***

The Captain-sp

This film by veteran writer director, Robert Schwentke, which features a young German actor Max Hubacher, is a very powerful movie which shows the violence and cruelty of the German people during World War II through the depiction and actions of the German soldiers during the last two months of the war. However, it is somewhat unique in that the violence in this case is not directed towards the Jews or the allied enemy soldiers. Rather it is shown by the mass murder of German soldiers who may have been deserting at the end of the war and trying to survive by stealing food.

The story line is based on a true incident where a young German soldier isolated from his unit and being chased by other German soldiers as a deserter and a thief came upon the uniform of a German Captain and then took on the role of this officer. The story unfolds from there as this “Captain” becomes  cruel, sadistic and as murderous as anyone in the German army.

The film was shot in black and white, which according to the director, was to minimize the blood and gore of which there was plenty. The violence and murder shown in the film was strong enough to lead to a steady flow to the exit during this film from our preview audience. In the end, we are left with a very well done, all be it, uncomfortable movie which is quite provocative and no doubt will be unforgettable.

The film was in German with subtitles. (2018)

***

Love, Cecil-sp

Cecil Beaton (1904-1980) is the subject of this documentary film by Lisa Immordini Vreeland. Beaton was a legendary fashion photographer, renowned portrait photographer as well as a war photographer. On top of that, he was an Oscar-winning stage and costume designer for film and theater. He was a painter and a diarist who wrote several books about his own life. He was apparently gay or at least bisexual and he also called Greta Garbo one of the true loves of his life. Filmmaker, Ms. Vreeland was clearly all in with her attention to detail as she certainly creatively brought Beaton’s artistry to the screen with a full array of pictures, photographs and a narrative (much of it taken directly from Beaton’s diaries). Whether it was photographing the Queen of England or legendary movie stars, this man seemed to always have the full confidence of his subjects. One cannot wonder if he felt unfulfilled himself as he always seemed to be searching for some elusive satisfaction. Certainly, this is a very well done, somewhat unusual, documentary film that many people will enjoy and appreciate the many accomplishments of this artist made to the creative world of the 20th Century (2018).

***

Three Identical Strangers-rm

This is the true story of three identical triplets (Eddie Gallland, David Gellman, Robert Shafran ) who were separated at birth and raised by different families. How they discovered each other and how well they related is a fascinating story which also has a tragic component. This documentary film also reveals how their early lives were part of a secret experiment run by a prominent child psychiatrist with the cooperation of  The Louise Wise Adoption Agency, one of the leading adoption agencies in the country. Just knowing any of the above information would have drawn us to want to learn more about the story and view this movie.

In our opinion this movie raised several stimulating questions, which were not answered or only superficially addressed. These were as follows. 1. What was the exact nature of Dr. Peter Neubauer’s experiment and was it within the ethical guidelines of the time? 2. If this experiment were to determine which is more important in a person’s development, nature or nurture, what was a reasonable conclusion from what was learned about these three triplets? 3. What was the nature of each of these young men’s psychiatric issues as they were all were mentioned to have had psychological treatments in the past. 4. Is it true that if they were not separated at birth, it would have been difficult to adopt the three triplets by one family together? We believe that a very good magazine article with good photographs probably would have dealt with this topic perhaps even in more depth than did the movie. However, director Tim Wardle deserves credit for delving into this story and capturing on film many of the people including family members and other’s firsthand accounts, as well as using film and video archives, in order to tell this fascinating story.

In the past MB has written about this overall subject in his psychiatry blog particularly in an article titled “Discussion of the Phenomena of Unknown Family Members.”( click to see) It turned out to be the most widely read of the many articles on the blog and received over 3,000 hits and over 20 people made comments on the blog about it. There was another article that he wrote titled “The Search for a Personal Biological Identity” ( click to see)which also dealt with this subject. It is also of note that various aspects of this topic were covered in at least seven films which we have reviewed on our movie blog. They were: ( click title to see reviews) Philomena, The Kids are All Right, People Like Us, Bad words, Admission, Mother and Child” and Stories We Tell. (2018)

***

Summer 1993-sp

This is a personal story of the writer/director Carla Simon. The movie tells a story of when she was a little girl and her parents died of AIDS at the height of the HIV epidemic which in Spain was in 1993 (a little later than in the United States). She was sent to live with her uncle, aunt, and a younger cousin and had to deal with her inner turmoil at this very tender age. It was quite an accomplishment that the director/writer was able to find a seven-year-old girl, Laia Artigas to play her at this young age as well as a four-year-old, Paula Robles to play her younger cousin Anna. These child actors joined Bruna Cusi, David Verdaguer and Fermi Reixach, who play some of the other members of her family. The story line shows the everyday interactions of these two younger girls mostly with each other but also with Frida’s aunt, uncle and also with the grandparents who come to visit.

It is rare that the personal emotions of a young child are captured so well on the screen. Perhaps it is even more of a feat that the movie was made in Spain, in Catalan with English subtitles. As much as we admired the unusual cinematic accomplishments of bringing the inner feelings of young girls to the screen, we felt that the 96-minute running time to watch them play and cry may not have been worth the time spent watching it. (2018)

Screened at the 2018 San Francisco Film Festival

Opens in U.S. April 13, 2018

***

The Rider

This film almost looks like a documentary, but it is actually a hybrid as the movie focuses on life crisis of a rodeo competitor Brady Blackburn. We meet him as he is recovering from a life threatening head injury, which we realized happened during his brilliant but very daring and dangerous competitive riding, which occurred on top of wild untamed horses. We come to understand his love of horses and his uncanny connection to them. He knows he is supposed to stay away from the sport as his brain and body must heal. We are given insight into his character as we see his relationship with a very good friend, who is a like brother to him and is now in a hospital brain damaged after being thrown from a horse. We also see his caring tender relationship with his younger sister who appears to have a developmental disability as well as his interactions with his caring father who had been very rough on him. The movie is directed by Chloe Zhao who met the star of the movie on an Indian Reservation while filming a 2014 movie titled Songs My Brothers Taught Me. This director certainly achieved some very interesting footage particularly as the star interacts and trains his horses.

To many people rodeo competitive riding and the heroes who participate in it is as captivating as competitive football is to many other Americans. It occurred to one of us that the movie could have very well been highlighting the dilemma of those football stars who are faced with life threatening head injuries from the sport that they also love (2018).

Screened at the 2018 San Francisco Film Festival

Unknown Opening date in USA

***

My Life With James Dean

This French movie with subtitles follows Geraud( Johnny Reese), a young film maker who is making the rounds of small coastal towns in France with his new film titled “My Life With James Dean.” A 15-year-old boy(Mikael Pelissler). who looks older than his stated age. is the projectionist who is smitten with Geraud who seems ambivalent about the attraction shown to him by the young man, although they end up in bed together. There also were a bunch of temporary pairings, which include a female hotel clerk with a driver and a lesbian film promoter with her girlfriend. After a while, the movie felt like a French farce or a slapstick comedy.

We met Dominique Choisy, the French film director of the movie and mentioned to him that in the United States, an adult having sex with a 15-year-old would usually be of great concern. He did not seem bothered by this and noted that in France the age of majority is 15 (2018).

 Screened at 2018 San Francisco Film Festival

Unknown opening date in USA

***

Scary Mother

This foreign film made in Estonia with subtitles of course, follows Manana(Nato Murvanidze), a married mother with three children who has just written a novel. The book, while purported to be fiction, examines her unflattering feelings about her husband(Dimitri Tatishvili) and children as well as her extreme sexual fantasies. She goes on to develop a dependent relationship with a local stationery store owner who essentially tries to be her book agent and major supporter of her writing. The story becomes more bizarre as we meet her father who has taken on the role of a translator for the book. The book she is writing and her own life become more complicated and entwined as does the film. First time director Anna Urushadze has taken on a very difficult and complicated story, which draws in the viewer but may be too much to digest (2018).

Screened at the 2018 San Francisco Film Festival

Unknown opening date in USA

***

I Hate Kids

This is a very fanciful comedy that verges on the ridiculous. Its premise made little sense to us. Mason (Julian Feder), a teenage boy raised by his foster mother, contacts a so called radio psychic (Tituss Burgess) who eventually is exposed to be a fraud. In response to the young man trying to find his biological mother, he is told by the psychic that he only knows that his biological father(Todd Everett Scott) is an author of a bestselling book I Hate Kids and he states that the author would know who is his biological mother. It becomes more convoluted as the boy is able to buy a sample of the author’s hair from a barber who saves celebrity hair. He then is able to compare it to his own via DNA identification. This confirms that the author is his father. The boy then confronts the author who agrees to try to find the boy’s mother by visiting his old girlfriends. This is all occurring a few days before the “kid hating” author is supposed to marry a woman (Rhea Selhorn) who equally does not like kids. This leads to a wild and crazy road trip visiting the author’s old girlfriends.

Director John Asher and screen writers Frank Dietz and Todd Trainer are responsible for what we thought was silly but occasionally funny interaction. Yet despite the implausible plot, there was a charm and upbeat quality that might make some of you feel that it was worth the ride (2018).

Screened at 2018 San Francisco Film Festival

Unknown opening date for USA

***

Tre Maison Dasan

Tre, Maison, and Dasan are three boys each of whom has a parent who is in prison. First time documentary filmmaker Denali Tiller has taken on this project to follow these three youngsters and show the often tender visitations that they have with their parent while in a Rhode Island prison. These take place in a large child friendly area where many children are having visits with a parent. She also follows these three youngsters at home with their families. Some of the footage is quite an accomplishment as she follows her subjects for almost three years and captures tender personal interactions between child and parent.

In a post film discussion, we become aware that one important goal of the filmmaker was to advocate for such visitation programs in a suitable environment in prisons throughout the country as well as education for parents on the importance of such interaction for children who have a parent in prison. Unfortunately, this message was not made clear in the film and we believe this was a lost opportunity (2018).

Screened at 2018 San Francisco Film Festival

Unknown opening date in USA

***

Salyut-7

We know this movie is based on some real events that happened in the Russian Space Program in the 1980s, but we believe it is mostly from the Russian creative team led by director, Kilim Spenko. It is in Russian with subtitles 

His story shows two Russian cosmonauts( (Lyubov Aksyonova, Ilya Andryukov) who get into dangerous trouble when they go up in space to rescue an unmanned Salyut-7 satellite that is having mechanical problems. There is an explosion, ice, oxygen problems and it is not clear whether even one of them might survive. This is a dramatic space thriller that reminds us of the dangers involved in working at the frontiers of space (2018).