this week in film and television

PARK CHAN-WOOK: OLDBOY

Choi Min-sik is at his creepy best in the second part of Park Chan-wook’s Vengeance trilogy

OLDBOY (Park Chan-wook, 2003)
Museum of the Moving Image
35th Ave. at 36th St., Astoria
Friday, March 1, free with museum admission, 7:00
Series runs February 28 – March 3
718-777-6800
www.movingimage.us

The second in director Park Chan-wook’s revenge trilogy (in between Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and the 2005 New York Film Festival selection Sympathy for Lady Vengeance), Oldboy is a twisted, perverse psychological thriller that won the Grand Prix de Jury at Cannes, among many other international awards. Choi Min-sik (Chihwaseon) stars as Oh Dae-su, a man who has been imprisoned for fifteen years — but he doesn’t know why, or by whom. When he is finally released, his search for the truth becomes part of a conspiracy game, as he can seemingly trust no one. As he gets closer to finding everything out, the gore and terror continues to increase. Choi is outstanding as the wild-haired Dae-su in Park’s awesome rampage of a film, which is not for the faint of heart. Oldboy is screening on March 1 as part of a Museum of the Moving Image/Korea Society tribute to Park in conjunction with the release of his first English-language film, Stoker, which opens March 1 but will get a sneak preview at the museum on February 28, with Park on hand to participate in a postscreening discussion; the series continues through March 3 with Joint Security Area, Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Lady Vengeance, and a trio of shorts (Night Fishing, N.E.P.A.L. Never Ending Peace and Love, and Cut).

MoMA SELECTS — POV: MY REINCARNATION

Documentary looks at the complex relationship between a father and son

DOCUMENTARY FORTNIGHT 2013 — MOMA’S INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL OF NONFICTION FILM AND MEDIA: MY REINCARNATION (Jennifer Fox, 2010)
MoMA Film, Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53rd St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
Saturday, March 2, 5:00
Festival runs February 27 – March 4
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.myreincarnationfilm.com

More than twenty years in the making, Jennifer Fox’s My Reincarnation tells the fascinating story of a very unusual father-son relationship amid the modern world of tulkus, or reincarnated Tibetan lamas. World-renowned high Tibetan Buddhist Master Chögyal Namkhai Norbu travels around the world teaching meditation and Dzogchen practice. He meets with the Dalai Lama, advises students and fans, signs copies of his many books, and builds support for his beleaguered native land, Tibet. But his son, Yeshi Silvano Namkhai, who was born in 1970 in Italy (where Rinpoche Namkhai Norbu taught at university from 1964 to 1992), had no desire to follow in his father’s footsteps and instead went into the computer business, starting a family and rejecting nearly everything his father believes in — including that Yeshi might just be the reincarnation of his great-uncle, Khyentse Rinpoche Chökyi Wangchug, and so is destined for a life of service and tradition. “Everybody knows about me and nobody knows me at all,” Yeshi says about trying to establish his own identity. Father and son and the rest of the family allowed Fox remarkable access, holding nothing back as they talk about their lives and each other; Yeshi is particularly vocal about his father’s treatment of him over the years. But soon Yeshi has a change of heart, and the documentary takes an unexpected turn. Fox, who has previously made such films as Beirut: The Last Home Movie, Flying: Confessions of a Free Woman, and An American Love Story, shot more than one thousand hours of footage, which she edited down to a tight seventy-five-minutes, including archival and newsreel footage as well. As much as it is about a father and a son, My Reincarnation is also about the old vs. the new, tradition vs. modernization, private love vs. public responsibility, the spiritual vs. the technological, and, above all, familial legacy. My Reincarnation is screening at MoMA on March 2 at 5:00 as part of the “MoMA Selects: POV” section of “Documentary Fortnight 2013: MoMA’s International Festival of Nonfiction Film and Media” and will be followed by a Q&A with the director; the POV portion, which runs February 27 to March 4, celebrates a quarter-century of the award-winning PBS program POV and also includes such films as Marlon Riggs’s Tongues Untied, Freida Lee Mock’s Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision, Robert Kenner’s Food, Inc., and Alan Berliner’s Nobody’s Business. “As we celebrate our twenty-fifth anniversary on PBS, MoMA’s retrospective program allows us to review our history, share insights about documentary craft and culture with the public, and celebrate with the indie filmmaking community,” POV co-executive producer Cynthia López said in a statement. “The ways in which documentaries have contributed to our culture will be a focus of conversations at the screenings. We hope the public will find that these documentaries inform, entertain, and challenge conventional wisdom.”

MoMA SELECTS — POV: WHERE SOLDIERS COME FROM

Dom grows disillusioned as he serves his country in Afghanistan (photo by Heather Courtney)

DOCUMENTARY FORTNIGHT 2013 — MOMA’S INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL OF NONFICTION FILM AND MEDIAWHERE SOLDIERS COME FROM (Heather Courtney, 2011)
MoMA Film, Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53rd St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
Saturday, March 2, 2:00
Festival runs February 27 – March 4
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.wheresoldierscomefrom.com

Returning to her small hometown of Hancock in Northern Michigan, documentarian Heather Courtney (Letters from the Other Side) wanted to make a film about the Upper Peninsula area and its residents, and she came up with quite a story. For several years, Courtney followed a group of young men who had enlisted in the National Guard because they either didn’t have enough money for college or didn’t know what else to do with their lives; she then traveled with them as they got called up and sent to fight the war in Afghanistan. Dominic Fredianelli, Cole Smith, and Matt “Bodi” Beaudoin never fully considered what they were getting into when they signed up; they clearly did not join up merely for patriotic reasons, so it doesn’t take long before they start questioning what America is doing over there. The three men, along with their families back home, allowed Courtney remarkable access, holding nothing back as they share their bittersweet emotions, their politics, their fears, and their overwhelming confusion. The men’s National Guard unit is assigned to an IED sweeper team that goes out in heavily protected vehicles, searching for and detonating hidden improvised explosive devices, but even carefully monitored explosions take their toll on the soldiers, not to mention the surprise bombs that nearly blow them to pieces. Courtney, who served as producer, director, cinematographer, and coeditor, does not add any voice-over narration or accumulate facts and statistics; instead, she lets the story tell itself, avoiding propaganda and grand statements. At first it is hard to have much sympathy for Dom, Cole, and Bodi, who should have thought a lot more about their decision to join the National Guard, but as they and their families get more deeply involved in the war, Where Soldiers Come From grows ever-more poignant and frightening. Where Soldiers Come From is screening at MoMA on March 2 at 2:00 as part of the “MoMA Selects: POV” section of “Documentary Fortnight 2013: MoMA’s International Festival of Nonfiction Film and Media”; the POV portion, which runs February 27 to March 4, celebrates a quarter-century of the award-winning PBS program POV and also includes such films as Marco Williams and Whitney Dow’s Two Towns of Jasper, Kelly Duane de la Vega and Katie Galloway’s Better This World, Marshall Curry’s If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front, and Laurel Chiten’s Twitch and Shout. “POV films and filmmakers have been at the center of a golden age of documentary filmmaking,” POV executive producer Simon Kilmurry explained in a statement. “The films in MoMA’s special program not only look back at the first twenty-five years of POV but also look forward. Collectively, they illustrate how vibrant and essential documentaries have become in exploring the human experience.”

PARK CHAN-WOOK: STOKER

India (Mia Wasikowska) and Uncle Charlie (Matthew Goode) develop a rather unusual relationship in STOKER

STOKER (Park Chan-wook, 2013)
Museum of the Moving Image
35th Ave. at 36th St., Astoria
Thursday, February 28, $20, 7:00
Series runs through March 3
718-777-6800
www.movingimage.us
www.foxsearchlight.com/stoker

Korean auteur Park Chan-wook has made some of the most suspenseful and violent films of the young century, beginning with the military thriller Joint Security Area and continuing with the Vengeance trilogy, consisting of Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Oldboy, and Lady Vengeance, as well as Thirst and the romantic comedy I’m a Cyborg But That’s OK. A master of mood, Park finally makes his long-awaited English-language debut with Stoker, a creepy, atmospheric work that evokes Alfred Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt, Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby, Michael Haneke’s Funny Games, Paul Wendikos’s The Mephisto Waltz, the television show Dark Shadows, and Richard Donner’s The Omen while also managing to be wholly original. Rising Australian actress Mia Wasikowska (In Treatment, The Kids Are All Right) stars as India Stoker, a shy, introverted high school student whose father, Richard (Dermot Mulroney), has just died in a terrible accident and whose mother, Evelyn (Nicole Kidman), is too quick to grow close with Richard’s brother, Charlie (Matthew Goode) — whom India and her mom didn’t even know existed until he just showed up at the funeral. Uncle Charlie seems to have a mysterious power over people and a chilling need to control situations, especially when it comes to those who know about his secret past, including the old housekeeper, Mrs. McGarrick (Phyllis Somerville), and Charlie’s aunt, Gin (Jacki Weaver). He also takes great pleasure in placing himself firmly in the middle of a potential incestuous love triangle with Evelyn and India. But once India learns more than she ever wanted to know about her uncle, she is both repulsed by and attracted to what he is capable of. Written and coproduced by actor Wentworth Miller (The Human Stain, Prison Break), Stoker is another compelling mood piece from Park, who creates a gripping, fearful, claustrophobic world inside the Stoker’s large Nashville mansion. He releases information ever-so-slowly over the course of the film’s ninety-nine minutes, resulting in plenty of frustration as well as suspense. The look of the film, courtesy of production designer Thérèse DePrez and cinematographer Chung Chung-hoon, often has a dated, 1950s feel to it, even though it is set in the present day, with flat colors that offset India’s black-and-white shoes. The film suffers from several leaps of faith Park requires the audience to make, asking them to forgive some relatively unforgivable plot holes, and Goode is not quite convincing enough as Charlie, but Wasikowska’s portrayal of the troubled young woman is riveting, and everything comes around full circle in the shattering conclusion. Stoker, which opens theatrically on March 1, is having a special advance screening on February 28 as part of the Museum of the Moving Image tribute to Park and will be followed by a discussion with the director; the series continues through March 3 with Park’s Oldboy, Joint Security Area, Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Lady Vengeance, and a trio of shorts (Night Fishing, N.E.P.A.L. Never Ending Peace and Love, and Cut).

INTO THE SHINTOHO MIND WARP — FROM THE SECOND AGE OF JAPANESE FILM: GHOST STORY OF YOTSUYA

Penniless samurai Iemon Tamiya (Shigeru Amachi) plots a murderous path to success in GHOST STORY OF YOTSUYA

GLOBUS FILM SERIES 2013: GHOST STORY OF YOTSUYA (TOKAIDO YOTSUYA KAIDAN (Hirokazu Kore-eda, 2009)
Japan Society
333 East 47th St. at First Ave.
Wednesday, February 27, $12, 8:00
Series runs February 27 – March 10
212-715-1258
www.japansociety.org

Last year, Japan Society’s Globus Film Series, “Love Will Tear Us Apart,” featured contemporary films from Japan and Korea that explored love, sex, fetishism, and violence in unusual ways. This year Globus focuses its attention on the Japanese film studio Shintoho, which broke off from the famous Toho Company during a strike and went on to make more than five hundred movies during the 1950s and 1960s, many becoming low-budget cult classics. Curated by Mark Schilling, “Into the Shintoho Mind War: Girls, Guns & Ghosts from the Second Golden Age of Japanese Film” kicks off February 27 with Nobuo Nakagawa’s Ghost Story of Yotsuya (Tokaido Yotsuya Kaidan), an oft-told Macbeth-like tale based on an 1825 kabuki play written by Tsuruya Nanboku IV. Filled with ambition and no moral code, penniless samurai Iemon Tamiya (Shigeru Amachi) and his servant, Naosuke (Shuntarô Emi), decide to murder their way up the ladder to success. First they meet the innocent sisters Iwa (Katsuko Wakasugi) and Sode (Noriko Kitazawa), but they have to get rid of Iwa’s fiancée, Yomoshichi (Ryûzaburô Nakamura), if Iemon is to marry her and then Naosuke is to take Sode. Once Iemon and Iwa wed and have a child, he starts eyeing Ume Itô (Junko Ikeuchi), whose wealthy father could lift his still-low standing, but that means Iemon would have to dispose of Iwa and her loyal friend, Takuetsu (Jun Ôtomo). However, as Iemon soon finds out, death does not necessarily deny vengeance. Shot in lurid reds and greens by Tadashi Nishimoto, Ghost Story of Yotsuya takes quite a while to get going, spending far too much time establishing Iemon and Naosuke as evil characters with no conscience, but once it delves into the horror realm, it becomes wickedly good fun, including fantastic makeup and genuine chills, along with plenty of strangeness. Much of the film doesn’t make sense, and some of it is downright monotonous, but the ending is quite a memorable one. The screening at Japan Society will be followed by the Enka Ecstasy party, with attendees encouraged to wear black-and-white clothing with two color accessories (we suggest red and green, of course); Neo Blues Maki will perform. The series, with all films being New York premieres, continues through March 10 with Teruo Ishii’s Flesh Pier and Yellow Line, Yoshiro Ishikawa’s Ghost Cat of Otama Pond, Michiyoshi Doi’s The Horizon Glitters, Toshio Shimura’s Revenge of the Pearl Queen, Kyotaro Namiki’s Vampire Bride, and Nakagawa’s Death Row Woman.

TWI-NY TALK: ERIC BECKMAN/NYICFF

Eric Beckman founded the New York International Children's Film Festival in 1997

Eric Beckman founded the New York International Children’s Film Festival with his wife in 1997

NEW YORK INTERNATIONAL CHILDREN’S FILM FESTIVAL
Multiple venues throughout Manhattan
[Not for] Children Film Festival Benefit: February 28, $300 – $1,000
March 1-24, $13 (opening-night $20-$40)
All-Access VIP Pass: $400
www.gkids.com

Since its beginnings in 1997, the New York International Children’s Film Festival has been dedicated to bringing more intelligent movies to kids ages three to eighteen. Part of GKIDS (Guerrilla Kids International Distribution Syndicate), NYICFF hosts programs year-round, but its bigger-than-ever sixteenth annual festival is scheduled to take place March 1-24, spread out across such venues as Asia Society, the IFC Center, Tribeca Cinemas, FIAF, the Film Society of Lincoln Center, Scholastic, the DGA Theater, and the SVA Theatre. More than one hundred features, shorts, documentaries, and animated films will be presented from France, Belgium, Canada, India, Japan, the Netherlands, Italy, Taiwan, America, and other nations, in addition to workshops, a filmmaking camp, a prefestival not-for-children benefit (showing films that were submitted to NYICFF but are clearly not for kids), and the opening-night gala, the U.S. premiere of Benjamin Renner’s animated Ernest & Celestine, followed by a catered reception. This year’s jury, which includes such actors, writers, directors, and producers as Geena Davis, Gus Van Sant, Susan Sarandon, Jeffrey Wright, Christine Vachon, and Michael Modine, has also selected such films as Laurent Boileau and Jung Henin’s Approved for Adoption, Enzo D’Alò’s Pinocchio, the English-language premiere of Koji Masunari’s Welcome to the Space Show, and the Spanish-language version of Wreck-It Ralph called ¡Rompe Ralph! Eric Beckman, who cofounded NYICFF in 1997 with his wife, Emily Shapiro, was only too happy to discuss this year’s festival and the state of children’s films in general.

twi-ny: What prompted you to form GKIDS and NYCIFF in the first place?

Eric Beckman: NYICFF was formed to fill a void in the marketplace for exciting, meaningful, diverse, nuanced, eye-opening, thought-provoking film for young people. At the time we launched back in the late 1990s, the indie film movement was in full swing, and on any given weekend in New York City you could see maybe one hundred different films for adults — edgy indie films, French art films, romantic comedies, teen sex comedies, high-brow Oscar bait, action pictures, silent film retrospectives, and so on — literally any kind of film you could imagine was on tap for adults. But for kids there would be just one movie playing, which seemed just wrong for a city like New York. So the germinating idea for the festival was that we would bring a hugely exciting world of film to NYC every winter so that for four weeks during the festival, there would be the same kind of cinematic diversity and creativity and range of experience for kids that there is for adults.

twi-ny: How has the festival changed over the years, since its debut in 1997?

Eric Beckman: We’re much bigger (the largest in North America). NYICFF is now an Oscar qualifying festival, we have more films — and perhaps equally important we have a paid staff. We have also secured a reputation as a significant industry event on par with the prestige “adult” festivals in terms of important feature premieres and our record of introducing significant new directors to U.S. audiences and debuting future Oscar nominees. But the core concept is still exactly the same — uncompromising, excellent film for ages three to eighteen, including shorts, features, animation, live action, docs, and experimental films from six continents.

Benjamin Renner’s ERNEST & CELESTINE will open the 2013 New York International Children’s Film Festival

twi-ny: Do you think children’s films themselves have changed over the last sixteen years?

Eric Beckman: Yes and no. The Pixar animated CGI picture has supplanted Pocahontas/Lion King as the model to emulate. And more recently, with companies like Laika and others producing pictures every few years, there has been a wider variety of films out there — which has been great. But the underlying market forces that limit what is available for children have remained, and if anything have gotten stronger. Unlike films for adults, there is no independent circuit for children’s movies, so pretty much everything that is released is engineered to reach a mass audience. Amour at $4 million box office gross is a critical and financial success — but The Pirates! at $31 million is a potential write-down, even though it is a wonderful movie. So this pressure to reach mass audience to achieve $150 million domestic box office continues to affect the types of children’s films that get made in the U.S. — and severely limits the number of independent or foreign titles that can get a release. NYICFF and GKIDS are working to build that indie-for-kids circuit — and we have had some notable success at the Oscars and getting films attention and distribution, a trend we expect to continue.

twi-ny: With everyone, including children, having more access to films of all kinds over the internet, on cable, and on handheld devices, should parents worry more than ever about what their kids are watching?

Eric Beckman: This is a parenting question, so I will take off my film festival director hat for a moment. I have three children, and to be honest I am not overly worried about content. I am more concerned with limiting screen time, making room for reading, exploring art, theater, music, and other activities — and encouraging creative use of technology rather than passive consuming. Yes, there is some terrible stuff out there, but hopefully you raise your kids to make good choices rather than making the choices for them.

twi-ny: You have another prestigious jury this year. What do you look for in a jurist?

Eric Beckman: That is an often-asked question — as clearly Gus Van Sant and James Schamus do not jump to mind when you think of children’s films. But it is exactly that take we are looking for. We reach out to jurors who love and understand and are involved in creating great films. Not great children’s films, but great films period. Our jurors generally fall into one or more of three categories: actors or filmmakers (many of them parents) who we saw were coming to the festival so were already fans and supporters; innovative and provocative filmmakers who support a wider and more interesting range of film being made for young people; and renowned foreign filmmakers whose works first found U.S. audiences through the festival.

twi-ny: On February 28, there’s a specifically “not for children” benefit. What can adults expect from that?

Eric Beckman: The NY Int’l [Not for] Children’s Film Festival is a really, really fun and slightly naughty event. Every year NYICFF receives submissions that are so “not for kids” that you have to wonder what the person submitting the film was thinking. This began at the very first festival, with a film made with Barbie dolls that would definitely garner an NC-17 rating. So a few years ago, we decided to show a few of these films at a private cocktail party we were doing for board members, staff, and other friends of the festival. Everyone had so much fun we made it the theme of our fundraiser that year, and thus began the tradition.

The event takes place Feb 28, the night before Opening Night. You will want to reserve your babysitter now! It is at Tribeca Film Center and involves a screening of very inappropriate films that were submitted to the festival, plus food, cocktails, drinking games, prizes (courtside Knicks tickets, racecar driving school, all-access family passes to the festival . . .) and more things that I am not even aware of, since I am not on the benefit committee. The proceeds benefit the festival’s FilmEd program, which assures that economically disadvantaged New York City families have access to the festival’s programs and filmmaking classes. So it is a great event for a great cause.

SPECIAL PREVIEW: HAVA NAGILA (THE MOVIE)

Documentary delves into the fascinating history behind traditional Jewish song that became an international sensation

HAVA NAGILA (THE MOVIE) (Roberta Grossman, 2012)
JCC in Manhattan
334 Amsterdam Ave. at West 76th St.
Thursday, February 28, $10, 7:00
646-505-5708
www.havanagilamovie.com
www.jccmanhattan.org

“What’s up with this song? So kitschy, yet so profound,” director and narrator Roberta Grossman says at the beginning of her rollicking documentary, Hava Nagila (The Movie). “And what’s the deal with the chair?” A staple at Jewish celebrations, primarily weddings and bar/bat mitzvahs, “Hava Nagila” instantly gets friends and family members out on the dance floor, forming a circle and doing the Hora. Grossman delves into the history and mystery of the catchy song, which over the years has been performed by an unlikely crew that has included Harry Belafonte, Connie Francis, Glen Campbell, Johnny Yune, and Regina Spektor, all of whom appear in the film and discuss the tune’s popularity. (There are also archival performances from all around the world as well as an anti-“Hava” song from Bob Dylan.) Also putting “Hava Nagila” into perspective are Yiddish theater veteran Leonard Nimoy, communications professor Josh Kun, and KlezKamp founder Henry Sapoznik, a “Hava” hater who says with a more than a touch of cynicism, “It’s relentless. It’s resilient. But then again, so are cockroaches,” a statement that exemplifies Grossman’s playful attitude, exemplified by her corny captioning and clever clips from such TV shows and movies as Laugh-In, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Thoroughly Modern Millie, The Danny Kaye Show, A Serious Man, Wedding Crashers, History of the World Part I, and Fiddler on the Roof. But she also reveals another side to the song, as described by professor James Loeffler, who explains, “‘Hava’ is a portal into a century and a half of Jewish history.” Grossman ( Blessed Is the Match: The Life and Death of Hannah Senesh) sets off on what she calls a “Hava Quest,” venturing to the village of Sadagora in Ukraine, the birthplace of the song, and later meeting with two warring families battling over authorship of the words and music. She traces its impact on the development of the State of Israel and the Jewish migration to suburban America, and, yes, she lays out precisely what the words of the song mean. Like the song itself, Hava Nagila (The Movie) is a fun and fanciful frolic into the fascinating story behind one of the most famous songs that so many know so little about. The film opens March 1 in New York, but you can catch a special sneak preview on February 28 at 7:00 at the JCC in Manhattan, followed by a conversation with Grossman.