The Gatekeepers Exposes Shin Bet Tactics

This 2012 documentary film by Dror Moreh interviews the last six Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) intelligence chiefs.  Much has been made in Israel that "spooks should not speak." Their revelations are compelling.  Some Israelis gave high praise.  Rafi Gamzu, Israel Foreign Ministry, called film "proof of the highest order of Israeli democracy."  Moreh decided that Netanyahu poses a great threat to the existence of Israel. Politicians prefer binary solutions in the war against terror, but those in charge of eradicating terror deal daily in grey.  The film starts in 1967 with the Six Day War.

The film consists of 7 chapters:

1.  No Strategy, Just Tactics.  After the Six Day War, the terrorists were gone (the dog could no longer chase the rabbit), so the Israelis decided to do a census in the Territories.  Much effort was spent in learning spoken and literary Arabic.  Unfortunately, Jinna nehsikum ("We come to count you") sounds a whole lot like Jinna nekhsikum ("We come to castrate you").  Ultimately, terrorism appeared in Nablus, with many training in Syria (sounds familiar in the modern world of ISIS), but while terrorism was mitigated, the problem of the Occupation remained.  Meir and Begin paid little attention to Palestine.

2. Forget About Morality. Shin Bet recruited informants in the 1982 Lebanon War, under leadership of Avraham Shalom, who basically did whatever he wanted.  The No. 300 bus incident is recounted (1984) in which 4 terrorists hijacked the bus en route from Tel Aviv to Gaza, in which the Army beat to death two of the hijackers.  Shin Bet had no such concept as illegal order, when the killings were made public Shin Bet was accused of operating above the law.  Yet Shamir gave Shin Bet authority to kill.  It was Avraham Shalom, who resigned in disgrace in 1986.

3.  One Man's Terrorist is Another Man's Freedom Fighter. The First Intafada was insurrection with no precedent.  The Oslo Accords recognized Israel's right to exist by the PLO.  Tel Aviv bus bombing in 1995 was start of Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

4.  Our Own Flesh and Blood.  Illegal West Bank settlements began in 1974 in reaction to the Government policies under Rabin.  Moreover the Government ignored the settlements.  In 1980, a Fatah cell blew up a synagogue in Hebron.  The Jews responded with revenge attacks on the Nablus mayor Bassam Shaka'a and Ramallah mayor Kasim Halaf.  Everyone knew the Jews were instigators.  Shin Bet had no records on Jews, it was a wake up call to identify the Jewish Underground. Shin Bet foiled an attempt to bomb 250 Arabs on Arab buses in Jerusalem, they caught them in the act.  They also foiled a plan to blow up the Dome of the Rock with Semtex.  The entire Islamic world, including Iran and Indonesia would have waged war against Israel.  Nevertheless, Shamir signed the Clemency Law for the Underground.  Yigal Amir (Israeli extremist, Jew) assassinates Rabin on Nov 4, 1995 - a punk can eliminate entire peace process.

5.  Victory is to See You Suffer. Shin Bet was in crisis after Rabin's death.  Protecting against terror no longer enough.  Relying on force rather than brains a poor strategy.  Shift from field operations to computer monitors (see film poster).  Meetings with Palestinian intelligence improved terror rate.  After Rabin, Israeli leadership lost interest in peace initiatives.  Israel wanted more security and got terror.  Palestine wanted a State and got more settlements.  After 50 years, Palestinians achieved a balance of power.  Israel's F-16s vs. the suicide bomber. 

6.  Collateral Damage.  Yahya Ayyash was brilliant improvised explosive expert and most wanted man in Israel.  Shin Bet arranged for his execution through a smuggled cell phone laden with explosives (Jan 5, 1996).  Two months later, the whole country exploded.  Collateral damage or inevitable ?  Banality of Evil issues relevant to collateral damage.

7.  The Old Man at the End of the Corridor. This phrase refers to Ben-Gurion.  Avraham Shalom refers to Israel as modern day Germany occupying territories.  Final film thought - Israel is winning most battles but losing the war.

Rudoren (NYT) opines:  The Occupation is immoral and ineffective.  Israel should withdraw from West Bank as it did from Gaza in 2005.  The prospect of a 2-state solution diminishes daily, threatening the future of Israel as a Jewish democracy.

Les Quatre Cents Coups is Wonderful Collision Betweem Bazin's Realism and Truffaut's New Wave Launch

Released in 1959, Les Quatre Cents Coups (The 400 Blows), is one of the greatest films of all time.  Marilyn Fabe, UC Berkeley Lecturer in Film Studies, captures the subtle cinematographic details in her book Closely Watched Films (2004).  It is 27-year-old Francois Truffaut's autobiographical first feature film. It launched the French New Wave from 1959-1963.  Other New Wave directors included Jean-Luc Godard, Claude Chabrol, Jacques Rivette, and Eric Rohmer, all of whom wrote polemical articles in the film journal Cahiers du Cinema.  Their cinematic innovations were influenced by their film theories and the nature of the film medium.

Since the inception of motion pictures, the author of the screenplay was felt to be the
'auteur" of the film, as the directors were merely attempting to create a film faithful to the screen writer's vision.  New Wave directors embraced the theories of Alexandre Astruc that cinema was a language in which an artist can express his thoughts in a powerful form, like literature.  New Wave theorists thought the director was the auteur, in control of images, actors, and screenplay revisions.  Auteur theory was challenged by Marx and Freud, who were interested in understanding the process by which a culture's ideology, be it capitalist consumer values or patriarchal ideas about gender, were reproduced and maintained through mass media.  Roland Barthes also invoked a challenge, announcing the death of the author and birth of the reader.  Meaning is determined not by the intent of the author, but by the reader of the text.

In The 400 Blows, Truffaut demonstrates that film can be as emotionally and intellectually evocative and complex as literature.   The story of the film was based on Truffaut's own childhood.  The "400 blows" of the film's title comes from the French idiom "faire les quatre cents coups" which means "to raise hell."  The title has a double meaning.  It also alludes to the blows dealt by insensitive neglectful parents and the bullying school and state authorities.  An unwanted child neglected by his parents, Truffaut took refuge in film.  Antoine Doinel, played by Jean-Pierre Leaud, has the same life history as Truffaut.  Also born out of wedlock, his parents find him a burden.  This is given poignant visual expression when Antoine takes out the garbage.  In a sense, his mother wanted to throw him away in an abortion.

Truffaut ran away from home at age 11 after an excuse for playing hooky backfired.  He claimed he was not in school because his father was taken away by the Germans.  Antoine claims his mother died.  Both Truffaut's and Antoine's adoptive fathers turn them over to the police.  He ends up in the Center for Delinquent Minors where he makes a mad dash for the beach.  Truffaut films Antoine in his moments of freedom in wide angle exaggerating the distance between foreground and background, making the world seem expansive.  At the times when he is caught, Truffaut films him in tightly framed close shots.  His images of Antoine through the grillwork of a holding cell are iconic.  In one shot his face is framed by the grid pattern, resembling a noose around his neck. 

At the ocean's edge, he is trapped.  For his part, Truffaut was rescued by Andre Bazin, who became his substitute father. Since many of the New Wave directors wrote for Bazin's Cahiers du Cinema, the style of their films was influenced by his realist aesthetic.  Antoine's escape from the soccer game and his run to the sea are an homage to Bazin. The 75-second tracking shot in which Antoine runs to the sea demonstrates Bazin's idea that some actions need to be represented in real time in order too be dramatically effective.  We are able to experience the adrenaline-filled exhilaration of his run for freedom.

Finally, Truffaut shocked audiences in 1959 by use of a freeze frame technique to end the film.  The sudden freezing of the frame foregrounds the film medium.  Classic films always hid any awareness of the medium.  Truffaut was willing to expose the artifice of the medium, in effect abandoning Bazinian realism, acting as a metaphor for Antoine's entrapment.  Even the word of the title (FIN) functions not just as a word but as an image.  The letters F-I-N resemble the bars that obscured our view of him in the prison scenes, signaling that Antoine's hope for escape are finished too.

Indian Helicopter Parents over the Top

Kaavya Viswanathan wrote How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life while at Harvard (2006) about Opal's obsession with getting into the big H.  It is a LOL comedy about her parents' effort to make her more interesting and ultimately how she falls for a classmate who is not an object of desire (life's what happens while your busy making plans).  BTW, the title says it all, there's nothing more than the first kiss !  But she captures the high school moment perfectly.  The doting parents create HOWGAL (How Opal Will Get a Life) and have regular strategy sessions with their daughter. 

Funniest line - "he had been very impressed by my familiarity with emerging markets in nanotechnology"  (183). 

One problem - she was caught plagiarizing, including passages from Salman Rushdie's Haroun and the Sea of Stories, as well as books by Megan McCafferty, Sophie Kinsella, Meg Cabot, and Tanuja Desai Hidier.  Little, Brown & Co. recalled all copies of the book.

Meet the Patels is a real life documentary directed and filmed by Geeta Patel, who makes a brief appearance towards the end of the film. Here the helicopter parents seek a wife for their son Ravi.  But he has secretly been living with a redhead.  Just like Opal, life (the redhead) is what happens while busy making plans (for "real" partner).  Most Patels derive from Gujarat state.  Ravi's parents, Champa and Vasant, turn out to have an extraordinary relationship and are a testimonial to arranged marriages, much to everyone's chagrin !!

Director Desiree Akhavan Plays Herself in Appropriate Behaviour

Appropriate Behaviour (2014) is a British comedy film, written and directed by Desiree Akhavan, the film stars Akhavan as Shirin, a bisexual Persian American woman in hipster Brooklyn struggling to rebuild her life after breaking up with her girlfriend.  Shirin is struggling to be an ideal Persian daughter (of well-to-do expats), a politically correct bisexual, and a hip young Brooklynite but fails miserably in her attempt at all identities.

Hard to believe she was voted ugliest person at Horace Mann (she commuted from Rockland County). This is a woman who has electric beauty.  I'm always fascinated by young women directors who have the courage to act in their own films.  Akhavan is candid about sex, and she has a great scene when a three-way she’s involved in after a couple pick her up in a bar goes weirdly wrong because the man suspects his partner is into her in ways he doesn’t like. There is also a great moment when she is given self-esteem coaching by the assistant in a lingerie store who says she deserves a great bra: “Just because your breasts are small, it doesn’t mean they’re not legitimate.”  Akhavan has a loopy lampooning spirit, ultimately, and at one point she clocks the deadpan tone of her own film when Shirin lambasts one of her dates, "What's up with your passive disinterest in everything? What happened at Wesleyan that did this to you?"

Ken Burns Masterful at Revising History

This film is a masterful portrayal of 5 teenage boys on a collision course with police investigators overzealous to wrap up prosecution of the rape of a jogger in Central Park.  The PIs planted false testimony on the boys' statements.  It is fasciunating to observe the teenagers constructing layered falsehoods in an effort to protect themselves, never uttering a cry of innocence during the court proceedings.

The Central Park jogger case involved the violent assault, rape, and sodomy of Trisha Meili, a female jogger, in Central Park, on April 19, 1989. The attack left her in a coma for 12 days. Meili was a 28-year-old investment banker at the time, weighing under 100 pounds.  Sarah Burns, the daughter of documentary filmmaker Ken Burns, worked for a summer as a paralegal in the office of one of the lawyers handling a lawsuit on behalf of those convicted in the case. 

Less is More in Batra's Lunchbox

This Indian film is so unBollywood.  Director Ritesh Batra adopted a less-is-more mantra and stuck with it.  Irrfan Khan (Life of Pi) feels The Lunchbox (2013) is the most imortant Indian film in decades based on exportability.  On the one hand it is a love story, but maybe more importantly it is about aging quietly.Khan's widower collides with a vision of untouchable younger beauty in Kaur's lonely housewife.

The film is about the dabbawallahs in Mumbai who transport hot meals to millions of husbands.  A rare mix-up leads to a romance. 

It is interesting to note that Stefan Thomke of the Harvard Business Review (11/2012) analyzed the system as a marvel of robustness.

Yi'nan Diao's Whodunnit Tale of High-Heeled Intrigue

Film noir typically involves a low key black & white visualization punctuated with sexual intrigue and motivation involving a cynical protagonist.  Diao's film is a Chinese neo-noir trope and features a dissolute former detective and a widow with a dark secret.  The film is drenched in neon and wintry industrial bleakness.  Dismembered human remains are showing up in coal cars spread all over northern China.  The dead man is identified as Liang Zhijun, husband to laundry worker and femme fatale Wu Zhizhen (Taiwanese actress).  Now throw disgraced small town ex-cop Zhang Zilli into the mix, a gumshoe every bit as tough as Bogart.  The movie portrays China as a place where human lives are expendable, relationships too.  Conterio notes: Relationships are really just power struggles defined by emotional wants and needs. A presumptuous lawman believes that playing the white knight will end with the object of his fevered desire throwing her arms around him and love blossoming from the soil of prior disillusionment.

Bradshaw (The Guardian) points out the film pays homage to Sir Carol Reed's The Third Man, specifically the scene featuring a Ferris wheel reminiscent of the Vienna Ferris wheel featured in The Third Man.  Soheil Rezayazdi opines:  Diao also adds a nice dollop of surrealism to the proceedings. The film eludes our expectations with bursts of the bizarre: a horse shows up in an office building, a nightclub owner collapses into a bathtub mid-interview, fireworks erupt in the daytime. Black Coal, Thin Ice delivers the essentials of a pulpy noir, and it adorns them with the melancholic spirit and oddball charms of something we haven’t seen before.

From Wiki:  The film's English title Black Coal, Thin Ice is different from its Chinese title Bai Ri Yan Huo, which translates literally as Daylight Fireworks. Diao Yinan came across this phrase from a friend of his. Diao further clarified the meaning of "daylight fireworks" as a state of sentiment or a state of condition. For him, the Chinese and English names together helped to construct the difference between reality and fantasy. In an interview he explained, "Coal and ice both belong to the realm of reality, but fireworks in daylight is something fantastic; they are the two sides of the same coin." The English name refers to the two visual clues in the film: coal as "where the body parts were found" and ice as "where the murder was committed". He further explained, "when the two are combined, the reality of this murder is constructed ... while daytime fireworks is a fantasy, it is what we use to coat ourselves from the cruel side of this real world."

Birchenough opines on the cinematography: Formally, Black Coal… is captivating: the director and his cinematographer Dong Jinsong move between long shots and more frequent tight ones, with as broad a palette of muted, melancholy colors as can be imagined. There’s every possible shade of darkish green and mustard yellow, ochres and olives, varied with deep blues and night greys.  Conterio adds more:   Jingsong Dong's cinematography is sublime. The film looks so beautiful. And neither is it a case of visual grandstanding for the sake of cinema's sake. There is subtlety at play that is quietly impressive. Whether it's a seasonal transition via a road tunnel - from clammy summer to the dead of winter - or faces bathed in colored electric light as they travel on a Ferris wheel in the dark. Mixing daytime exteriors and pastel tones with night-time garish neon, brings out not only neat pictorial contrasts, but also the rich poetic symbolism that envelopes the characters in their search for a second chance and an escape from the past.

Fuerdai walking on eggshells in China

Christopher Beam in BloombergBusiness reported on Chinas's second-generation rich kids or fuerdai.  When not flaunting their wealth in Lamborghinis they occasionally invest in film and mobile-gaming. The Relay China Elite Association is trying to get these kids together to discuss their plight.  Fuerdai are often saddled with emotional trauma.  The first generation of Chinese entrepreneurs came of age in a period of callousness, born during the Cultural Revolution.  During that time there was no humanity.  The fuerdai make an effort to differentiate themselves from their parents, especially when brought up in an environment lacking emotional support and parental affection.   

Romantic relations can be compromised when the young men are content to pay for physical relations with no strings attached.  Instant gratification is just a credit card away.  Many fuerdai are moving money overseas yet do believe in philanthropy at home, it is more than social responsibility, its more about social stability. 

Ambots and Amholes Colllide at Amazon Workplace

Jodi Kantor and David Streitfeld (the New York Times) exposed oppressive workplace practices at Amazon in Seattle. Purposeful Darwinism refers to Amazon's cycle of constantly hiring employees, driving them, and cutting them.  In fact Facebook and LinkedIn have opened large Seattle offices that benefit from the Amazon outflow.  Employees are encouraged to be vocally self-critical, sounds like Gang of Four Cultural Revolution !  The Anytime Feedback Tool software turns the annual performance review into a daily event.

Dolan Ups the Ante in Mommy

OK, this is yet another spectacular offering from the precocious Xavier Dolan, filmmaker in Montreal.  Anne Dorval stars as a single parent (Diane Despres), opposite young Steve (Antoine-Olivier Pilon), who suffers from ADHD (Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder) and is a "cutter."  As in Laurence Anyways the dialog is explosive.  An angel face with the temper of a grizzly bear, Steve is a living nightmare, a Gordian knot of raging and libidinous impulses barely held in check by his medication. But he is her son, wrathful yet adoring, and Diane is a fighter, determined to save him against all odds. To temper the manic and claustrophobic co-dependence of this explosive oedipal duo, Dolan introduces a strange and attractive neighbor into the mix, the withdrawn and stammering Kyla (Suzanne Clément) who will try to homeschool Steve.

The movie is filmed claustrophobically in a perfect square 1:1 aspect ratio.  The film frames the faces of its characters skillfully, leading the viewer to concentrate on them rather than their surroundings.  Dolan found this to be more humble and private, more fitting to the lives being examines.  Cinemascope (2.35:1) would have felt pretentious, especially for scenes in small apartments.  There is a funny scene in the film where Steve reaches his hands around the frame perimeter and increases the aspect ratio.  This is some sort of post-modern effect no doubt and quite amusing.  Most viewers might not even notice.  It mimics Steve’s mind, offering no escape save in fleeting expansive moments.  Trish Ferris (Sight & Sound) opines It is also a clever way of demonstrating their emotional states and the reality they live in. It almost feels as if these individuals are stuck in this perfectly square box, their world opening up to full screen only during certain moments of pure joy and release, merely to have the walls slowly close in on them once more, as the certainty of life eventually catches up to them.

Young Xavier Dolan Makes Extraordinairy Film in Laurence Anyways

Laurence Anyways is a 2012 Canadian romantic drama film written, edited, and directed by 24-year-old Québécois wunderkind Xavier Dolan. The film competed in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival where Suzanne Clément won the Un Certain Regard Award for Best Actress.  It explores the volcanic relationship between Laurence, a transgender woman (Melvil Poupaud) and Frédérique ("Fred"), her female lover.  At the age of 35, Laurence, a respected literature professor in a happy, long-term relationship, announces that he has been “stealing the life of the woman [he] was meant to be,” and embarks on the process of transitioning from male to female.  The support that Fred offers Laurence is unexpected and uplifting, she doubles down on her commitment level.  Yet in the end, it’s clear that there is no resolution for the couple’s problems. Fred loves Laurence, but longs for “a man’s arms”; Laurence needs Fred, but can’t continue being a man (or apologize for his decision to become a woman). They remain true to their desires, because that’s the best they can do.

Violet Lucca (Film Comment) opines  the prejudices confronting trans, homeless gay youth and non-Caucasian gays are more pervasive and entrenched than those faced by their white, upper-middle-class counterparts who live in (or have the economic freedom to move to) gay-friendly metropolitan areas, as the 41% attempted-suicide rate of trans people makes clear.  Straight viewers may not pick up on the scene where a "world-weary fag hag" quips “It gets better, my ass,” upon seeing the eponymous Laurence’s bloodied, beaten face after a barroom brawl. This swipe at gay advice columnist Dan Savage’s highly visible awareness campaign appears amid nearly 3 hours of melodrama interspersed with soaring music video sequences. Anatomizing the disconnect between progressive idealist orthodoxy and the realities of day-to-day life, the film tackles the shallowness of broadly defined “gay culture” (parties, fashion, catty wit, sloganeering)—and the shallowness of desire.

As an only child, Dolan was raised in Montreal by women after his parents separated.  The film confirms his respect for strong women.  It is noteworthy that the bulk of the film’s screentime and attention actually goes to Fred, Laurence’s girlfriend.  Yet Laurence fails to internalize Fred's difficulties in coming to terms with him and satisfying her own needs.  This interplay between "selfish" and "selfless" may resonate with a broad spectrum of viewers, straght and gay.

Simon Howell (Sight & Sound) notes that Laurence shares with Les Amours Imaginaires a fascination with pop music (Depeche Mode, the Cure, and, of course, Fever Ray are all present and accounted for) as well as slightly abstruse framing decisions (shot-countershot patterns in which Fred and Laurence’s faces obscure each other in a none-too-subtle visual nod to their increasing emotional separation).

Jeffrey Eugenides collides with Karl Ove Knausgaard

Eugenides does a brilliant set up on Knausgaard in his book review.  Text below:

“The last time I was in New York,” Karl Ove ­Knausgaard wrote recently in The New York Times Magazine, in his account of traveling through the ­United States, “a well-known American writer invited me for lunch. . . . I tried desperately to think of something to say. We had to have something in common, we were about the same age, did the same thing for a living, wrote novels, though his were of considerably higher quality than mine. But no, I couldn’t come up with a single topic of ­conversation. . . . When we got back to Sweden, I received an email from him. He apologized for having ­invited me to lunch, he had realized he never should have done it and asked me not to reply to his email. At first I didn’t understand what he meant. . . . Then I ­realized he must have taken my silence personally. He must have thought I didn’t find it worth my time talking to him.”

Knausgaard doesn’t reveal the identity of the American writer he had lunch with. But I will: It was me. I may be the first reviewer of Knausgaard’s autobiographical works who has appeared in one of them. Therefore, I’m in a perfect position to judge how he uses the stuff of his life to fashion his stories. Ever since Knausgaard turned me into a minor character, I have an inside track on what he’s doing.

Gia Coppola's Palo Alto Strikes a Nerve

First, some Coppola family tree.  Gia was named after her father Gian-Carlo, who died in boating accident before she was born.  His sister is Sofia Coppola, both offspring of Francis Ford Coppola, famous director (God Father, Apocalypse Now). Val Kilmer has a bit role in the film, but his son Jack Kilmer stars.  Emma Roberts also stars, her aunt is Julia Roberts. Nepotism serves this film well.

This is a hyper-realistic film about teenage angst against a background of drinking, weed, and girls resorting to fellatio as a bonding tool, set amidst suburban ennui.

The film coincides with alarming suicide rates in Palo Alto's Gunn School, which is currently embroiled in a pedophilia case.  It is based on James Franco's book Palo Alto.

In one scene a chainsaw is usede to fell a tall tree.  Palo Alto means "tall tree."

Boyhood is a Stunt, and a Very Successful One

This simple film requires very little thinking.  Not much happens.  As John Lennon said "Life is what happens while you're busy making plans."  Richard Linklater filmed the characters, beginning in 2002, for a week every year for 12 years.  The result is profound.  And hard to walk away from.  It is a time-lapse study of Mason (Ellar Coltrane) from toddler to awkward teen to handsome man.  And he is indeed so awkward.  This film is cinematic realism at its best.  It is a Bildungsroman for modern cinema.

I have two observations: the parents all seem to feel sorry for themselves and there is a scene featuring a successful Olivia (Patricia Arquette) as college professor teaching B.F. Skinner and John Bowlby who espouses that human survival depends on falling in love.   Now that's cool.

Smuggled Film from Iran Echoes "Ceci n'est pas une Pipe"

Arguably, René Magritte's most famous painting is Ceci n'est pas une Pipe (1929). The Belgian painter was simply making a statement that the painting itself is not a pipe.  It is merely an image.  In this documentary of dissident filmmaker Jafar Panahi, the film explores the difference between describing a film and the film itself.  “This Is Not a Film” promises to test our idea of what form a film can take. Required to play all the roles, Panahi is overcome by emotion and interrupts himself, asking, “If we could tell a film, then why make a film?” The way he sees it, description cannot possibly do justice to the power of cinema. Think of the pipe.  Panahi frequently worries that the footage is turning out to be a lie.

Much of the film is shot through an iPhone except where fellow cinematographer Mojtaba Mirtahmasb shoots through a professional camera.  Panahi is aware that under house arrest, it is better to let others direct.  This film is a courageous act of nonviolent protest.  The film was smuggled into France by hiding a flash drive in a cake for a last-minute submission to Cannes. The documentary is a veritable "Message in a Bottle" (The New York Times).

Panahi is under house arrest awaiting the result of appeal of a 6-year prison sentence.  On the day of shooting we hear fireworks on the street below from the Chaharshanbe Suri festival, which unsettles the filmmaker.  As “This Is Not a Film” unspools, Panahi’s involvement comes to feel more and more like direction in the traditional sense (Peter Debruge, Variety). At first, he is careful to remain the only character on camera, ostensibly a precaution in case others might be punished for colluding with him on the project. Then his pet Iguana, Igi, makes a cameo, followed by a yappy dog belonging to Panahi’s downstairs neighbor, Shima (she remains out of frame). A delivery man hands a bag of food through the door, unaware that he’s guest-starring in Panahi’s non-film. Finally, a friendly college student drops by to collect his trash, temporarily subbing in for the building custodian. Panahi can’t help making an actor out of him, with the lad reminiscing about the day the authorities came to arrest Panahi as the two share an elevator ride together....Standing at his balcony, filming the firecracker  revelry with his iPhone, he seems to be saying that directing is more defiant an act than lighting a firecracker or two. Debruge comments: Truth be told, Panahi’s poignant “Film” is infinitely more explosive.

Julia Loktev Transcends in The Loneliest Planet

Julia Loktev, born into Jewish family in St. Petersburg, had visited the dramatic topography of the Georgian Caucasus.  Filmed in the Kazbegi and Juta regions of Georgia, the landscape takes on the role of character, perhaps the most dramatic in comparison to the adventure-seeking couple, Nica (Hani Furstenberg, Israeli-born American) and Alex (Gael García Bernal).  Their guide is played by Georgian mountaineer Bidzina Gujabidze), who has summitted Everest twice.  The film's title evokes the Lonely Planet travel guides for the backpacking set, but there is a deeper meaning.

This is a film filled with tension, both from external forces as well as the sexual dynamic between the three travelers.  Loktev is a minimalist director.  You can hear a pin drop on the set and she wants you to dial in to every sound.  The film dwells on the unsaid and the unsayable.  We may indeed all be fundamentally unknowable, but perhaps more damningly, to quote from the passage Nica reads aloud, “we are overwhelmed and remain silent” (Jay Kuehner in Cinema Scope).

The director injects an amazing sensuality into the film, the sex scenes are hyperealistic.  Have you ever seen a man pull out his lover's tampon ?  It happens all the time, but not in front of the camera. There's not much dialog other than the practicing of Spanish verb conjugations.  But ultimately, this is a film about what us not said.

Avoiding a spoiler, let us say that Nica is confronted by crisis in an incident with a man that might have killed her and another who hopes to exploit the situation.  The couple's bond is corroded by crisis.  Alex and Dato represent the polar opposites heterosexual women feel they must choose between (Garcia, Film Review, 10/25/2012).  Nica is effectively "the loneliest planet."  Nica feels her invincibility is the equal of the other men around her.  After the incident, Nica falls victim to two other sexual assaults.  The real intimacy exists between Nica and Dato because the setting for Nica's individuation is Dato's home ground of perilous landscape. Loktev explores the savagery of a world in which our spiritual needs are undermined by physical reality (Garcia, ibid.).

Valeria Bruni Tedeschi Brilliant in Human Capital

Human Capital is a 2013 Italian film directed by Paolo Virzì. The film is based on the American novel Human Capital by Stephen Amidon. For her performance in the film Valeria Bruni Tedeschi (Carla Bruni's sister) was awarded Best Actress at the 2014 Tribeca Film Festival^. It was selected as the Italian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 87th Academy Awards, but was not nominated.  The film is based on Steven Amidon's novel with Brianza (near Milan) replacing Connecticut.

Here we have a sublime collision between aspiring parvenu Dino (Fabrizio Bentivoglio) and hedge fund boss Giovanni Bernaschi (Fabrizio Gifuni). Dino's son is boyfriend to Giovanni's daughter.  In the opening scene of workers cleaning a banquet hall, we know the party is over in Berlusconi's Italy.