Classic Movie Review: The Demons (2015)

The Demons (2015)

Directed by: Philippe Lesage.

Written by: Philippe Lesage.

Starring: Edouard Tremblay-Grenier (Felix), Pier-Luc Funk (Ben), Vassili Schneider (Francois), Sarah Motter (Emmanuelle), Laurent Lucas (Marc), Pascale Bussieres (Claire), Victoria Diamond (Rebecca), Yannick Gobeil-Dugas (Mathieu), Alfred Poirier (Alexandre), Mathis Thomas (Patrick), Theodore Pellerin (David), Benedicte Decary (Nicole), Rose-Marie Perreault (Stephanie), Milya Corbeil-Gauvreau (Sophie), Jean-Luc Terriault (Max), Samuel Hurtubise (Samuel), Philippe Lesage (Professeur), Samuel Desjardins (Denis Morissette).

 

Childhood can be a terrifying time for many kids – kids who feel out-of-place and uneasy everywhere. They only half understand the adult world which this witness through their parents, which both fascinates and scares them. They only half understand themselves – their own feelings, which often can be confusing to them – which just adds to that unease. Just getting through the days can be scary – and that’s just in your own mind, your own skin. What of the dangers that lurk outside in the world?

 

Few films have captured this unease as brilliantly as Philippe Lesage’s remarkable debut feature The Demons. When the film came out in 2015, it was mostly slept on outside of Festival audiences, and its native Quebec – even I barely heard of it here in Ontario, and I missed it and didn’t give it much attention until I caught up with Lesage’s equally remarkable follow-up Genesis, which reveals itself to be a quasi-sequel to The Demons only in the last 30 minutes of its runtime (it stands on its own, even if you haven’t seen this film). Now having seen them both, I can say that Genesis feels like a step forward for Lesage – moving more towards his own style more than The Demons – which does have its own style, but is more obviously inspired by Michael Haneke than Genesis was. But as a film unto itself, I think The Demons is even better.

 

The film focuses – at least in its first half – on Felix (Edouard Tremblay-Grenier), who is about 10 years old, and confused and scared about just about everything. His parents marriage is falling apart – he witnesses a terrifying fight between his parents, and even his older siblings get involved, just trying to calm everything down. A different type of confusion comes from his feelings for Rebecca (Victoria Diamond) – his swim teacher, from whom he has a crush on, but doesn’t have the words to express it, or the emotional maturity to understand it. The further complicate his budding sexuality, he thinks he may be gay – which leads, after a school project by another girl, to worry that he has AIDS. He also listens to his older brother and his friends – which adds to the fear and confusion – their casual homophobic remarks make Felix sink deeper into his own confused sexual awakening, keeping it to himself – and their talk about a series of kidnappings of young boys like himself scare him even though he cannot be sure if he’s listening to urban legend, or reality. His older siblings are supportive – but realtively clueless to really help him.

 

For the first hour, Lesage masterfully builds the tension – quietly, subtly. Much of the action is centered at the local pool where Felix swims with his friends. That pool represents so much – from freedom and fun, to his confused sexuality, and even cruelty. Wanting to fit in with another friend, he locks the smaller, weaker Alexandre – a boy we’ve already seen Felix take advantage of in exploring his possible homosexuality (in the way 10-years old can do) – into a locker and won’t let him out. It’s at the pool where we also first meet Ben (Pier-Luc Funk) – who will become the focus for much of the second half of the movie. Ben is a fun and personable guy – in his late teens probably – and the kids at the pool like him. We start to have suspicions about him though when he finds a discarded pair of boys underwear – and doesn’t do with them what we think he should. Ben is the focus on the at times nearly impossible to watch (but equally impossible to turn away from) second half – when Felix’s childhood fears are proven to be real – even if he doesn’t know it.

 

The Demons is a masterfully directed film – it builds the tension slowly, with long, interrupted takes, and slow zooms to reveal what we’re looking at. It’s the type of film where some people will complain that nothing happens – that they are bored by it – and others will be transfixed from its opening to its close. Other may well be turned off by the turn at the halfway mark of the film – that really is difficult to watch, even if it’s never explotive. But for those who get on its wavelength, The Demons is a masterful film – one of the best, and certainly one of the most underrated, debut films of the decade.

Classic Movie Review: Kaili Blues (2015)

Kaili Blues (2015) 

Directed by: Gan Bi.

Written by: Gan Bi.

 Starring: Yongzhong Chen (Chen Shen), Yue Guo (Yang Yang), Linyan Liu (Zhang Xi), Feiyang Luo (Wei Wei  - Little), Lixun Xie (Crazy Face), Zhuohua Yang (Monk), Shixue Yu (Wei Wei - Older), Daqing Zhao (Elderly Doctor). 

 

Chinese director Bi Gan’s debut film Kaili Blues is about as distinctive of a film as debut films get. You can see his influences in it clearly – some David Lynch, some Andrei Tarkovsky, some Apichatpong Weerasethakul – but all filtered through the directors own sensibility to come up with something entirely his own. As many first time directors do, I think Bi Gan is perhaps trying a little too hard here – trying to get all the tricks he can think of into one film, just in case he never gets to make another one. And yet the visual style and storytelling is so strong that it overcomes that problem to become one of the more interesting directorial debuts this decade.

 

To describe Kaili Blues is more likely than not to fail at describing what makes Kaili Blues a special film. It is the story of Chen, a doctor (of sorts) who works at a rundown clinic in the title city, alongside an elderly woman. He has spent time in jail – during which time he has lost his wife and mother. He has a house – and a half-brother – known as Crazy Face, who has a son – Wei Wei – who Chen is closer to than Crazy Face is. The first half of Kaili Blues is about establishing Chen, his time, his place, and those around him. The second half dives deeper in the mysteries around them – and about time and space altogether.

 

The second half takes Chen on a journey to a nearby town – Dangmai – which in many ways makes the rundown town of Kaili look great by comparison. He is there to find Wei Wei – who Crazy Face may have sold, as well as other tasks as well. The show stopping part of the second half is a brilliantly executed, mesmerizing 40-minute shot through the town of Dangmai. Sure, Bi Gan and cinematographer Tianxing Wang – are showing off here, but the shot works on a deeper level than most shorts of its kind. It connects the people and places together, bringing them together and intertwining their memories together. We know that we aren’t in a linear narrative here – the past, present and future are colliding in this town, in this shot – as Wei Wei is no longer the 10-year-old he was when we last saw him, but now a 20-year-old young man.

 

I am, I admit, struggling to figure out what to say about Kaili Blues in some ways, because I’m not quite sure how to describe it in a way that will evoke its meanings. The storytelling in the film is strong, in that it is confident, not so much because it is clearly defined. Bi Gan isn’t interested in that really. The film is visually mesmerizing from beginning to end.

 

I wanted to watch this film before I saw his follow-up – Long Day‘s Journey into Night (which, unfortunately, is starting to look like I will miss on the big screen – it came and went from the Lightbox is a week, and even during that time, had very limited screenings. Muck like I am sure this film loses something not being seen on the big screen, that one will as well. But the confidence of this film has made me very interested in seeing whatever Bi Gan has up his sleeve next.

Movie Review: Backcountry

Backcountry (2015) *** / *****

Directed by: Adam MacDonald.

Written by: Adam MacDonald.

Starring: Jeff Roop (Alex), Missy Peregrym (Jenn), Eric Balfour (Brad), Nicholas Campbell (Ranger).

 

I cannot help but wonder if writer/director Adam MacDonald intended for the audience of Backcountry to not know what waiting out in the woods for his central couple (if you don’t know, just go watch the movie – and don’t look at the poster before you do). I wonder this because it takes a long time (more than two-thirds of the 90 minute runtime) before the star that the advertising has promised actually shows up and does anything. Up until then, he has skillfully built the tension, and shown us multiple threats to the couple’s safety that turn out to be red herrings. The film is building to something – and when it hits, it hits. (Okay fair warning to this four year movie – if you don’t know what the film is about yet, and want to see it, just stop reading and go watch the film – I’m going to stop being coy about it in a minute or two).

 

Alex (Jeff Roop) and Jenn (Missy Peregrym) are city dwellers, who are heading to a Northern Ontario provincial park for a few days of hiking and camping. She has never gone camping before – doesn’t particularly care about it – but he’s gung ho. He’s got a plan for the weekend that involves taking her to his favorite place as a child – the Blackfoot Trail. He’s so confident that he knows where to go, that he even rejects the offer of the park ranger (Nicholas Campbell) of a map. The scene with Campbell, a well-known character actor to Canadian audiences, probably not so much outside here, provides several different red herring – the first being that Campbell is, himself, deliberately more than little creepy, and the second talk about too many crazies on the Blackfoot Trail – which is why it’s closed for the season. So along with the no map thing, we now have three potential threats to the couple. We’ll add another threat at the end of the first act, as the couple come across Brad (Eric Balfour) – a hunky Irishman – out in the forest – or more accurately, Brad comes across Jenn as Alex is gathering firewood. They share a tense dinner together – where everyone is polite, up to a point, but it’s clear the two men are sizing each other up – and Alex starts to feel insecure – and Brad pushes harder and harder. It’s also in this scene where we learn more about the dynamic between Jenn and Alex – that she is a lawyer, and he’s working for a friend with a landscaping business. This whole trip, with Alex overcompensating for everything, is perhaps a way to feel manlier – and show that off to Jenn. It’s also what leads him to keep making stupid mistakes.

 

All of these are red herrings of course. Yes, their relationship is strained, but strained in a way that really does feel real. She is willing to go along on the hike, and defends him to Brad, etc. – but when he makes a mistake (and then another) – the true feelings come out, and the gloves come off. But even that isn’t the real threat – at least the one that will kill them. That, of course, is a bear – a giant hulking black bear, who makes a brief appearance at the hour mark – pushing his snout against their tent as they sleep – and will eventually come back for more. When the attack finally does hit – it’s a bloody doozy, horrific and horrifying in the way you expect – and then the film becomes a survival thriller for the one who isn’t killed.

 

All of this works remarkably well. The film slowly builds the tension throughout its runtime – you’re never quite sure where the horror is going to come from. At the end, you may feel a little bit cheated – because of all the red herrings and themes brought up and discarded, etc. But while the film is playing, it works remarkably well.

Movie Review: They Look Like People (2015)

They Look Like People (2015) *** ½ / *****

Directed by: Perry Blackshear.

Written by: Perry Blackshear.

Starring: MacLeod Andrews (Wyatt), Evan Dumouchel (Christian), Margaret Ying Drake (Mara), Mick Casale (Psychiatrist), Elena Greenlee (Sandy). 

 

They Look Like People, the micro budgeted buddy film/psychological horror movie really works as both of those things for about an hour, and then brings them together in the final 20 minutes in an intense, scary, and even moving way. Perry Blackshear wrote and directed the film – and, well, pretty much did everything else to (he’s credited as producer, cinematographer, editor, production designer and sound designer). He clearly made this film as a calling card – as proof of what he can do – and it really is an ingenious little film.

 

The film is about Christian (Evan Dumouchel), a “bro” living in New York, working at what looks like some kind of startup tech or media company, who works out constantly and hypes himself up with self-help mantras. One day, his old childhood friend Wyatt (MacLeod Andrews) shows up out of the blue, with nowhere to go and nothing to do – and Christian invites him to stay with him for a few days. Gradually, we get to know both of these men – and get a sense of their history together – as they revert back to the childish games they used to play – and basically act like overgrown children. We learn early on that both are dealing with breakups of a sort – Wyatt was engaged, but now he’s not for some cryptic reason, and Christian talks about a room that was Kat’s, but now isn’t. We’ll learn a little more about both of their histories throughout the movie, but smartly, the movie doesn’t answer all of those questions.

 

It also becomes clear that both of them are dealing with mental illness in their own ways. Christian’s is probably more commonplace – depression and self-esteem issues – hence those motivation tapes, the mantras, the constant working out. He was once weak, but now has convinced himself (or at least is trying to convince himself) that he’s strong. Wyatt’s is more acute – he’s hearing voices, and occasionally we enter his buzzing brain – as he is told about a coming war in which he will have to kill someone who looks like a friend. He retreats to Christian’s basement to prepare.

 

The paranoia in the film grows gradually – but steadily. There aren’t many more characters in the film other than Christian and Wyatt – other than Mara (Margaret Drake) – Christian’s new boss, and new love interest. She’s more grounded that either of the two men – and also cannot tell that anything is wrong with either of them. They have done a good job at masking that – putting on a front to not allow people to see behind it.

 

Eventually, of course, we do see behind it. The climax of the film is between Christian and Wyatt – and involves that basement again. But it doesn’t play out the way we think it will – in part because Christian doesn’t react to Wyatt’s illness, when it becomes too pronounced to hide – the way we think he will. Whether it’s reckless or stupid what he does, it is also quite touching – showing trust to Wyatt that no one else does.

 

They Look Like People is a fine film. Yes, you can tell it cost almost no money to make – but that’s not a strike against it. What Blackshear has done is made a genuinely suspenseful and insightful film, for almost no money. Imagine what he can do with a budget.

Classic Movie Review: The Event (2015)

The Event (2015)

Directed by: Sergey Loznitsa.

Written by: Sergey Loznitsa.

 

If you’re planning on seeing Sergei Loznitsa’s The Event, you may want to bone up on your Soviet history a little bit before doing so. Loznitsa is making a follow-up film to his acclaimed Maidan (2014), a documentary where Loznitsa followed the protests in Kiev in 2013 and 2014 against the Russian aggression into their country. Again, Loznitsa is working with footage shot by others, and crafting into a whole – but this time he looks further back in history – to a few days in August 1991, in the town of Leningrad. This was when a group of high ranking Soviet officials tried to conduct a coup d’tat and oust President Mikhail Gorbachev – and people took to the streets to protest. The Soviet Union was on the brink of collapse – inside 6 months it would do just that. But that didn’t mean the people wanted a coup – and wanted a group of self-proclaimed elites to come in and take over. In Moscow, the protests were very volatile – but in Leningrad, they were mainly subdued and peaceful. The people who showed up in the town square, shouting slogan, listening for the latest news, and standing in solidarity with each other didn’t want things to get violent. They just wanted to make their voices heard.

 

Because Loznitsa is working entirely with archival footage – and he doesn’t provide a voice over, he really does not place too much of what we see in The Event into context. We get snippets of speeches and radio broadcasts so we can tell the broad outlines of what is happening – but that’s about it. This movie isn’t about the specifics of what happened and why it all ended up collapsing. Instead, it is a story of the protesters and their sense of optimism and camaraderie – something that at the time seemed incredibly hopeful for Russia’s future, and looking back at it now is just sad, given how everything has gone in the more than two decades since. It started out so optimistic – and ended up in very much the same place.

 

One of the main reasons for that can be glimpsed in The Event – as we clearly see Vladimir Putin, then a young KGB Agent, in the footage at several times, coming and going, always silently. His presence is a reminder that even after the collapse of the Soviet Union, many of the people in power remained there – so Russia never got the housecleaning it needed for it to make a fresh start. Instead, it’s just more of the same.

 

The film is short – just 74 minutes – and that’s about the right length for a movie like this. The film isn’t overly exciting, and can in fact be a little dull. But it is important – and at times quite striking as well. There is no doubt the film will move those in Russia – and the Ukraine – more than those of us who may not be as familiar with the events on display. Still, the movie is an important document of a time when the Russian people had a reason to be optimistic – before it slipped away from them.

 

Note: I saw this film at TIFF 2015, and at this point, I have to believe it’s not going to get a proper released in North America – so I decided to publish the review I wrote then anyway.

Movie Review: Bone Tomahawk

Bone Tomahawk
Directed by: S. Craig Zahler.
Written by: S. Craig Zahler.
Starring: Kurt Russell (Sheriff Hunt), Patrick Wilson (Arthur), Matthew Fox (Brooder), Richard Jenkins (Chicory), Lili Simmons (Samantha), Evan Jonigkeit (Deputy Nick), David Arquette (Purvis), Fred Melamed (Clarence), Sid Haig (Buddy).

S. Craig Zahler’s directing debut Bone Tomahawk is a sturdy, old fashioned Western for most of its running time, before becoming a brutally violent horror film in its third act – a genre hop that most movies of its sort couldn’t handle, but this does with ease. From its first scene – of two criminals (played by David Arquette and Sid Haig), the movie is clearly a self-aware Western, and while it certainly references the work of John Ford – notably, The Searchers – it also subtly subverts the genre throughout. The key attributes of the movie are the cast – all of whom are game, and clearly relishing their roles, and the dialogue which is witty and slyly humorous throughout. Looking at the films IMDB page, I noticed that it said that the film’s screenplay was shot on its first draft – and that I have no problem believing, as the film clocks in at 132 minutes, which is probably 30 too many, and another pass at the screenplay may have yielded a tighter film. Not that a tighter film would have necessarily been an improvement, as one of the chief joys of Bone Tomahawk is how it takes its time with its tangents (it’s not unlike a Tarantino movie in that way), but it also may have cut down on its repetition.

When you boil down Bone Tomahawk to its essentials, it is basically about the Wild West being populated by idiots, who make one mistake after another, that dig them into a deeper hole. The main action of the movie gets started when Sheriff Hunt (Kurt Russell) shoots the surviving criminal (Arquette) from that opening sequence, because his Deputy, Chicory (Richard Jenkins) tells the Sheriff that he was acting suspicious – which he was. Hunt doesn’t kill Arquette, just shoots him in the leg, but the wound is enough that they send for the town doctor, Samantha O’Dwyer (Lili Simmons), who mends the wound, but realizing her patient has a fever decides to spend the night at the jail to monitor him. Another Deputy, Nick (Evan Jonigkeit) stays with her – and the next morning, all three of them have vanished, and a stable boy has been brutally killed. It’s those savage Indians, no doubt, and a quick interrogation of one Indian lets them know what tribe they are looking for – some cave dwellers that he refers to as “troglodytes”. It wasn’t too smart to shoot the criminal in the first place – he was a criminal, but there were other ways to handle the situation. And it certainly isn’t smart for four men – Hunt and Chicory are joined by Samantha’s husband, Arthur (Patrick Wilson), despite a broken leg, and Brooder (Matthew Fox), who speaks with an Eastern accent, but boasts of being a Indian killing machine, to head out to try and track them down – but they do so anyway. Most of the movie is these four men on the trial – before they do finally arrive, and get more than they bargained for from the tribe.

Zahler is a novelist, and that shows in this movie, as it certainly does take its time getting anywhere, and prizes dialogue over action for the majority of its runtime. If the dialogue wasn’t so good, and wasn’t delivered so well by the actors, Bone Tomahawk would risk being dull and slow. But it works – especially with Kurt Russell in the lead role – one of two 2015 movies where he is essentially playing a John Wayne character (alongside Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight), but showing us the deficiencies of that sort of character in reality. Richard Jenkins is a pure joy as Chicory – which is basically a role that Walter Huston would have killed back in the 1940s as the somewhat foolish old timer, who may be better than we think. Matthew Fox is clearly having fun as Brooder, more upper class and refined, than the rest of them – and also more boastful. Patrick Wilson is fine as Arthur, but it’s clearly the dullest of the four major roles, as he basically grimaces in pain from his leg for much of the films running time, but keeps on trucking (but hell, DiCaprio is about to win an Oscar for doing that).

The left field turn in the final act, becoming far more brutally violent than anticipated works because Zahler is so committed to it. The word “savages” was a staple of old Westerns to describe Native Americans – most often unfairly, but here they really are savages. Yes, you could say the film is problematic, in that this tribe confirms the savage label placed upon the Native Americans in Westerns – but that’s assuming you think that this tribe is Native American – or hell, human – which I don’t think they are.

It must be said that, unsurprisingly, Zahler is a better writer than he is a director. For the most part, this is a fairly straight forward looking film – and its small budget at times shows, including in the horror elements that end the film. This is a film crying out for more style than Zahler can muster. Yet, the ideas, writing and acting in the film make it well worth seeing – hell, it would make an interesting part of a triple bill alongside the biggest Western of 2015 – The Hateful Eight and The Revenant – as it somewhat critiques both films, that obviously Zahler had no way of seeing before he made it, but still it fits. Zahler needs more experience as a director to be sure – but Bone Tomahawk is a fine place to start.

Movie Review: Chi-Raq

Chi-Raq
Directed by: Spike Lee.
Written by: Spike Lee & Kevin Willmott based on the play by Aristophanes.
Starring: Nick Cannon (Chi-Raq), Teyonah Parris (Lysistrata), Wesley Snipes (Cyclops), Angela Bassett (Miss Helen), Samuel L. Jackson (Dolmedes), John Cusack (Father Mike Corridan), Jennifer Hudson (Irene), David Patrick Kelly (General King Kong), D.B. Sweeney (Mayor McCloud), Dave Chappelle (Morris), Steve Harris (Old Duke), Harry Lennix (Commissioner Blades).

Spike Lee is, without a doubt, the only director who would attempt to make a movie like Chi-Raq. The film is a musical, sex comedy/satire about gun violence based on a Greek play written hundreds of years before the birth of Christ, but set in modern day Chicago. Lee and his co-writer – Kevin Willmott – decide to write the whole movie in verse – basically having all the dialogue spoken in rhyming couplets. They have cast Samuel L. Jackson as the wonderfully named Dolmedes – part Blaxploitation figure, part Greek chorus, to narrate the action. The basic plot of the movie involves the women of Chicago, led by Lysistrata (Teyonah Parris), who are tired of all the gun deaths – including those of innocent bystanders, who are often children, going on a sex strike to force their men to give up violence. “No peace, no pussy”, is their blunt catchphrase. Lee has never been an overly subtle director – he likes his films loud, blunt and in your face – and you’d be hard pressed to find a louder or blunter movie even in Lee’s filmography. But sometimes that is precisely what is needed – and Chi-Raq is one of those times. Chi-Raq is hardly a perfect movie – by trying to do so much, Lee has to know it’s not all going to work – but perfection is an overrated quality in movies anyway. Chi-Raq gives you more to think about than just about any other film out there – you probably won’t agree with it all, it probably all won’t work for you – but dammit all, you’re not going to forget Chi-Raq. The film is perfectly imperfect.

Lee’s bold, stylistic gambits start right from the beginning, as he allows the entire title song to play out, against a black screen, with the lyrics being the only words on the screen. If you’re watching this film, you’re going to listen to this song – about the violence and hate that has infested Chicago – and you’re going to deal with the lyrics. He then segues right to Samuel L. Jackson’s Dolemedes explaining what the hell the movie is up to, and then another song – performed by a rapper/gangster named Chi-Raq (Nick Cannon), glorifying the exact thing that the previous song demonized. As the song is being performed – in a packed club – Lysistrata is among the women in the crowd, dancing in unison, in what looks like a war dance. Surprising no one, that song will be cut short when shots start ringing out leaving several people dead of injured. None of this seems to have much of an effect on Chi-Raq or Lysistrata, who we see engaged in a vigorous sex right afterwards – although that too will be interrupted by violence. It’s not long before a little girl ends up dead on the street – a victim of being in the wrong place at the wrong time – leading to a memorable image of the girl’s mother (Jennifer Hudson) trying in vain to scrub her dead daughter’s blood off the street. It is also this death that sets in motion the rest of the movie – as Lysistrata goes to talk to a neighbor (Angela Bassett) and starts to see things in a different light. She gets together with the women who are with members of Chi-Raq’s gang, as well as women in their rival gangs (led by Wesley Snipes’s cackling, one eyed Cyclops) and starts the sex strike. Things pick up even more when Lysistrata and her women take over the armory to have their demands met.

Lee has never been afraid of preaching or sermonizing in his movie – and you have to give him credit in Chi-Raq that he doesn’t even try to hide that fact. There is a good 10-15 sequence when Father Mike Corridan (John Cusack) gives a sermon at the funeral of the dead little girl, where he calls out everything from the politicians to the NRA to the culture of toxic masculinity that has led to all this violence in the first place. This does grind the movie to a halt – but not in a bad way. At first, it’s rather jarring (and you wonder why Lee cast Cusack, and not a black man in the role – although apparently he is based on a real life figure) – but Cusack does some amazing work in this sequence. It’s almost another of the film’s musical numbers.

Chi-Raq deliberately has some drastic tonal shifts in it. At times, the film is hilariously funny and over-the-top – like the sequence where Lysistrata takes over the armory by seducing its commander – an openly racist General, who humps a Civil War canon while wearing Confederate flag underwear. At times the film is powerful and emotional – Hudson cleaning the blood off the streets, the various young men in wheelchairs or suffering from other ailments talking about how their lives have changed because of the violence. At times the film is undeniably sexy and erotic – especially the face-off climax between Lysistrata and Chi-Raq, in a big brass bed, in front of everyone, which doubles as a brilliant musical number. The fact the film’s dialogue is written in verse does lead to its share of awkward dialogue, but the game cast makes it work. No one is better than Teyonah Parris as Lysistrata who owns the screen is a dynamic, sexy performance that deftly navigates the tonal shifts, and creates a real character out of Lysistrata. Lee has never been a great writer of female characters – some of his weaker films (like She’s Gotta Have It or Girl 6) have had female leads that Lee never truly understands. That’s not the case here as Lysistrata is the central character, and Parris delivers a great performance.

Chi-Raq was made by Amazon studios – their first movie – and is another of Lee’s recent string of lowered budgeted film, produced by means outside of the Hollywood studio system. Whatever you thought of the two more recent movies like this – 2012’s Red Hook Summer and 2015’s Da Sweet Blood of Jesus (and, for the record, I think both are among Lee’s weakest film), you cannot doubt their passion – nor their personal meaning to Lee. Lee is at an age when many directors soften, and simply repeat their greatest hits (he did after all just win a lifetime achievement Oscar – the least the Academy could do considering all the times they have ignored his work) – but Lee isn’t interested in doing that. He is continuing to make bold movies that take huge chances. Sometimes, those chances don’t pay off – but wouldn’t you rather Lee continue in this vein, rather than make more films like Oldboy (2013) – a thriller made with genuine skill, that nonetheless feels like exactly what it is – a work for hire. Chi-Raq is a bold and original work – and no matter its flaws, it is one of the most vital films of the year.

Movie Review: Our Brand is Crisis

Our Brand is Crisis
Directed by: David Gordon Green.
Written by: Peter Straughan suggested by the documentary by Rachel Boynton.
Starring: Sandra Bullock (Jane), Billy Bob Thornton (Pat Candy), Anthony Mackie (Ben), Joaquim de Almeida (Castillo), Ann Dowd (Nell), Scoot McNairy (Buckley), Zoe Kazan (LeBlanc), Dominic Flores (Hugo), Reynaldo Pacheco (Eddie), Louis Arcella (Rivera), Octavio Gómez Berríos (Pepe), Luis Chávez (Abraham).

The career of director David Gordon Green has been an interesting one. It started with four low budget films – George Washington, All the Real Girls, Undertow and Snow Angels – that show the influence of Terrence Malick (who signed on as a producer on some of them) – and were slow, brilliantly photographed films that reveal their characters, and their locations, wonderfully. These four made him one of my favorite young directors – but didn’t make very much money. He then moved into mainstream comedy with Pineapple Express (which was wonderful), and then Your Highness and The Sitter (which were not). Since then, he has struggled a little to regain his footing – Prince Avalanche with Paul Rudd and Emile Hirsch, tried to bridge the gap between his early work and the comedy, with limited success, Joe, starring Nicolas Cage at his best, is the best of his recent work, Manglehorn, with Al Pacino, was interesting, but not very successful, and character piece. Green started as a director with a distinctive style all his own – you knew you were watching a David Gordon Green film. Now, you have no idea.

His latest is Our Brand is Crisis – a political satire starring Sandra Bullock as “Calamity” Jane – a political strategist who has had more failures in recent years than successes, and is all but out of the game, when she hired to come down to Bolivia and help the Presidential campaign of Castillo (Joaquim de Almeida), who is way behind in the pools, and is seen as being out of touch with the problems of real Bolivia – and is widely believed to want to contact the IMF the moment he is elected, which is apparently a very bad thing, although the movie never really explains way. Jane doesn’t really know or care about what a win for Castillo would actually mean for Bolivia – she just wants to win, especially since the current frontrunner has hired Pat Candy (Billy Bob Thornton), her arch nemesis that she has never beaten, as his advisor. Jane arrives, and immediately starts to trying to change the message of Castillo’s campaign – to tell everyone Bolivia is in crisis, and only he can see it – and humanize him.

Most of the movie is played as a political comedy, with snappy dialogue that Bullock handles well, as does Billy Bob Thornton, and the rest of the cast. A little bit of lip service is paid to the people of Bolivia – mainly in the form of Eddie (Reynaldo Pacheco), who idolizes Castillo, and works on the campaign, and eventually shows Jane how he and his friends live in the slums. It isn’t pretty. The film has some nice bits of comedy – a dead llama for example – and for his part, Green keeps the pacing of the movie up and its all somewhat entertaining.

Yet the movie never quite works. It all seems so lightweight and inconsequential – that no one involved is taking it all that seriously. Perhaps that would less of a problem, but the end of the movie begs to be taken seriously – and offers an out of nowhere left turn where it tries to make you care for a character who had spent the rest of the movie basically be amoral (as all the other Americans in the movie are). Our Brand is Crisis either needed to take that whole conversion more seriously – or abandon it altogether. As it stands, the result is a rather toothless movie – it pulls its punches early, so it can deliver its would-be knock-out punch late – but as it stands, it doesn’t really land any of them. The cast – especially Bullock, who I think can go darker – deserved better than what they got. And the career of David Gordon Green keeps getting murkier.

Movie Review: Mustang

Mustang
Directed by: Deniz Gamze Ergüven.
Written by: Deniz Gamze Ergüven & Alice Winocour.
Starring: Günes Sensoy (Lale), Doga Zeynep Doguslu (Nur), Tugba Sunguroglu (Selma), Elit Iscan (Ece), Ilayda Akdogan (Sonay), Nihal G. Koldas (The Grandmother), Ayberk Pekcan (Erol), Bahar Kerimoglu (Dilek), Burak Yigit (Yasin).

Every review of Deniz Gamze Ergüven’s Mustang mentions Sofia Coppola’s The Virgin Suicides (1999) – and with good reason. Both films are about five, beautiful sisters who try and rebel against their family’s strict rules – trying to control their sexual maturation, with disastrous results. The basic outline of the two films are the same, and Ergüven is clearly inspired by Coppola’s style visually as well. Yet, Mustang is far from a Virgin Suicides rip-off – it’s more of homage really, and one told from a radically different point-of-view, which shifts the entire film a little bit. Part of it is that the film takes place in a small town in Turkey – although religion isn’t mentioned (much) in the film, it is clearly a patriarchal society that stifles the girls – made even worse by the fact that their parents are dead, and so they are being raised by their grandmother, and eventually their controlling uncle, who is more concerned about his reputation than anything else. It’s different in another way as well – The Virgin Suicides, both the Jeffrey Eugenies book and Coppola’s movie, is told from the outside – from the point of view of the boys in the neighborhood, and so the girls remain enigmas, their ultimate fate a little bit of a mystery (we have some, but perhaps not enough, information). Ergüven’s film is told from the inside, deepening out emotional connection with the sisters.

The film opens in what looks like, at least to our Western eyes, a scene of relative innocence, as the sisters decide to walk home from school rather than taking the bus. Some boys join them, and they end up at the beach – playing a game in the water, where the girls sit on the boy’s shoulders and fight each other. Yet this scene of innocence, is the first one that leads to their downfall – or the moment where “Everything turned to shit” as the youngest of the sisters, Lale, says. A neighbor rats them out, and their grandmother is made that they are rubbing their privates on boys necks. Her reaction, which seems extreme, is nothing compared to how their uncle reacts when he arrives. He thinks the grandmother lets them get away with everything – and he’s determined to put an end to that. The girls are quickly withdrawn from school, given frumpy brown dresses and pretty much locked away from the outside world. They are put through “wife training”, and one at a time the uncle and grandmother conspire to marry them off – despite the fact that the oldest is only around 17, and the youngest maybe 12.

The film is about this patriarchal society that sexualizes these young girls in the name of protecting them from their sexuality. It views this sexuality as evil, so it conspires to marry them off – often to older men – to protect them from that. The film almost feels at times like a horror movie – where one-by-one, the girls get picked off - instead of murder though, it’s a wedding sequence. Once they are married off, they are barely seen in again. As the sisters start disappearing, the ones left behind become increasingly desperate. This is heightened by the fact that in the early scenes, the girls almost function as a single unit rather that individuals unto themselves – so when one disappears, the rest are somewhat lesser. The oldest daughter at least gets to marry someone she loves (although who you love at the age of 17 is rarely the person you should spend your whole life with) – the rest are not nearly as lucky.

Mustang is a rather quiet film – and one that sneaks up on you a little bit. There is quite a bit of humor in the early scenes in the movie – in the way the girls argue with the grandmother, and even the way the older women in the family cover for the girls when they sneak out to go to a soccer game. But the end though, the film has put you through an emotional wringer – the film has become a tragic, horror film – and one that doesn’t necessarily have a happy ending. This is Ergüven’s debut film as a director – and it’s one of the best debuts of the year. In many ways, it is equally as promising as The Virgin Suicides was back in 1999. The films share some similarities that is undeniable. But Ergüven takes her film in startling different directions.  

Movie Review: 45 Years

45 Years
Directed by:  Andrew Haigh.
Written by: Andrew Haigh based on short story by David Constantine.
Starring: Charlotte Rampling (Kate Mercer), Tom Courtenay (Geoff Mercer), Geraldine James (Lena), Dolly Wells (Sally), David Sibley (George).

Stephen King has often said or written that every marriage has its own secret language – that only the two people involved truly understand. Outsiders can never really understand what happens between two people when they share their lives together – and every marriage is different in their own way. Andrew Haigh’s 45 Years is one of the best movies I have ever seen about a long term marriage – and it understands precisely what King is talking about.

45 Years is about a seemingly happy, long term marriage that is rocked by the arrival of a letter, that leads to cracks appearing in the marriage. Or, not appearing, really – but being exposed. Those cracks were always there – the two people in the marriage may just not have been aware of them (or, at least not equally). Kate and Geoff (Charlotte Rampling and Tom Courtenay) are a retired, middle class British couple – living in the countryside, and seemingly happy. In less than a week, they will be having a large party to celebrate their 45^th Wedding Anniversary – yes, it’s a weird number to celebrate, but health concerns derailed plans for their 40^th 5 years ago. Everything seems perfectly fine. And then, a letter arrives from Switzerland. The body of Katya, the woman Geoff was involved with before he ever met Kate, and who died in a tragic accident, has been discovered, and the Swiss authorities wanted to let Geoff know (rest assured, this is not a movie about murder – it was an accident, and no one suspects anything else) because he was her next of kin. This causes the first ripple for Kate – who wants to know why he would be her next of kin, and why she didn’t know this before. She knew about Katya, of course, but we get the distinct impression that it’s not something they have ever discussed in great detail. During the week that the film covers, Kate will find out more than she wants to know.

Perhaps the best thing about 45 Years is how quiet and subtle it is – how it portrays how well these two people know each other, and how they can hurt each other by seemingly not doing very much. You expect that at some point there is going to be a knockdown, drag out argument between the two characters – but it never happens. In many ways, the two characters are going through their own, separate traumas – Geoff, dealing with his long buried feeling for Katya, who died more than 50 years ago, but whose discovery has drudged them back up, and Kate, who for the first time realizes just what Katya meant to Geoff, and that perhaps, he would have rather have been with her for the last few decades. Geoff tries, at least somewhat, to explain to Kate just what Katya meant to him – she drags it out of him in drips and drams, before he gives one too many honest answers, and she shuts the conversations down. But he continues to head to the attic – where everything he has about Katya is stored, and eventually Kate will go there as well. In a moment that will go down in cinema history as one of the greatest moments of wordless acting ever, Kate discovers something about Geoff and Katya that destroys her – and her face slowly shows that.

The two performances at the center of the movie are perhaps the best work that either great actor has ever given. Courtenay probably talks amore than Rampling throughout the movie – but he’s that rare actor who lets you see him thinking through those words – trying to figure out precisely the right thing to say, and perhaps more importantly, what not to say to Kate. He’s reeling, but in his way, he is trying to protect Kate. For her part, Kate is needling Geoff in a passive aggressive way in order to get more information to assure herself of the image of the marriage she thinks she has – and only really gets upset, when it becomes clear to her that she does not in fact have that marriage. The final scenes in the movie – at the party – show both actors at their best – Geoff giving a speech, while Kate listens, and highlights the brilliance of both, right up to the final shot in the film – which ranks alongside the final moments of Carol and Phoenix for best ending of 2015.

45 Years is a difficult film to write about in some ways, because it is so quiet. The film was written and directed by Andrew Haigh – I missed his 2011 breakthrough film, Weekend (and will now definitely play catchup) – and it’s remarkable the faith he puts in the actors, and the quiet he allows in the movie. This is a film heavy on symbolism, yet it never feels like overkill – like he’s beating us over the head with anything. It feels natural, and right. 45 Years is a devastating film – just like other films about older married couples, like Michael Haneke’s Amour or Sarah Polley’s Away From Her. Yet, all three films offer different portraits of marriage – different levels of love between the characters, and what it all means. What the three films share is a more complex view of old married people than we expect to see – and that we usually see in movies. In these films, life, love and marriage certainly does not get any easier with age.

Movie Review: The Kindergarten Teacher

The Kindergarten Teacher
Directed by: Nadav Lapid.   
Written by: Nadav Lapid.   
Starring: Sarit Larry (Nira), Avi Shnaidman (Yoav Pollak), Lior Raz (Nira's husband), Jil Ben David (The Poetry Teacher), Ester Rada (Miri), Guy Oren (Asi), Yehezkel Lazarov (Amnon Pollak), Dan Toren (Aharon Pollak). 

The Kindergarten Teacher is an odd, haunting movie – part thriller, part drama, part allegory, and all ambiguous, that leaves the viewer scratching their head, but also oddly satisfied. It’s not an easy movie – because writer/director Nadav Lapid doesn’t really give away his hand at any point. He takes everything in the film at face value, even if it’s very strange, and cannot all possibly be “true” – can it? This is the type of film that will drive those who feel the need to “solve” art crazy. But for those looking for something more ambiguous, The Kindergarten Teacher is a treat.

The film stars Sarit Larry as Nira – the kindergarten teacher of the title – working is Israel with a group of seemingly normal little 5 year old mop heads. She is married to a government engineer – who seems nice enough, and they seem to like each other, although passion is not something they still share. They have two kids – a son in the army, and a daughter in high school, on her way to college soon, and too busy to spend much time with her mother. It’s a rather mundane looking life – but certainly not an unhappy one.

Then Nira sees one of her pupils – Yoav (Avi Shnaidman) do something odd after school one day. He announces “I have a poem” to his nanny, and marches back and forth while reciting a poem about love and loss. When Nira asks the Nanny about this, she tells her that it happens a few times a week – Yoav is apparently big on unrequited love when he writes his poetry. Other than that though, he seems like a perfect normal kid. So, what the hell is up this kid? Is it something supernatural or divine? Does he understand anything that he’s saying? Nira becomes obsessed – and starts digging into his past – the mother who left with her lover to the states a few years ago, the uncle, also a poet, who works at a dying newspaper, the father, who runs high end restaurants, and doesn’t care about his son’s poetry. He and Nira disagree on just about everything except for the fact that Yoav is a poet in a world that hates poetry. The difference is that Nira sees this as something to be nurtured, while the father would rather it be stomped out. He has no patience for losers and whiners – and wants his son to grow up to live in the “real world”.

For Nira, this cannot stand. Before she even knew of Yoav’s gift, she was already attending poetry classes herself – the type of thing bored, middle aged people do in their spare time once their kids don’t need them anymore. She starts reading some of Yoav’s poetry to the class to gage their reaction – and it gets a better one than hers ever did. She starts coming out with more elaborate plans – leading to the thriller element in the last act, as we know that eventually, she will clash too much with Yoav’s father, which indeed she does.

Is Yoav really that good of a poet? I have no idea – I confess, I don’t know much about poetry, and certainly not enough to critique poetry that was written in Hebrew, than translated for the purposes of the movie. This, I think, is part of Lapid’s design – if Yoav was another kind of prodigy (piano or chess perhaps, since the movies love those kind of child prodigies), it would be easier to tell if Yoav really was a genius, or if Nira were simply delusional (or, perhaps, both). But Lapid doesn’t spell that out for the audience – nor much of anything else. What are we to make of a strange scene in a bar for instance, that devolves into a hilariously over the top dance number. The movie feels like an allegory – but of what? The modern world, religious fundamentalism, materialism? All of the above? None of the above. Lapid keeps things thrillingly open ended, right to the end of the film.

What is clear is that Nira is correct – the modern world hates poetry – and instead loves things that are crasser than that. Does that make what Nira does right? Of course not, but it’s saying something that in the context of the film – while you’re watching it – you almost do want her to do precisely what she does, even though you know its idiotic. Perhaps she knows as well – and does it anyway.

Movie Review: Girlhood

Girlhood
Directed by: Céline Sciamma.   
Written by: Céline Sciamma. 
Starring: Karidja Touré (Marieme, alias Vic), Assa Sylla (Lady), Lindsay Karamoh (Adiatou), Mariétou Touré (Fily), Idrissa Diabaté (Ismaël), Simina Soumaré (Bébé), Dielika Coulibaly (Monica), Cyril Mendy (Djibril), Djibril Gueye (Abou).

Girlhood is another coming of age story – one that the English language distributors cannily market as an alternative to Richard Linklater’s Boyhood, even if the French title would more accurately translate as Girl Gang, not Girlhood. Strangely though, the new English title is more accurate – as even if much of the movie is about a “Girl Gang”, its focus remains on one character throughout as she shifts and changes over the course of about a year or so. The movie is familiar in some respects, but works so well because of how closely it watches its main character, and treats her with respect. Like Boyhood, while the title suggests some all-encompassing portrait of adolescence, it’s really focused on one person and their specific journey.

The film stars Karidja Toure as Marieme – who is around 16, and growing up in the housing projects in Paris. She finds out early that her grades are bad, and she is being steered into vocational training – which she does not want. As the film begins, she is relatively shy and reserved – and as we glimpse her home life, we understand a little bit of why. She adores her younger sister, their mother is usually gone – working we suppose – and her brother is prone to violence – her every action supposedly reflects on him, and his status on the streets.

Marieme goes through the first of several changes when she meet Lady (Assa Sylla) and her friends – this foursome grows tight in a hurry. Marieme starts to come out of her shell a little bit – becomes more assertive with the boy she likes, and learns to have fun with the girls (the four of them dancing and lip synching to Rihanna’s Diamonds is a highlight). The foursome are a gang – they fight with rival girl gangs, although the threat of real, permanent violence is pretty much non-existent. The girls are cocky and confident – and assert themselves. All around them are examples of people they do not want to become – like in a fast food joint where they run into the person who used to be the fourth in Lady’s gang – until she got pregnant and had a child. But what does Marieme really want out of life? Even by the end, she doesn’t really know.

The first 90 minutes of the movie are excellent – an examination of what it means to be a young, black girl in France, who is treated with suspicion by those around you, forgotten about by society, and expected to live under certain rules that you never set for yourself. Toure has a remarkably expressive face, and throughout this 90 minutes, she charts every change in it with touching honesty and clarity. The last 30 minutes or so don’t work as well – and Marieme leaves her girl gang behind, for the more dangerous world of drugs, and changes twice more in that span – for reasons that never really become clear (particularly her switch to a more androgynous look, and hints that perhaps Marieme – or Lady – had feelings for the other that went beyond friendship.

Written and directed by Céline Sciamma, Girlhood is a never less than interesting movie about one girl’s coming of age – that confusing time when no one really knows who they are, and where they are going. Girlhood doesn’t wrap everything up in a neat package by the end – things could go very badly for Marieme after the film ends, or perhaps not. This is somewhat frustrating because it’s harder to see just what the movie is saying in that last act. Yet, I suppose, its ambiguity is better than beating you over the head with its message. The result is not a perfect film – but one that does stay with you.

Movie Review: The Revenant

The Revenant
Directed by: Alejandro G. Iñárritu.
Written by:  Mark L. Smith & Alejandro González Iñárritu based in part on the novel by Michael Punke.
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio (Hugh Glass), Tom Hardy (John Fitzgerald), Domhnall Gleeson (Captain Andrew Henry), Will Poulter (Bridger), Forrest Goodluck (Hawk), Paul Anderson (Anderson), Kristoffer Joner (Murphy), Joshua Burge (Stubby Bill), Duane Howard (Elk Dog), Melaw Nakehk'o (Powaqa), Fabrice Adde (Toussaint), Arthur RedCloud  (Hikuc), Christopher Rosamond (Boone), Robert Moloney (Dave Stomach Wound), Lukas Haas (Jones), Brendan Fletcher (Fryman), Tyson Wood (Weston), McCaleb Burnett (Beckett). 

The Revenant is a brutal and bloody – a film that works best when it sticks to its genre roots, as a violent revenge saga, and stumbles when it tries to be about more than that. The director is Alejandro G. Innaritu, whose filmography may just be the most miserable of any director working today – I don’t mean that his films are bad, just that his view of life seems to be that’s its just one horrible thing after another. His debut, Amores Perros, is probably his best – it’s as dark as the rest, but has more energy – and seems to embrace its own ridicilousness. From there, things got more dire with 21 Grams, Babel and Biutiful – even last year’s Birdman, a comedy, was once again about the horribleness of life – something that only brave artists (like say Innaritu) are able to explore. Yes, it was pretentious – but damn it, if the film wasn’t a visual marvel – and a brilliantly acted on at that, so it’s easy to forgive its excesses. The story in The Revenant is a relatively simple one –man gets wronged and goes to great lengths to get revenge. But in the hands of Innaritu the film becomes an epic of survival, and a confused examination of the white man’s relationship and exploitation with Native Americans. It is one of the best looking movies of the year – with amazing cinematography – and a film that has moments as great as anything you will see at the movies – and demands to be seen on the big screen – yet is also way overlong, muddled and confused – a movie that adds up to much less than the sum of its parts.

The film stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Hugh Glass – who is working with a group of fur traders on the American frontier in the early 1800s alongside his son, Hawk (Forrest Goodluck), a “half breed” – a product of Glass’ tragically short lived marriage to a Pawnee woman, seen only in flashbacks that strain for Terrence Malick like dreamscapes. Things look beautiful for all of about 3 minutes, before the Arikara Indiains attack them, in a brilliantly executed, bloody as hell battle sequence – that kills many of the white men, and send the rest of them running. To make matters worse for Glass, he is soon mauled by a bear (another brilliant, bloody sequence – although this one probably goes on too long) – and is eventually left behind by the rest of the group in the hands of Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy), who already hates Glass and a cowardly kid (Will Poulter) – alongside Hawk. Needless to say, things get even worse – but Glass refuses to die, not matter how sensible it would be for him to do so – and is instead hell-bent on revenge on Fitzgerald.

The film is based on the historical novel by Michael Punke, but certainly takes liberties with the novel – Hawk for example was not in novel. By giving Glass a son, the movie makes him an even more sympathetic character, which is somewhat understandable, but also makes him a proxy stand-in for the evils the white man did to the Native Americans, which is less forgivable. This is a movie that pays lip service to the plight of the Native Americans – but that doesn’t extend to making any of them a three-dimensional character. To be fair though, DiCaprio’s Glass isn’t much of a three-dimensional character either. His performance is essentially one misery after another after another – he spends almost the entire movie by himself, saying little, and surviving one damn thing after another that should kill him. DiCaprio gives a committed, physical performance to be sure – but it’s kind of sad to think that one of the great actors of our time – who has delivered many legitimately great performances (Catch Me If You Can, The Aviator, The Departed, Revolutionary Road, Shutter Island, Django Unchained, The Wolf of Wall Street, etc) is probably going to win an Oscar for one his least complex performances. The best performance in the movie is clearly by Tom Hardy, who embraces the racism and violence of Fitzgerald – who is the only character I feel the audience really gets to know and understand by the end of the film.

I have problems with The Revenant to be sure. The film adds some magical realism to the mix, and is prone to blowing up little moments into the grandiose moments that don’t really add much to the film. The film runs nearly three hours, and not a whole lot happens in it. Yet, there are moments are great as anything you will see this year – and the cinematography by the great Emmanuel Lubezki truly is stunning – favoring long tracking shots that often remain close to the characters face, it truly is amazing. Yet, when the film goes grandiose and strains for larger meaning, it loses its way. The presence of Lubezki cannot help but recall another movie about the White Man and Native Americans – Terrence Malick’s brilliant The New World (2005), which earns its larger themes because it takes them seriously. Innaritu has grafted them onto a simple revenge story that cannot support it.

I still think you should see The Revenant – especially on the big screen, where the best moments will work better than on even the best home theater system. The film is hugely ambitious, and though it comes up far short of those ambitions, and at times can be a difficult slog to get through, what works about the film makes up for what doesn’t. A little helpful hint though – leave with a couple minutes left in the film – the final shot in the movie is so ridiculous, I couldn’t help but laugh. That isn’t precisely the note the film was going for.

Movie Review: Welcome to Leith

Welcome to Leith
Directed by: Michael Beach Nichols, Christopher K. Walker.

It was impossible for me not to think of recent events while watching the documentary, Welcome to Leith. There are currently a group of nonjobs occupying a government building in Oregon to protest government interference in their lives – which prompted Trevor Noah last week to say that the government should just let them stay – that way, all the nutjobs are in one place, and everyone knows where they are. That is kind of what White Supremacist Craig Cobb wanted to do in Leith, North Dakota when he started buying up a lot of property, and giving it to his white supremacist friends. His goal seems to have been to create a white utopia, where they could dominate local politics, and live precisely the way they want to. I also couldn’t help but think of poor Tamir Rice – the young boy gunned down by Cleveland police for the crime of having a realistic looking toy gun. There is a moment where the police confront Cobb, and one of his cohorts, who have real guns, and yet somehow no one gets shot.

Welcome to Leith is a fascinating documentary that has access to Cobb, and his friends, as well as the other locals in Leith – who understandably do not want their town to turn into the white utopia of Cobb’s dreams – and do everything possible to ensure it doesn’t happen. The filmmakers don’t really judge any of the characters in the film – instead it gives everyone enough rope to hang themselves with – presenting their words without comment, and letting the audience sort it all out. It raises interesting questions about intolerance, to be sure, but also about freedom of speech, and how far we are willing to go to accommodate that. As hateful as Cobb and his people are, for the most part, all they really do is talk. What they say is despicable – but do they have the right to say it? Do the residents of Leith have to put up with it? They design rules specifically targeting Cobb and his kind – which if they targeted minorities, would be despicable in itself – but since it’s aimed at the despicable, does that make it okay?

Cobb, of course, makes it easy to hate him. He has no boundaries, will say anything, will mock the murdered daughter of one of his enemies, and post the personal details of people he does not like online – something that may or may not have led to others committing murder. He crosses the line when he grabs that gun, and starts patrolling town, uttering threats, and scaring people. That, no one has to put up with, and of course, they do not – and he’s soon arrested (which he is used to). If he hadn’t done that though, what would the appropriate response to him be?

 
Welcome to Leith doesn’t pretend to have the answers to these questions – it simply sits back and asks them. There probably is no answer. Freedom of Speech means nothing without the freedom to offend – and Cobb and his kind is nothing if not offensive. What they stand for is despicable. But they have the right to say it, don’t they? But others have the right to be offended by that as well – and to criticize him. But just how far can you go? This is a question with no definitive answer- but it’s an important question to ponder.