THE DEATH OF MR. LAZARESCU
This brilliant second feature by Cristi Puiu was the revelation at Cannes, where it took top prize in the Un Certain Regard section. This sardonic, darkly humorous, compulsively vibrant feature seems so realistic and convincing, unfolding as though in real time, that it’s hard to believe it was acted. As it follows an ailing retired engineer, too fond of booze, who gets carted from one overtaxed Bucharest hospital to another in search of proper medical care, a whole stressed society is laid bare: Each doctor, nurse, paramedic, and patient leaps into view with sharp individuality and articulate self-defensiveness. Compassion and indifference clash, often within the same person. The fluid, mobile camera recalls the great works of Fred Wiseman and John Cassavetes. 154 min. Romania, 2005.
METHADONIA
DV camera in hand, filmmaker Michel Negroponte leads an eye-opening tour of the interzone of recovering heroin addicts on methadone maintenance— a place where seasons run together into one long rainy spell between an oblivious past and a receding future. There’s Millie, who after 28 years of drug use now counsels recovering addicts; George, an ex-rocker dreaming of a fresh start; Susie and Eddie, trying to take control of their lives before their new baby arrives; and Steve, a charming, former homeless man out to prove rehab possible. Weaving the stories of these and other lives together, Negroponte lays bare a system that seemingly offers addicts a way out of their affliction while in fact the treatment itself often becomes another kind of trap. 88 min. USA, 2005.
L’ENFANT (THE CHILD)
Bruno (La Promesse’s Jérémie Rénier), living on the margins with his girl Sonia and their new baby, makes a living pulling minor heists. Always scheming and always strapped for cash, he decides one day to sell the baby on the black market (“We’ll have another one,” he tells the thunderstruck Sonia). Bruno’s quick, painful growth from childhood to manhood is the central concern of Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, and as always they realize their goal through an ingenious mixture of dramatic compression in harrowingly real time, a stunning sensitivity to sound as a dramatic tool, and a mobile camera eye that stays pinned to the action as it unfolds in furious motion. Alternately heart-rending and uplifting, The Child is that rare thing, a film in which we not only see but feel the redemption of a human being. 95 min. Belgium/France, 2005.
AVENGE BUT ONE OF MY TWO EYES
In this provocative, wry, and mournful mosaic, documentary filmmaker Avi Mograbi ponders the relationship between stories of Jewish struggles for freedom and the Palestinian resistance seen most dramatically in the two intifadas. High up in the mountain warren of Masada, a young tour guide leads a group of teenagers through the story of the most famous act of Jewish resistance to the Romans, the mass suicide of over 900 Jews. Meanwhile, Israeli soldiers— most hardly older than those listening in at Masada— are locked in tense daily confrontations with the Palestinians in fields, at checkpoints, and along the security barrier. Using a marathon telephone conversation with a Palestinian friend living in the West Bank under curfew restrictions as counterpoint, Mograbi offers a powerful, at times chilling lament of the continuing cycles of violence rooted in the past and threatening to completely engulf everyone’s future. 104 min. Israel/France, 2005. Shown with Your Dark Hair Ihsan (Tala Hadid, Morocco/USA, 2005.
BUBBLE
How does the protean Steven Soderbergh— the rare indie trailblazer inventive and confident enough to play in Hollywood on his own terms— follow a glossy studio picture with the world’s most glamorous movie stars? By shooting a riveting little tragedy in High Def in an Ohio doll factory, starring non-professional actors as enthralling in their untrained sincerity as the George Clooney is dashing in the Danny Ocean films. The stunted tale of doll-assembler Martha (an astonishing, sustained performance by real-life cashier Debbie Doebereiner), her young factory friend Kyle, and Rose, the thorny new hire, packs shades of mystery, menace, triangular romantic jealousy, and everyday punch-the-clock ennui into its documentary-style contours. And that’s even before the violent death…. This haunting experimental project is the first in a series of low-budget dramas Soderbergh plans to shoot around America. 72 min. USA, 2005.
