’s father doesn’t understand why his son, a lazy man who rides around on a motorized bike and never seems to do much of anything, doesn’t yet have any children of his own, so he pays for Gonpa and his wife Rikso (Tamdrin Tso), to go to the doctor to see what’s wrong. Meanwhile, the old man keeps a close watch on his dog, wary that Lao Wang will to try to steal it again. Writer-director Pema Tseden (The Silent Holy Stones, The Search) explores such themes as materialism, family, and attachment in a lovely little film that sadly is nearly ruined by its extreme final scene. If you missed Old Dog last year as part of the MoMA series “Chinese Realities/Documentary Visions,” you have another chance to catch it, as it’s screening January 12 at 3:30 as part of MoMA’s annual series “The Contenders,” consisting of exemplary films the museum believes will stand the test of time; upcoming entries include Jehane Noujaim’s The Square, Frederick Wiseman’s At Berkeley, and Sebastián Lelio’s Gloria.

HAMLET

Hamlet (director and star Bruce Ramsay) contemplates his bleak future in streamlined version of the Bard

HAMLET (Bruce Ramsay, 2011)
Cinema Village
22 East 12th St. between University Pl. & Fifth Ave.
Opens Friday, January 10
212-924-3363
www.cinemavillage.com
www.facebook.com

Director and star Bruce Ramsay strips down and condenses the Bard in his 1940s-set noirish update of Hamlet, but in doing so he also drains one of Shakespeare’s most powerful tragedies of all its poetry and emotion. Trimming the tale down to a far-too-lean eighty-seven minutes, Ramsay cuts out characters and reinterprets scenes to focus on the family-related aspects of the story of betrayal, madness, murder, and revenge, using the original text for the most part while setting the entire film in one large house (actually the University Women’s Club in Vancouver). He fills the cast with veterans of Canada’s Bard on the Beach series, including Gillian Barber as Gertrude, Duncan Fraser as Polonius, Haig Sutherland as Laertes, Martin Sims as Guildenstern, Russell Roberts as the ghost of Hamlet’s father, and Lara Gilchrist as Ophelia; Welsh actor Peter Wingfield plays Claudius, with Stephen Lobo as Horatio and Bret Stait as Rosencrantz. The bare-bones film was shot in three days (for a mere — and rather admirable — $27,000), but it’s taken nearly three years for it to get a U.S. theatrical release, and it’s easy to see why. Ramsay’s Hamlet is more like a failed episode of Masterpiece Theatre, sort of Agatha Christie meets Downton Abbey in postwar London, than a fresh new look at the extremely familiar play, though it is a noble attempt. Indeed, “I must be cruel to be kind. Thus bad begins and worse remains behind.” Hamlet opens at Cinema Village on January 10, with Ramsay taking part in Q&As following the 7:10 screenings on Friday and Saturday night.