REEL NEWS The Quarterly Newsletter of MACON FILM GUILD VOLUME 5 ISSUE 3 PLEASE VISIT OUR NEWLY for October 11… UPGRADED WEBSITE TODAY: AMERICAN VIOLET (2008) Tim Disney maconfilmguild.org U.S. THEATRICAL RELEASE: 4/17/09 (LIMITED) THE SAMUEL GOLDWYN COMPANY (2009) (USA) (103 minutes) YOU MAY RECALL the story from the news in 2000. The cops in a small Texas town arrested 40 black people on drug charges in a sweep of a public housing complex. They were working on a tip from a single informant, a former mental patient who had good reason to cooperate with them. Dee, a young mother of four, who was not found with drugs and had no history of drug use, was arrested primarily because she went outside to drag her little girl to safety. She, along with the others, is offered a plea bargain: If she pleads guilty, she gets probation. She refuses to plead guilty. AMERICAN VIOLET is clear about the motivation for such raids with little or no evidence. A guilty plea helps the district attorney build up a record as a crime fighter, even though he is the one who has committed the crime. A defendant who pleads guilty cannot continue to live in public housing and will always have a felony on the record. But if Dee caves in, she goes free and is reunited with her children. Her snaky ex-husband has snatched his kids and moved them in with his new girlfriend, who has a history of child abuse. This is all based on an actual case (the names have been changed). This stuff happens all the time, and is far from rare in Texas, a state with a shameful record of law enforcement practices. Remember that as Texas governor, Bush commuted the sentence of only one of the 152 people put on Death Row under his reign, even though public defenders presented no defense at all for 41 of them and a third of their defense attorneys were later disbarred or sanctioned. AMERICAN VIOLET stars Nicole Beharie, a recent Juilliard graduate in her second role, as Dee Roberts. It is a stunning performance: She is small, vulnerable, fearful for her children, but damned if she will plead guilty to a crime she did not commit. She stands firm even as her mother, Alma (Alfre Woodard), begs her to take the plea; Alma argues the harsh racial realities of their town. When Alma vows to stay in jail, she attracts the attention of the MACON FILM GUILD FRIENDS OF THE DOUGLASS THEATER 355 MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. BLVD. Phone: 478-742-2000 REEL NEWS Say what? Dee is innocent, her lawyers are putting themselves at risk because of their outrage, and the D.A. is a heartless scofflaw. If the movie tries to have fun concealing that, it's jerking our chain. What works for me was the strength of the performances, beginACLU, which sends a lawyer named ning with Nicole Beharie as the conDavid Cohen (Tim Blake Nelson) vincing heroine. Alfre Woodard in down to defend her. Because he attack mode is formidable; Tim Blake needs a local partner, he persuades the lawyer Sam Conroy (Will Patton), Nelson underplays as a determined, methodical lawyer, not a showboat, a former D.A., to join him; Sam reand Will Patton in some ways steals fuses at first, but agrees out of guilt the show as a good man who has because he knows full well how the done bad in the past, knows it and is system works. The D.A. is Calvin Beckett (Michael trying to make up. As Beckett, O'Keefe), a man of whom it can fairly Michael O'Keefe is rock solid as a man who has more important things be said that he has no interest at all on his mind than justice. in whether the people he has arAMERICAN VIOLET, it's true, is not rested are guilty. How would it look in an election year if he went around blazingly original cinema. Tim Disdropping drug charges? And now the ney's direction and the screenplay by stage is set for a docudrama that may Bill Haney are meat and potatoes, making this story clear, direct and have an outcome we already know, righteous. But consider the story. but is a loud lesson about truth, How would you feel if this happened justice and the Texas Way. to you? What if cases like this were Some critics have found AMERICAN to lead to disregard of due process VIOLET to be too mainstream, too of law at even the highest levels, and agenda-driven, too much like made- that district attorney? Still in office. for-TV, with not enough "suspense." Roger Ebert — CHICAGO SUN-TIMES ADDRESS SERVICE REQUESTED NON-PROFIT U.S. POSTAGE PAID MACON, GA PERMIT NO. 507 VIEW FROM THE DIRECTOR’S CHAIR CAMP BACON president The film was gently mind-bending, with actors John Diehl and Michelle is managed – yes Williams making the most of the managed by a board fascinating screenplay. The supportcomposed of an ing cast included an old favorite of eclectic mix of folks mine, Richard Edson (SUNSHINE whose “day jobs” STATE (‘02), STRANGE DAYS (‘95), range from lawyers, GOOD MORNING VIETNAM (’87), professors of law, mathematics, history, linguistics, and PLATOON (’86), DOWN BY LAW (’86) acting arts, elementary teacher, engi- and 86 other films and TV shows). neers, photographers, and human Richard has been doing “bit parts” services specialists. for 25-years, as a character actor, The common thread is the love of those actors who are the seasoning in the salad – seldom remembered good film. In addition to selecting but are somehow essential to the films for the monthly showing, our crew also handles the nuts and bolts viewer’s experience of the film. His of the organization. The point being, roles suggest a person whose life’s fortunes have been eclipsed mostly when together it is to work. by his huge nose, sad-sack face, and Except the quarterly pot-luck scraggly mustache. dinner and film, kind-of our own In LAND OF PLENTY, Richard plays director’s choice, with the host seJimmy, a fellow Vietnam vet and lecting the after-dinner film. Last man-Friday to Paul (Diehl). When Sunday we met at Robert and Jan’s both Robert and Blaine remarked home in the woods north of town they had a nodding aquaintance with for sausage (4-kinds), salads, beer, Richard through mutual friends in and bread - and Betsy’s delicious the New York and L.A. film scenes, crème brulee. Needless to say we were all at our culinary best, and Jan I mentioned I had met Richard at a reunion held by our Marine Corp and Robert at their hosting best. fathers, at Quantico. Our fathers had Robert presented several possibiligraduated in same officers calls (Feb ties from which we voted LAND OF 1942). PLENTY (’04), directed by Wim YOUR FILM GUILD As usual I emailed Richard that I Wenders (BUENA VISTA SOCIAL CLUB enjoyed his performance in LAND OF (’99), WINGS OF DESIRE (’87), PARIS, TEXAS (’84), KINGS OF THE ROAD PLENTY, and what folows was his (‘76), THE AMERICAN FRIEND ('77), reply: and THE GOALIE’S ANXIETY AT THE PENALTY KICK (’72), to name a few). AS YOUR MACON FILM GUILD American and foreign directors typically not available to Middle GA audiences. MACON FILM GUILD is a non-profit organization of volunteers, who research new films, develop the program schedule, then produce and distribute publicity materials. VOLUME 5 ISSUE 3 DOG DAZE ISSUE Hi Camp, Very interesting movie, LAND OF PLENTY, no? It was shot in 14 days with hand held digital hi def cameras. State of the art back then - four years - but outmoded now. Very fun shoot. Very quick and deft and small crew. I love working like that. Wim Wender's is a great guy, but very quiet and private. Does not give the actors much direction at all. Some actors need more than others. John Diehl, the lead, was feeling lost, and Wim couldn't help him. Still, a great performance, I think. Wim is also a serious Christian now. I'm not sure for how long. He never talks about it but I think it informs his recent movies, especially LAND OF PLENTY. My best, Richard enters a 10th year of existence this upcoming Jan, it should be noted that although the milestone of 100 film screenings was recently surpassed without any fanfare, a well deserved sense pride should be taken in this significant achievement; one that without the enthusiastic and loyal support of our membership surely could not have happened. Throughout the last decade, the Selection Committee has chosen a number of films, which both not only reflect the MFG mission statement, but also resonate within the current social mood. This is certainly true for the upcoming schedule. In these times of US economic uncertainty, TOKYO SONATA on Aug 9 reveals how globally pervasive the problem truly is by describing how struggles of a typical Japanese middleclass family, clearly reflect a universal condition. For our Sept 13 screening, THE CLASS, is undoubtedly an effective display of challenges public school systems face everywhere, and UPCOMING SCREENINGS: EACH SECOND SUNDAY 2:00 PM 4:30 PM 7:00 PM for August 9 … TOKYO SONOTA Kiyoshi Kurosawa — pg. 3 for September 13 ... THE CLASS (ENTRE LES MURS) Laurent Cantet — pg 4 for October 11 ... AMERICAN VIOLET Tim Disney — pg 4 on deck subject to change: for November 8 … SERAPHINE SPECIAL HORROR SCREENINGS “Jimmy” — a.k.a Richard Edson LAND OF PLENTY (’04) Directed by Wim Wenders LETTER FROM THE EDITOR BLAINE WHITTLE editor The MISSION OF THE GUILD is to screen recently released, critically acclaimed and award winning Independently-produced films, by both The Quarterly Newsletter of MACON FILM GUILD HALLOWEEN 2009 7:00 PM & 9:30 PM FRIDAY OCT 30 LET THE RIGHT ONE IN has many awards to prove it; including the 2008 CANNES PALM D’OR. But the Oct 11 screening of AMERICAN VIOLET (see review pg 4) possibly may represent an ultimate example of how a particular film might most effectively anticipate the Zeitgeist. AMERICAN VIOLET which is based on a true incident, confronted headon the social issue of police profiling well before society was reminded sorely of the problem through a misguided arrest in his own home of editor, continued on pg. 2 — Tomas Alfredson see Letter from Editor for info for MFG considered films worth seeking out consult NOTES FROM THE SELECTION COMMITTEE by Robert Fieldsteel see pg. — 3 REEL NEWS Page 2 SELECTION COMMITTEE ROBERT FIELDSTEEL, chairman for August 9 ... TOKYO SONATA (2008) Kiyoshi Kurosawa TYPICALLY, FILM CHOICES THAT MFG screens are only a handful U.S. THEATRICAL RELEASE: 10/09/08 (NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL) REGENT RELEASING (2009) (USA) (120 minutes) Takashi (Yu Koyanagi) announces he has enlisted in the U.S. Army as a way to gain citizenship, as he sees no future for himself in Japan. His father forbids him. Unable to lose face by admitting his job loss, Ryuhei leaves "for the office" every day and lingers in a cheerless concrete oasis with other jobless men. There is a soup kitchen. His wife sees him there, It opens on a note of routine, of a knows everything, stays quiet. family so locked into their lives that Young Kenji (Kai Inowaki), no longer they scarcely know one another. attending school, spends his money Ryuhei is a salaryman in a manageon piano lessons with the beautiful ment job. His wife, Megumi, is a Kaneko (Haruka Igawa). His father, source of predictable domesticity, breaking with the Japanese tradition centering on cleaning, sewing and of encouraging children to study, the preparation of meals. His older has already forbidden piano lessons. son, Takashi, and younger son, Why? Perhaps he feels so inadeKenji, are filled with unhappiness quate he's threatened by any sucbut seemingly well-disciplined, alcess involving his family. though Kenji gets in trouble at What we seem to have are the school: The teacher unfairly blames outlines of a traditional family him for passing along a manga, or drama, in which tensions are bottled graphic novel, and Kenji defiantly up, revelations will occur and a says he saw the teacher reading a crisis will result in either tragedy or porno manga on the train. Many resolution. But that's not what men in Japan do the same, no big we're given by director Kiyoshi deal, but hypocrisy is the point. Kurosawa, best known for upscale In the opening scene, Ryuhei horror films. He almost misleads us (Teruyuki Kagawa) is fired. He comes in the early scenes, by framing the home, hands over his week's wages, family dinners in sedate and orderly says nothing. He is an autocratic compositions. father, filled with anger. sourcing will be a historical turning point.) Ryuhei joins hopeless queues at an employment office. He finds work cleaning toilets in a shopping mall. His humiliation is underlined when all maintenance workers must change into one-piece coveralls at lockers in full view of passing cusUnemployment is the catalyst -tomers. He has an encounter at an unspoken reality that makes work that is bizarre. everyone in the family angrier than And then the film finds a form of they already are. All of the perform- release in another unexpected ances have perfect pitch; the young scene. Watch it play out. We are son engages us in the same way as blindsided by its beauty. An exthe hero of Truffaut's THE 400 tended passage is held in a mediumBLOWS (’59). long shot in which nobody moves, Dramatic events occur that dem- and the effect is uncanny. Is there a onstrate how a routine, once brohappy ending? Nothing as simple as ken, cannot easily be repaired. The that. Simply a beginning. Debris has entrance of a completely unexbeen cleared. Old tapes have been pected character results in an indestroyed. Freedom has been asstinctive acceptance of the new serted. Nothing is for sure. situation, providing a sad payoff to The "themes" in this movie are what at first seems merely arbitrary. the father and his family. At the end, At the same time, Kurosawa obthey feel the same tensions as at the serves the agony of unemployment beginning, but the facade has been in Japan, which, like the United destroyed, and they will have to States, has been beset by outsourcproceed unprotected. ing to cheaper labor pools. (The day when China and India begin outRoger Ebert — CHICAGO SUN-TIMES to locate and make peace with their own, personal moral center. By the time in Oct MFG screens AMERICAN VIOLET, it should be informative to see just where inside the national discussion radar this topic will be found; especially when considering the “beer summit” solution hosted last week at the White House. Published reviews consistently give more compelling reasons to attend our Oct selection, as well; one being a critically praised lead performance debut of protagonist Dee Roberts realized by Atlanta native, Nicole Beharie. Another is the film’s ensemble of seasoned character actors, including Alfre Woodard, Michael O’Keefe, Charles S. Dutton and Tim Blake (LÅT DEN RÄTTE KOMMA IN) Nelson in the supporting cast. In this all-Danish production, ON FRI OCT 30 @ 7:00 & 9:30 PM, author John Ajvide Lindqvist has MFG will celebrate HALLOWEEN ’09 adapted the screenplay version of with Special Screenings of this year’s his popular novel, helping director Tomas Alfredson’s project win an impressive 56 awards with 11 other nominations in multiple film festivals. Oscar (Kåre Hedebrant), an overlooked and bullied boy, finds love and revenge through Eli, a beautiful but peculiar girl who turns out to be a vampire. Eli (Lina Leandersson) is 12 years old. She's been 12 for over 200 years and, she just moved in next door. most critically acclaimed horror Due to an overwhelming popular film, hailed as both a masterpiece of response, this film has had extended suspense and cinematic beauty: runs in virtually every art house and LET THE RIGHT ONE IN independent cinema where it’s been JUST AS THE ECONOMIC CRISIS has jolted everyday life, so it shakes up TOKYO SONATA, which begins as a well-behaved story and takes detours into the comic, the macabre and the sublime. All you know about three-act structure is going to be useless in watching this film, even though, like many sonatas, it has three movements. highly respected Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, by Cambridge Police Sgt James Crowley, and then later inexplicably amplified due to disparaging comments uttered, during a rare unguarded moment, by President Obama no less. Yet again, the American psyche was forced to look in a mirror and assess what it saw there. Reaction from all sides of the incident was swift, passionate and relentless. Suddenly, rather than weighing the pros and cons offered in politicallydriven solutions for our broken national economy or the decaying educational and healthcare systems, now every individual was required Page 3 NOTES FROM THE Synopses of Upcoming Screenings... editor, continued from pg. 1 — VOLUME 5 ISSUE 3 REEL NEWS We believe we know where TOKYO SONATA is going. We are wrong. No, it doesn't turn into another horror film or a murder-suicide. It simply shows how lives torn apart by financial emergencies can be revealed as being damaged all along. ENCOUNTERS AT THE END OF THE chosen from many worthy candiWORLD (USA) Werner Herzog dates. As we to try provide variety in programming, and occasionally a desired film isn’t available, a number of excellent films inevitably get left behind. The MFG board has decided to periodically recommend some of those films in this column. Here is a sampling of films released in the past two years that MFG is unlikely to show, but believes to be MY BROTHER IS AN ONLY CHILD well worth a look. (ITALY) Daniele Luchetti THE COUNTERFEITERS (AUSTRIA/ GERMANY) Stefan Ruzowitzky THE VISITOR (USA) Tom McCarthy All titles listed are available on DVD. THE EDGE OF HEAVEN (GERMANY/ TURKEY) Fatih Akin JOIN MFG TODAY AND HELP for September 13 ... BY VOLUNTEERING SOME OF THE CLASS (ENTRE LES MURS) (2008) Laurent Cantet YOUR VALUABLE TIME: U.S. THEATRICAL RELEASE: 9/26/08 (NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL) maconfilmguild.org SONY PICTURES CLASSICS (2008) (USA) (128 minutes) THE POWER OF THE CLASS will sneak up on you. It did that to the audience at the film's Cannes premiere, and it did it to the Sean Pennled festival jury, which startled itself by unanimously awarding this picture the Palme d'Or. It is that surprising, and that good. That quality of surprise was very much on the mind of French director Laurent Cantet. "We did not want our narrative thread to be obvious immediately," he's said. "We wanted the characters to develop progressively without really seeing them coming." THE CLASS ‘s original title is "ENTRE LES MURS" (Between the Walls), and Cantet's film doesn't stray from the confines of a Paris junior high as it details a year in the life of teacher François and his two dozen students in a language class where the subjects include vocabulary and the bewildering thickets of French grammar. The drama, however, comes not from the imperfect subjunctive but from the unexpected results of engaged interaction between one instructor and one class. François is played by François Bégaudeau, himself a teacher whose bestselling book on his experiences at another school was the basis of the screenplay he co-wrote with Cantet and Robin Campillo. The students in the film are not Bégaudeau's former pupils. They are YOUNG @ HEART (UK/USA) Stephen Walker instead kids from another school, Francoise Dolto Junior High in the 20th arrondissement, one of Paris' poorest and most multicultural neighborhoods, who were recruited by Cantet to take part in acting workshops that led to their roles in the film. These kids' ability to create real characters, sometimes reflecting their own personalities, sometimes not, is part of what makes THE CLASS the success that it is. The key factor in that success, as those who've seen his earlier films can attest, is director Cantet, whose interest in how work factors into individual lives is squarely in the French humanistic tradition and led to such potent films as HUMAN RESOURCES (‘99) and 2001's exceptional TIME OUT, about a man who spends his days pretending to be employed. What is immediately apparent about THE CLASS is how effortlessly it locates us in the authenticity of this French classroom. Shot in highdefinition with three cameras, this group of 14- and 15-year-olds are both completely real and exactly observed as they fuss and dispute with each other and their teacher over issues that by their nature mix the personal, the cultural and the political. As in any classroom, some students immediately stand out from the group. We get to know Wei (Wey Huang), loquacious despite his imperfect French; Carl (Carl Nanor), the brooding transfer student from the Caribbean; Souleymane (Franck Keita), the tough guy from Mali; Arthur the Goth (Arthur Fogel); and combat- ive Esméralda (Esméralda Ouertani), always ready to give teacher François a hard time. As played by Bégaudeau, François is not at all the self-consciously heroic teacher we may have been expecting. Intense, edgy, not necessarily likable, given to saying things like "Austria could vanish, no one would notice," he is not afraid to push back hard when his students push at him. As a result, his class can seem barely under control as his sharp, rambunctious students challenge him at every turn. Though his students don't always understand this, François is passionately on their side, yet his teaching style runs risks. There is a danger of getting on too much of an even footing with your students and little room for recovery if you lose your balance. The reality of François' classroom is so intense that it holds our interest even while the film's dramatic focus is building so quietly under the surface that we don't notice it at first. Then, when you least expect it, the drama is there and suddenly things are deadly serious for some of these students, a chain of events that takes us and them by surprise, and we see how fragile the opportunity for learning is, and how inflexible an education system can be when things threaten to spiral out of control. "What I am interested in is individuals facing a complex world," director Cantet said at his Cannes news conference. "I take an interest in what's happening around me." It's an interest, THE CLASS proves once again, that can lead to unforgettable cinema. Kenneth Turan — LA TIMES