this week in film and television

HAPPY CLEANERS

The Choi family finds itself at a critical crossroads in Flushing in Happy Cleaners

HAPPY CLEANERS (Julian Kim & Peter S. Lee, 2018)
Opens virtually Friday, February 12
koreanamericanstory.org
K-Town Stories

Following appearances at seventeen festivals around the globe, including the Asian American International Film Festival, KAFFNY Infinite Cinema, and Queens World Film Festival based here in New York City, Happy Cleaners is getting its virtual streaming release starting February 12. Set in Flushing, Queens, the insightful, small-scale film is produced by KoreanAmericanStory.org, founded in 2010 to document the Korean-American experience. Written and directed by Julian Kim and Peter S. Lee and cowritten by producer Kat Kim, Happy Cleaners is about a multigenerational immigrant family trying to make it in Flushing despite familiar hardships. “As Korean-Americans, we have called this country our home for over one hundred years. However, we have never really felt like true members of the family but mere guests in someone else’s house,” the filmmakers explain in their note about the film.

Gentle Mr. Choi (Charles Ryu) and stern Mrs. Choi (Hyanghwa Lim) operate a large dry cleaners on a busy corner. Their son, Kevin (Yun Jeong), works at Big D’s Grub Truck, a mobile food purveyor of Asian fusion cuisine — grinders, tacos, bulgogi, dumplings, and yuca fries. (Note: Big D’s is a real operation in NYC, and I highly recommend their grub.) Kevin wants to move to LA and start his own food truck business, but he doesn’t exactly have a plan. His mother is furious with him, insisting he stay in school and become a doctor, which he has no interest in. Kevin’s sister, Hyunny (Yeena Sung), works as a nurse in a hospital, contributing money to her parents and refereeing the battles between mother and son. But Mrs. Choi is also angry at Hyunny for refusing to break up with her boyfriend, Danny (Donald Chang), who she thinks will hold her back; Danny has recently quit school to work in a liquor store. When the new landlord of the dry cleaners (John Del Vecchio) starts poking around shortly before the lease is up for renewal — the store has been a part of the community for seventeen years — the Chois face an uncertain future in a country the parents still do not feel at home in.

Happy Cleaners might not be a wholly original tale, but it has an intimate, authentic feel as it deals with cultural identity, assimilation, and tradition. “It’s not my fault you live like this,” Kevin shouts at his father, who responds, “What do you know about our lives?” When Kevin and his mother argue about how to prepare a favorite family dish, she tells him, “It’s better bland than salty,” a metaphor for their different approaches to life. Overseeing it all is Kevin’s wise, feisty grandmother (Jaehee K. Wilder), who always knows just what to say. It’s all summed up by Hyunny, who explains, “This is the fate of being children of immigrants. It’s even embedded in our ethnicity in the form of a hyphen.” That multifaceted identity is expressed further in the song that plays over the closing credits, rap duo Year of the Ox’s “Word to the Hyphen.” Winner of the Narrative Audience Award at San Francisco’s CAAMFest Happy Cleaners might not break new ground, but it’s a realistic, heartfelt drama about the American dream and its impact on a Queens family that finds itself at a crossroads, in more ways than one.

SHOW ME WHAT YOU GOT

Neyssan Falahi, Cristina Rambaldi, and Mattia Minasi play a trio of pretty lovers in Svetlana Cvetko’s Show Me What You Got

SHOW ME WHAT YOU GOT (Svetlana Cvetko, 2020)
Opens Friday, February 12
www.showmewhatyougot.film
www.levelforward.live

Cinematographer Svetlana Cvetko pays homage to the French New Wave in her second feature-length film, Show Me What You Got. Her follow-up to the Netflix thriller Deadly Switch is a riff on François Truffaut’s menage-a-trois classic, Jules and Jim, spiced up with elements of Jean-Luc Godard (Bande à part) and Agnes Varda (Cléo from 5 to 7), photographed in black-and-white so it often resembles a TV ad for perfume. It looks great, but there’s only so much compassion the audience will be able to dredge up for the three protagonists, a trio of lost, pulchritudinous twentysomethings searching for home as they get it on in modern-day LA.

Looking like a young, red-haired, freckle-faced Bon Jovi, Mattia Minasi is Marcello, the gorgeous son of an Italian soap opera star (Pietro Genuardi), who has been sent to LA to have a series of meetings about future projects for his father. Scraggly bearded Adrien Brody doppelgänger Neyssan Falahi is Nassim, a wannabe actor whose father wants him to return to the family in Tehran and whose mother (Anne Brochet) wants him to visit her in Paris. And former dancer Cristina Rambaldi, a compelling mix of Maria Schneider and Giulietta Masina and the granddaughter of Oscar-winning special effects wizard Carlo Rambaldi (Alien, E.T.), is Christine, a visual artist working at the Back on the Beach Café who had been living in her grandfather’s room at a nursing facility until he passed away, devastating her. All three millennials are searching for purpose in their lives as well as for a sense of home, and they find that in one another, particularly in bed, where they interact with a furious freedom and a wild abandon, with no thought about how long that can last as the real world hovers ever closer.

At one point, Christine leads them to an art campground in the middle of nowhere in the Joshua Tree desert, where they sit on the edge of a large boat on a hill. The omniscient narrator says, “Each of them empathize with this boat differently. Marcello relates to it as adrift but adventurous. Nassim sees it as out of place. Lost on its journey. Christine believes the boat could be Noah’s Ark, where all the people she’s truly loved, living or dead, could be together, forever.” The narration is intimately delivered in French by Anne-Laure Jardry, a friend of Cvetko’s, over lovely shots of the boat, the three lovers, and the vast landscape as Eric Avery’s score plays. The scene is an example of what doesn’t quite work in the film: Each part on its own is lovely, but when put together it reveals the central flaw, that Cvetko tells instead of shows, continually explaining in detail what we should be learning or already know from the narrative itself, rather than from the narration, which can be lovely and poetic at times as it spells it all out for us. It’s also difficult to empathize with the three characters, who are living quite the youthful life in the now as they abandon thinking about what comes next. They also each are dealing with the patriarchal part of their families, either a father or grandfather; Cvetko suffered the loss of her own father while filming, and cowriter, producer, and editor David Scott Smith’s father passed away during the editing stage.

Cvetko (Red Army, Inside Job), who has photographed numerous documentaries, shoots the film in a cinéma verité style that makes us flies on the wall of this polyamorous relationship. The director encouraged the actors to improvise, which brings an immediacy to the film as well as a forced naturalism. One of the best scenes is when Christine is in a bathtub, fully clothed, experiencing either a flashback or an imagined fear, with haunting music by Avery. Cvetko cuts to Nassim shadowboxing in front of a mirror, then over to Marcello, deep in thought on a couch, and back to Christine, rolling around on the floor, overcome with emotion. There’s no dialogue, no narration, just the three of them, seen individually, and we begin to understand them in new ways. When they appear together onscreen again, that moment becomes a memory for us, and I wished for more scenes like that during the film, hoping Cvetko would trust the viewer to figure things out on their own. Alas, she shows us too much of what she’s got.

Show Me What You Got releases virtually on February 12. On February 14 at 8:00, Level Forward will host the screening and live event “The Sensuality of Show Me What You Got,” with clinical sexologist Dr. Laurie Bennett-Cook, followed February 15 at 8:00 by “Filmmaker’s Workshop: The Vision & Visual of Svetlana Cvetko,” with Cvetko.

SUMMERSTAGE ANYWHERE: RODNEY KING FILM CONVERSATION WITH ROGER GUENVEUR SMITH AND DR. STEPHANIE LEIGH BATISTE

Roger Guenveur Smith will discuss his role as Rodney King in Spike Lee film as part of SummerStage Anywhere series

Who: Roger Guenveur Smith, Dr. Stephanie Leigh Batiste
What: Live discussion and Q&A
Where: SummerStage Anywhere
When: Thursday, February 11, free, 7:00
Why: “So whatcha wanna do, Rodney King? Reminisce?” Roger Guenveur Smith asks in Rodney King. “It goes a little bit something like this. . . .” Directed by Spike Lee, the 2017 film is a document of Smith’s one-man multimedia stage show exploring who Rodney King is as a human being and not just a controversial figure who became the symbol of the 1992 LA riots. On February 11 at 7:00, Smith, who has appeared in numerous Lee movies and has also portrayed Booker T. Washington, Huey P. Newton, and basebrawlers Juan Marichal and John Roseboro, will discuss the film with Dr. Stephanie Leigh Batiste, associate professor of Black studies and English at the University of California, Santa Barbara, offering new perspectives given the BLM protests that began last May following the murder of George Floyd at the hands of police. The film is available on Netflix or can be watched for free here in advance. The event is part of SummerStage Anywhere, an online initiative of the City Parks Foundation that also includes last week’s “Lift Every Voice: Celebrating 150 Years of James Weldon Johnson’s Legacy,” with Desmond Richardson, Khalia Campbell, Angie Swan, Laila Jeter, Donovan Canales, Elizabeth Alexander, and Phylicia Rashad, and continues February 18 with “The Rewind: A Celebration of Black Culture,” introduced by Greg Tate, and February 25 with “Michael Mwenso: Hope, Resist, and Heal,” a performance and conversation with Michael Mwenso and Shannon Effinger.

REEL PIECES WITH ANNETTE INSDORF: SPECIAL ONLINE CONVERSATION WITH RAMIN BAHRANI

Ramin Bahrani and Annette Insdorf will discuss The White Tiger and more in 92Y talk and Q&A

Who: Annette Insdorf, Ramin Bahrani
What: Special online conversation about The White Tiger
Where: 92Y
When: Monday, February 8, free with RSVP. 8:00
Why: Iranian-American writer, director, and producer Ramin Bahrani burst onto the indie scene in 2005 with his brilliant Man Push Cart, followed by the charming Chop Shop and Goodbye Solo. He was nominated for the Golden Lion for 2013’s At Any Price and 2015’s 99 Homes but slipped a bit with his 2018 HBO adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. Bahrani is now back with the Netflix original The White Tiger, based on the Booker Prize–winning novel by his friend Aravind Adiga. The film stars Adarsh Gourav as a young boy who sees his future out of poverty by working for wealthy masters (Rajkummar Rao and Priyanka Chopra Jonas) who will help him climb the ladder of success, at an ever-increasing price. On February 8 at 8:00, Bahrani, a Columbia graduate and film professor, will join film historian, Columbia professor, and author Annette Insdorf for her 92nd St. Y series “Reel Pieces,” a livestreamed conversation and audience Q&A; admission is free with RSVP. You can also check out previous episodes of the show, online during the pandemic (Aaron Sorkin, Sofia Coppola) and from the before time in person (Greta Gerwig, Glenda Jackson, Nick Nolte), here.

KIRSTEN JOHNSON CARTE BLANCHE: HAROLD AND MAUDE (AND MORE)

Harold (Bud Cort) has a little bit of an obsession with death in very different kind of romantic comedy that is part of Metrograph series

HAROLD AND MAUDE (Hal Ashby, 1971)
Metrograph Digital
Sunday, February 7, 8:00
Series continues through February 18
metrograph.com/screenings

New York City–based cinematographer and documentarian Kirsten Johnson has jumped into the spotlight with her latest nonfiction film, Dick Johnson Is Dead, which is garnering Oscar buzz; the film imagines multiple deaths for her father, who is suffering from dementia. The film was a follow-up to her 2016 autobiographical cinematic memoir, Cameraperson, which put her on the map after years of serving as director of photography for Laura Poitras (The Oath, Citizenfour), Michael Moore (Fahrenheit 9/11), and others. She is currently hosting “Kirsten Johnson Carte Blanche,” five specially selected films for Metrograph Digital, each uniquely dealing with life and death, including Elia Suleiman’s Divine Intervention, Yuval Hameiri’s I Think This Is the Closest to How the Footage Looked, Souleymane Cissé’s Yeelen, and Keisha Rae Witherspoon’s T.

On February 7 at 8:00, she will introduce a one-time-only live fiftieth anniversary screening of the existential cult fave Harold and Maude. Bud Cort (Harold) and Ruth Gordon (Maude) are magnificent in this glorious black comedy from director Hal Ashby (The Last Detail, Shampoo, Being There) and writer Colin Higgins (Foul Play, 9 to 5). Harold is an eighteen-year-old rich kid obsessed with death, regularly flirting with suicide. Maude is a fun-loving, free-spirited senior citizen approaching her eightieth birthday. Ashby throws in just the right amount of post-1960s social commentary, including a very funny antiwar scene, without becoming overbearing, as this could have been a maudlin piece of sentimental claptrap, but instead it’s far from it. Even the Cat Stevens soundtrack (“If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out,” “Tea for the Tillerman,” “Where Do the Children Play?”) works beautifully. Harold and Maude is a tender, uproarious, bittersweet tale that is one of the best of its kind, completely unforgettable, enlightening, and, ultimately, life-affirming in its own odd way. While H&M will screen only on Sunday night, offering a respite from the Super Bowl frenzy, all the other films in “Kirsten Johnson Carte Blanche” will be available for several days after their initial livestream.

M. C. ESCHER: JOURNEY TO INFINITY

Documentary gazes into the complex world of M. C. Escher

M. C. ESCHER: JOURNEY TO INFINITY (Robin Lutz, 2019)
New Plaza Cinema
Opens virtually February 5
kinomarquee.com
newplazacinema.org

Maurits Cornelis Escher, better known as M. C. Escher, is one of the most popular graphic artists of the twentieth century, even though he considered himself a mathematician, not an artist. His fantastical works, often of impossible architectural configurations, are imbedded with a scientific surrealism that has made them favorites on T-shirts, posters, placemats, puzzles, album covers, ads, and tattooed body parts. In 2019, the traveling show “Escher: The Exhibition & Experience” came to Industry City in Brooklyn; the Italian-sponsored presentation included lots of Instagram-friendly installations that invited visitors to put themselves inside some of Escher’s most famous pieces. But who was the Dutch artist?

At the beginning of Robin Lutz’s documentary, M. C. Escher: Journey to Infinity, there’s a shot of fingers typing out the following: “I’m afraid there is only one person in the world who could make a good film about my prints; me.” And so it is; the movie is structured around Escher’s own words, compiled from his notes, journals, lectures, calendars, and letters, elegantly narrated by British actor Stephen Fry. The only talking heads who share their thoughts are two of Escher’s children, George and Jan Escher, and one of Escher’s daughters-in-law, along with, curiously enough, superfan Graham Nash. “I cannot understand why the out-of-control youths of today appreciate my works so much,” Escher says of late-1960s psychedelic re-creations of his butterflies and geometric space objects. Of course, it’s easy to tell what drew, and continues to draw, so many to his artistry.

Supplemented by archival photographs and film footage, Lutz traces Escher’s life and career from his love of drawing as a child and his studies at the Haarlem School of Architecture and Decorative Artists to his falling in love with Jetta Umiker, a romance he explains in rather unique language. His description of a picture of a seemingly endless winding road of trees is particularly revealing, accompanied by the sounds of an echoing church organ, played at St. Bartholomew’s in Haarlem, where Escher honed his craft. The camera focuses on a pair of feet treading the same paths that Escher took, as if he himself is leading us on this journey, focusing on rocks, flowers, birds, leaves, chameleons, and other elements that became his subject matter.

At the age of forty, he writes about his evolving process, involving systematism, recognizability, and the importance of background: “I have things of my own that had to come out, that I could express something others don’t have. . . For me, this is the richest of times.” The film grows richer as well as Escher shares insight behind the creation of some of his most famous works while also discussing isolation, human contact, and the horrors of Fascism and WWII. In addition, Lutz, who also served as producer and cinematographer, has plenty of fun with animation, bringing works to life, from a skull floating through the clouds to moving chess pieces to figures going up and down impossible staircases.

Breathlessly edited by Moek de Groot, M. C. Escher: Journey to Infinity is a pure joy because Lutz lets Escher, who passed away in 1972 at the age of seventy-three, run the show, his words poetic and passionate, the images captivating and mind-bending, infused with an infectious, futuristic energy that transcends the now. It’s an exciting trip deep into one man’s relationship with a complex world that he captured in extraordinary artworks that are likely to dazzle and confound viewers for a long time to come.

TWO OF US (DEUX)

Martine Chevallier and Barbara Sukowa star as secret lovers in Filippo Meneghetti’s Two of Us

TWO OF US (DEUX) (Filippo Meneghetti, 2019)
Film Forum Virtual Cinema
Opens virtually Friday, February 5
www.twoofusfilm.com
filmforum.org

“You and I have memories / longer than the road that stretches out ahead,” the Beatles sing on the 1970 Let It Be song “Two of Us,” continuing, “Two of us wearing raincoats, standing solo / in the sun / You and me chasing paper, getting nowhere / on our way back home / We’re on our way home / We’re on our way home / We’re going home.” The concept of home is at the center of Filippo Meneghetti’s heartbreakingly beautiful Two of Us, France’s official submission for the Best International Feature Film Oscar. Two of Us begins in a park around Montpelier, where two little girls are playing hide-and-seek until one mysteriously disappears. It’s a park where Nina (Barbara Sukowa) and Madeline (Martine Chevallier), affectionately known as Mado, get to enjoy being together in a way they cannot in front of Madeline’s family — the two senior citizens, who live down the hall from each other on the top floor of an apartment building, have been lovers and traveling companions for decades, secrets they have kept from Madeline’s daughter, Anne (Léa Drucker), and son, Frédéric (Jérôme Varanfrain). Madeline promises to finally tell her children about their relationship and that she and Nina are planning to move to Rome, but tragedy strikes, forcing the two women apart, both physically and metaphorically like the girls in the park, but their deeply intense and honest connection isn’t about to relent under the circumstances, which include a villainous caregiver portrayed by Muriel Bénazéraf.

Reminiscent of Michael Haneke’s gorgeously told Amour, in which an elderly couple played by Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva deal with dementia, Two of Us, which does not involve Alzheimer’s, is a magnificent love story and a gripping psychological thriller. Sukowa (Berlin Alexanderplatz, Lola) gives a sexy, harrowing performance as Nina, a determined woman who refuses to give up despite mounting obstacles, while longtime Comédie-Française star Chevallier is a revelation as Madeline, her every movement exquisitely choreographed; Aurélien Marra’s camera seems to be magnetically drawn to her eyes as they search her changed world in silence.

In his debut feature film, the Italian-born, France-based Meneghetti has crafted a love story for the ages, written specifically for Sukowa and Chevallier by Meneghetti and Malysone Bovorasmy with Florence Vignon. Nina spends much of the first part of the film darting across the hall into Mado’s unlocked apartment, no one aware they are a lesbian couple; it is like the hallway is their own red carpet ushering them into their own private fantasy. At certain angles, it appears that they are younger versions of themselves, their passion for each other helping them stay youthful. But after the event, forces conspire to keep them apart, a separation that Nina fights against, resolved to make a home for the two of them. Two of Us is an unforgettable film about place, about belonging, about a love that knows no bounds. As the Beatles also sang on the Let It Be album, “The long and winding road / That leads to your door / Will never disappear / I’ve seen that road before / It always leads me here / Lead me to your door.”

The film opens virtually at Film Forum on February 5; each forty-eight-hour link comes with a conversation with Meneghetti and Sukowa, moderated by Julianne Moore. In conjunction with Two of Us, the French title of which is simply Deux, Film Forum is streaming three other Sukowa films, Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s Lola beginning February 12 and Margarethe Von Trotta’s Hannah Arendt February 19 and Rosa Luxemburg March 5.