Director Julia Ivanova examines a very different kind of family in fascinating documentary
FAMILY PORTRAIT IN BLACK AND WHITE (Julia Ivanova, 2011)
AMC Empire 25
234 West 42nd St. between Seventh & Eighth Aves.
Opens Friday, July 13
212-398-2597
www.familyportraitthefilm.com
www.amctheatres.com
“What difference does it make — black, white, yellow? They are just kids,” says Olga Nenya in the intriguing documentary Family Portrait in Black and White. Evoking the classic nursery rhyme about an old woman who lives in a shoe, Nenya runs a foster home in the Ukraine suburb of Sumy, where she takes care of as many as twenty-seven children (including four of her own), most of whom are mixed-race boys and girls abandoned by their parents, primarily local women and African men who were studying in Eastern Europe. Because of their heritage, the children are despised by neighbors, the growing, violent neo-Nazi movement, and the government, which gives Nenya very little money but then sends inspectors who decry the living conditions in her house. Canadian filmmaker Julia Ivanova, who wrote, directed, and edited the eighty-five-minute documentary in addition to serving as cinematographer, follows the kids as they do their daily chores, go to school, spend the summer with families in Italy, and look forward to the day when they are old enough to go out on their own, either to be legally adopted or to attend university. For as much as most of them love and respect Nenya, she can be a tough, dominating taskmaster with old-fashioned values who selfishly holds on to her flock even when better opportunities are out there for some of her children. A product of Stalinism, Nenya can be dictatorial, yet she clearly loves and cares deeply about her children; as Ivanova focuses in on Kiril, Roman, Anya, and Andrey, each of whom has serious issues about the way they are being raised, the individual relationships become more and more tense. A multiple-award-winning international festival favorite, Family Portrait in Black and White is a compelling look at racism, value systems, and just what family means in today’s ever-changing society.
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 
