Ian McKellen and Bill Condon haven’t worked together in 17 years. In 1998, they made the excellent Gods and Monsters; now, they’re weaving a brand new tale about the world’s greatest detective in the wonderful Mr. Holmes. The craziest thing about this reunion is, McKellen plays an elderly crank confronting mortality in both movies. Talk about gas left in the tank. McKellen’s one of the finest actors working, and his performance as Sherlock Holmes is one of the crowning jewels of his late career.

Sherlock Holmes is as trendy and popular now as he’s ever been, and of the handful of actors who’ve embodied Mr. Holmes over the past several years, I’d dare to say McKellen is the best of the lot (not a knock on Cumberbatch; put down your pitchforks). The film, adapted from Mitch Cullin’s 2005 book A Slight Trick of the Mind, finds Holmes face-to-face with his greatest adversary: the merciless ticking hands of time. Holmes is defined by his intellect, after all, and erosion of the mind is one thing, tragically, that old folk like him simply can’t escape. Given this scenario, is there any choice other than the cerebral, soulful Sir McKellen to fill the 93-year-old detective’s shoes? No; his casting is as close to perfection as one could hope for.

The story is no less complex or enthralling than your classic Arthur Conan Doyle yarn, juggling three unique, parallel stories with vigor and precision. Sherlock may be in a self-reflective, somber state, but the film that frames him moves with energy and brisk forward momentum. The primary plot line takes place in 1947: Holmes is retired, fighting off Alzheimer’s in a countryside home in Sussex to live out his final days. He’s watched over by a widowed maid, Mrs. Munro (Laura Linney) and her bright (and nosy) 10-year-old son, Roger (Milo Parker). No longer inundated with deathly mysteries to unravel, Sherlock spends most of his time tending to his beloved bee colony, harvesting their honey and admiring the splendor of their well-oiled hierarchy.

There’s also a more curious connection between Sherlock and the bees, one that leads us to the film’s second narrative thread. They remind him of his final, unsolved case, which rattled him to the bone 30 years prior. In flashbacks to 1919 London, we learn how a troubled woman and a magical music instrument scarred him for life. Of the three tales, this one is vintage Holmes and will feel most familiar to diehards. The third story is the bizarre in the best way, as Holmes travels to Japan (again in flashback) in search of prickly ash, a plant with properties that may be the key to stopping his mind’s degradation. His guide is Mr. Umezaki (the terrific Hiroyuki Sanada), a devout fan of Sherlock’s who’s more than happy to aid him in his quest.

In an interesting deviation from canon, Sherlock is world-famous in very much the same way he is in our reality: his old friend Mr. Watson has written a popular series of mystery books based on their old cases, which have even spurned movie adaptations. A delightful scene sees Holmes watching one said film in a theater, chuckling and cringing at the absurdity of it all.

The central relationship between Sherlock and young Roger is the lifeblood of the film. The three plot lines are well-woven and involving, but these are the real stakes: Sherlock is hanging onto our world by a thread. He’s got no loved ones because he views all around him as pawns in his grand game of chess. With his best days seemingly behind him, a young boy reaches out a hand and offers him a final chance to live life with others, rather than in the presence of them. Sherlock’s always been almost-human, but there may be hope for him yet.

Parker is as key to the film as McKellen. He never panders, he isn’t concerned with being cute, and he’s got such a rage in his eyes that we fully understand why Sherlock is compelled to tame it. Roger’s fascination with the detective and his legacy drives a wedge between he and his mother, who he essentially treats like a peon. His resentment of her, and her consequent resentment of Sherlock creates a tense dynamic between the three leads, who breathe life into every carefully-penned, contemptuous line of dialogue (adapted from Cullin’s book by Jeffrey Hatcher).

Benedict Cumberbatch and Robert Downey Jr.’s more charismatic interpretations of Holmes fit their respective properties appropriately, but McKellen’s more pained, desperate version has almost bottomless depth. Much like Roger, you treasure every moment you’re with the old curmudgeon. Condon and Hatcher were just the men to bring this atypically humanistic vision of Sherlock Holmes from book to screen, and Mr. Holmes is a movie I’ll be itching to revisit for years.

There must be something that entices filmmakers to explore the Outback. Whether it’s the post-apocalyptic world of Mad Max, trying to survive in Walkabout, going on a journey to hell in Wake in Fright, or overcoming your personal demons in Tracks, the opportunities for stories in the dry landscapes of Australia seem to be as vast as the lands themselves. And now, first-time director Kim Farrant takes a stab at using the Outback as an all-encompassing setting in Strangerland. It’s a film that tries to compare the plight of characters in an intense crisis with the desert surrounding them, but it’s a connection that feels redundant; the film is as dry, empty and unwelcoming as the land it’s set in.

The Parker family are anything but perfect. Having recently moved from the city to the (fictional) rural town of Nathgari, it’s evident that some sort of scandal prompted their uprooting (the reason for their move turns out to be a total snooze). Catherine (Nicole Kidman) and Matthew (Joseph Fiennes) have a frayed marriage—they don’t sleep in the same bed, he refuses to have sex with her—while their two teenage children Tommy (Nicholas Hamilton) and Lily (Maddison Brown) love getting into trouble. Tommy has a tendency to walk around town in the middle of the night when he can’t sleep, but it’s 15-year-old Lily’s strong sexual appetite that causes the most friction between Catherine and (especially) Matthew. After a heated argument at the dinner table, Tommy and Lily wander off into the night, except neither of them come back the next day. With a giant dust storm coming through town Catherine panics, enlisting the help of local cop Rae (Hugo Weaving) to find her children, and Matthew channels his own concerns into seething, impotent rage.

As time goes on and the kids’ whereabouts remain unknown, it’s apparent that Farrant and screenwriters Fiona Seres and Michael Kinirons have taken a page out of Antonioni’s book (or, to keep it Australian, Peter Weir’s). The big question here is focused less on the “Where” and more on the “How”: how does the disappearance impact Catherine, Matthew and their marriage, along with the tight-knit community of Nathgari? Farrant explores the way pain and grief transforms people through two characters as penetrable as a slab of concrete. Seres and Kinirons’ screenplay prefers vague allusions over explanations (a single line by Matthew early on implies Catherine was just as promiscuous as Lily in her younger years), a choice that makes character motivations and actions murky and irrational. Farrant’s direction is quite lacking too, with a workmanlike quality that only conveys basic information when the film is all about complex emotions.

At least Farrant gathered quite the cast for her debut, even though they can’t elevate the material that much. Kidman hurls herself into her role, but while it’s easy to believe Catherine as a person, it’s much harder to believe in her actions; the latter half has Catherine behaving inexplicably, with Farrant assuming viewers will understand she’s distraught and fill in the blanks from there. Fiennes does what he can with his role as the archetypical emasculated patriarch, ready to pummel any man that might have slept with his daughter. The highlight is Hugo Weaving, the kind of thespian who puts the “support” in “supporting actor.” He actually has chemistry with Kidman, and a presence that makes his subplot—a relationship with an Aboriginal woman inadvertently related to the disappearance—more interesting than the main storyline. Strangerland amounts to little more than a turgid 2 hours with a pair of bland, lifeless characters. By the end, I was jealous of their missing kids. When they walked out of the film in the first act, I should have taken their lead.

Strangerland opens Friday, July 10th in select theatres, VOD and iTunes.

It was announced today that the 58th annual San Francisco International Film Festival will play host to the US premiere of Bill Condon‘s Mr. Holmes, a fresh take on Sherlock Holmes that sees Sir Ian McKellen playing the famous detective. The film marks Condon (Kinsey, The Fifth Estate) and McKellen’s first collaboration since 1998’s Gods and Monsters and also stars Laura Linney and newcomer Milo Parker. SFIFF takes place from April 23rd to May 7th, with Mr. Holmes screening as a Marquee Presentation on Saturday, April 25th, 12:30 pm at Sundance Kabuki Cinemas.

From the press release:

“We’re thrilled to have Bill Condon’s smart, elegant and moving take on the legendary detective as a Marquee Presentation at the Festival, “ said SFFS Director of Programming Rachel Rosen. “I know our audiences will appreciate the film’s stylish direction and stellar performances, led by the incomparable Ian McKellen.”

McKellen reunites with Gods and Monsters (1998) director Bill Condon for Mr. Holmes, a new twist on the world’s most famous detective.   1947, an aging Sherlock Holmes returns from a journey to Japan, where, in search of a rare plant with powerful restorative qualities, he has witnessed the devastation of nuclear warfare.  Now, in his remote seaside farmhouse, Holmes faces the end of his days tending to his bees, with only the company of his housekeeper and her young son, Roger.  Grappling with the diminishing powers of his mind, Holmes comes to rely upon the boy as he revisits the circumstances of the unsolved case that forced him into retirement, and searches for answers to the mysteries of life and love – before it’s too late.

Loosely adapted from Mitch Cullin’s novel A Slight Trick of the Mind and featuring precise attention to period detail and the visual splendor of the English countryside, Mr. Holmes stands proudly along the other indelible portraits of the unforgettable man who lived at 221B Baker Street.

On the subject of David Fincher’s disturbing, fascinating Gone Girl, there are a handful of things of which I am sure, and one thing of which I’m painfully unsure. I’m sure that the film is Fincher at his nastiest and most incisive. It’s a searing, cynical depiction of the ubiquitous media circus that poisons and deludes us daily. It’s an immaculately constructed whodunnit, plays host to some of the most haunting performances of the year, and makes a bold statement about marriage.

Or does it? This is where my uncertainty lies. What is the film saying about marriage, exactly? Is it an indictment on the institution itself? A scathing critique? An extreme, but fundamentally truthful depiction? A misogynist one? Is it saying anything at all?! This is all still rattling around inside my head (Mr. Fincher’s work often has that effect), but to be sure, what’s represented here is marriage (and humanity) at its most horrific.

The film opens and we see a close-up of a husband’s hand on his wife’s pretty head, stroking her beautiful blonde hair. It’s a happy image, but the violent images conjured by the husband’s words as he speaks of “unspooling her brain” to look for answers are a demented contrast. “What have we done to each other?” he quietly wonders in voiceover.

The man is Nick Dunne (Ben Affleck), a laid-off New York journalist who moved to North Carthage, Missouri with his author wife, Amy (Rosamund Pike), to be closer to his parents. One day, Nick comes home to find his wife missing and calls the police. There are signs of a struggle–a shattered glass table, some traces of blood–but nothing conclusive. In fact, something about the crime scene feels odd, though the police can’t put their finger on it.

As Nick gets engulfed in the media firestorm that erupts following Amy’s disappearance (she was the inspiration for her parents’ widely popular children’s book series “Amazing Amy”), we’re shown a series of flashbacks that chronicle the couple’s history before Amy vanished. They were smitten, at first awakening in each other the kind of lustful spontaneity that compels people to have sex in the back of a book store (a compulsion to which Nick and Amy gave in more than once). But as the years went on and they moved to Missouri, they began to drift out of sync. Sex was electric, now it’s routine. Conversations were stimulating, now they’re detached. Nick was supposed to have a job by now, and Amy wasn’t supposed to be so controlling. They expected so much more.

What propels Gone Girl and makes its 149 minutes fly by so quickly is its intricately designed murder-mystery plot, which is so brimming with unreliable narrators, red herrings, and revelations it’s dizzying. When you feel like you’ve got a solid grasp on the characters’ motivations and the facts surrounding Amy’s disappearance, the film throws you for a loop and kicks you in another direction. Gillian Flynn, who wrote the book on which the film is based and adapted it to screen, tells a story that’s entertaining, engrossing, and wickedly funny on the surface, but has a big steaming pile of dark social and psychological commentary bubbling underneath it all.

That brings us back to the thing about Gone Girl I can’t seem to un-stick from my brain: The film’s depiction of marriage. Nick and Amy’s descent from happy Manhattan sweethearts to resentful shells of themselves drowning in the muck of dreary, small-town married life is tragic and unsettling. When people’s hearts are betrayed and love is lost, we’re capable of dreadful, dreadful things. Is modern marriage a deadly trap we fall into that forces us to falsify our identities to please one another? I don’t believe so, but each issue faced by Nick and Amy is informed by indisputable truths about modern marriage. Perhaps there are no grand statements being made about marriage and Flynn’s merely mining our deepest marital fears for entertainment value, but some key moments of abuse (emotional and physical) feel frighteningly poignant.

The absurdity of media and its defamatory nature is conveyed most memorably by Fincher and cinematographer Jeff Cronenweth’s imagery: We see Nick wearing a strange smile as he poses for photographers in front of his wife’s “missing person” poster; We see him standing at the top of the stairs in his McMansion at night, flickers of camera flashes from the paparazzi outside piercing the darkness and lighting him up in a haunting, ghost-like manner. Every move, every smile, every subtle gesture Nick makes in the public eye is scrutinized, and he soon comes to realize that public perception defines him. Tyler Perry plays Nick’s hotshot lawyer, who further instills in him the importance of this philosophy.

Fincher’s unique gift is his ability to use environments to communicate specifically his characters’ state of mind. When they’re depressed, lost, or their spirit is decayed, he bathes them in nauseating, mustardy light that makes you want to take a shower. He goes to such great lengths to put us in the headspace of his characters that escape simply isn’t an option. The film’s editing is evocative as well, with the terrific opening credits sequence showing glimpses of locations around North Carthage, fading quickly to black a few beats before you’d expect. The timing feels strange and off-putting, signaling the creepiness that lies ahead. Technically, Fincher is at the top of his game here.

Take nothing away from his actors, though; Affleck and Pike’s performances are paramount. Affleck’s sensitivity in his turn as Nick is something of a revelation, and for him to disappear into the role so completely is pretty impressive, especially considering his high-profile celebrity status. Pike’s given a role that explores touchier territory and gets very, very slippery in the film’s final act, but she stays on her feet and finishes brilliantly. I won’t divulge much for fear of spoiling the experience, but it’d be fair to say she runs away with the movie.

But in a way, she’s also done a disservice. The most irksome aspect of the film is that, as a he said/she said marriage story, too much sympathy falls on the “he” side of things. The moral scale is tipped heavily in Nick’s direction, showing Amy in a considerably less favorable light. Almost every character in Gone Girl, man or woman, is a narcissistic, unlikable asshole, so at least there’s equity on that level. I do fear, though, that the film may inadvertently, unnecessarily perpetuate a misogynistic attitude toward women that makes me feel uncomfortable in the worst way, unlike the rest of the film, which makes me feel uncomfortable in the best way.

Gone Girl trailer

Playing at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival tomorrow night at the California Theater in Berkeley, Austin-based filmmaker Steve Mims’ Arlo & Julie is a quirky indie comedy about the titular couple, who begin receiving mysterious jigsaw puzzle pieces in the mail. More optimistic than your typical suburban indie, the film uses elements of mystery and light-hearted humor to make for a fun, easily-digestible experience.

Steve spoke with us about the project’s origins, the film’s unique comedic tone, finding his actors, the film’s unique mix of genres, and more.

See Arlo and Julie tomorrow night, August 2nd, at 8:55 at the California Theater in Berkeley.

You filmed in Austin, correct?
Steve: Correct. We filmed in Austin and a little bit in West Texas. I had a great time shooting a short with the main actor, Alex Dorbrenko. I talked to him about this idea I had: What would happen to you if you found a piece of a puzzle in the mail and you just kept getting them? My thought was that initially you’d be dismissive, but eventually you’d reach a point where you wouldn’t be able to think about anything else. I started writing it for him to be the main character, and he introduced me to Ashley Spillers, so I started writing it for both of them. All of the other actors came through those two, because they knew a lot of people in the area from working here for a long time. The script got populated with actors that they worked with before. I wrote the script over about six months.

Ashley and Alex are so sweet in the film. Are they like that in real life, and did their personalities inform the tone of the film?
Steve: They are a lot like their characters. Ashley’s super charming. You don’t run into people who really have something special all the time, but she has that. The tone of it? It’s obviously a lightweight film. Certain things resonate with people in terms of the embedded issues of truthfulness, but on the whole, you can’t make a movie about people putting a jigsaw together and have it be anything other than fun. To me, the movie closest to this in tone is Stolen Kisses from 1968. If you haven’t seen that movie…you’ve got to see it. It’s really inventive and fun.

The puzzle and the painting that’s involved in the film’s plot are two very striking visual latching-on points.
Steve: I had the idea for the puzzle for a while, and for the painting, I thought it had to be something abstract. I wanted to have it somehow connected to what the characters are going through. We had people on the crew who worked almost full-time trying to put that puzzle together. It’s an abstract puzzle, so there aren’t a lot of edges that you can find to help you along. It drove people crazy. It was 2000 pieces. In reality, Arlo and Julie would have never put that thing together, because we had a team of people working non-stop on that thing!

This film is a mystery, a comedy, and a romance all in one. It’s a great mix for an indie film.
Steve: Thanks so much. I think people have an expectation of what an independent movie is, and I think that’s why the movie’s done so well. People are caught off-guard by the nature of the movie itself. People laugh as well, which is nice.

There’s a very peculiar tone to the film’s humor, and everyone in the cast seems to understand it.
Steve: I’m super lucky. Mallory Culbert, who plays Trish, is really sharp and funny. Her boyfriend in the movie, Hugo [Vargas-Zesati], is also great. They’re the type of actors who can do something five ways and all five ways are really good. The most experienced guy in the movie is Chris Doubek, who plays the mailman. He’s the real deal, and he was terrific. The tempo of the film is fast, with the beats in the dialogue being pretty rapid. It’s not that naturalistic; hopefully it sounds natural, but you can’t really drag these jokes out. It was fun.

The ’20s soundtrack is really great. Did you always have it in mind?
Steve: From the beginning. I was editing the film, too, and I was putting these pop tracks from the ’20s in there. I’m a big fan of that music. There’s a program here in Austin about that music that I listen to every week. Also, Arlo is a historian, so he sort of lives in the past. There’s a visual motif in the movie with a gramophone, and there’s a DJ in Austin who you can hire to use her gramophones and 78s. That music is obviously old, so we wanted to plant that seed early on in the film of, somehow in the logic of this movie, this is where it’s coming from.

How excited are you to screen at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival?
Steve: We’re so thrilled! It’s such an honor, and I can’t wait to get there. It’s going to be such a blast. I’ve been so busy working that I haven’t had time to mention it, but we’re all super excited to be there.

In the small town of Chadron, Nebraska, math professor Steven Haataja vanished without a trace shortly after starting his new job. It took several months to find his body, and the discovery only brought on more questions. Haataja was found tied up to a tree, burnt beyond recognition, and there was no evidence of anyone else’s involvement. The case remains open to this day, with some believing Haataja either killed himself or was brutally murdered.

Chadron resident and writer Poe Ballantine was in the middle of working on his memoir “Love and Terror on the Howling Plains of Nowhere” when filmmaker Dave Jannetta contacted him. Jannetta was interested in Poe’s memoir along with the Haataja case, and after discussions Jannetta came to Chadron to film a documentary surrounding the mystery. Ballentine weaves his own life story, Haataja’s death and the unique qualities of Chadron together in his memoir, and Jannetta uses a similar approach. Love and Terror on the Howling Plains of Nowhere (the doc adopts the same title as the book) is not merely a crime story. Jannetta focuses on Ballantine’s own life, his family, and how he came to Chadron, while also profiling Chadron’s people and history.

In anticipation for the film’s world première at Hot Docs, Mr. Jannetta and Mr. Ballentine were gracious enough to answer some questions through e-mail about the film. The two men have very different personalities, but both share a mutual passion for the topics covered in their respective works. We talk about the difference between fiction and non-fiction filmmaking, the relationship between the book and film, facing obstacles while filming, what they hope the two works will achieve, and much more. Read below for the full interview.

Love and Terror on the Howling Plains of Nowhere will have its world première at Hot Docs in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. You can find more information on the film here, and to find out more information about the festival (including all films playing, along with when to see them) go to www.hotdocs.ca.

Poe, your memoir was published last summer, and now Dave Jannetta’s documentary is premiering at Hot Docs. How do you feel about getting to see yourself on the big screen?

Poe Ballentine: I don’t really enjoy looking at or listening to myself, but Dave went to a lot of trouble so that I didn’t look like an idiot, so I’m going to try and be as cooperative as possible. I’m excited about the film because so much work went into it, and it’s fun to watch.

And Dave, how do you feel about getting to premiere your film at such a big event?

Dave Jannetta: After Love and Terror was accepted to Hot Docs I said to a friend, “It feels nice to be the pretty, popular cheerleader for a minute.” He thought captain of the football team was apt, but you get the idea. It’s difficult to get people to give a damn about anything and Hot Docs has definitely greased those skids. Making films independently is a slog and you can end up feeling like you’re creating in a vacuum. It’s hard to get solid, objective feedback. If festivals reject you they send form emails telling you it’s not your fault, there were just too many great films this year and “we’re sorry but we can’t tell you why yours wasn’t one of them.” You get really good at accepting rejection. I’m not positive what to expect from Hot Docs but they’ve been incredibly straightforward, helpful, and kind – exactly what a filmmaker hopes for. So I’m excited and thankful to be part of such a great festival.

[To Poe Ballantine] How did you feel when Dave Jannetta approached you about making the documentary? What made you decide to go along with it?

PB: I’m flattered anytime someone takes interest in my work, but because I work alone I thought the odds were pretty long of anything panning out between us. But he turned out to be everything you’d want in a documentarian, sharp-eyed, whip smart, funny, hardworking, detail-oriented, eager to learn, and you never knew what he might do next. I’d turn around and there he’d be in a Highland kilt, a bagpipe in his hands.

In the film, some of the people you write about in your memoir are able to speak for themselves, including your family. How did your wife and son feel about participating in the documentary? Did you learn anything new from Mr. Jannetta’s interviews with your family and the citizens of Chadron?

PB: My son is thrilled to be in a movie, my wife not so much. However I think she’s secretly pleased to be getting her beautiful mug on the big screen. Whenever you get a camera on someone and ask them poignant questions something juicy [is] bound to spill. Loren Zimmerman, the ex-LAPD homicide detective who unofficially took over the investigation, admitting that he was the most likely suspect in the murder of Steven Haataja was particularly enlightening [I thought].

[To Dave Jannetta] You’ve already written and directed one feature. Did you deliberately decide to go for non-fiction with your next film, and how would you compare the two types of filmmaking?

DJ: I often tell people that Rachel & Diana (my first feature) was my film school. It’s not a perfect film but I learned a ton. After Rachel and Diana I continued to work on narrative screenplays and was trying to make a living as a freelance filmmaker. That’s when I began thinking about possible documentary projects because it seemed to me they’d be less resource intensive but equally challenging. Then I came across a short description of Poe’s then in progress memoir [of] Love and Terror on the Howling Plains of Nowhere.

I was most surprised at how the process of making narrative films vs. documentaries overlap and where they diverge. I’m not an avant-garde filmmaker, so at the most basic level I’m just trying to tell a really interesting story. It’s always the driving force. With a narrative film you basically get everything in place before you begin: screenplay, actors, locations, schedules, crew, etc. You should really be able to envision the final film from day one. Conversely, while making a documentary a lot of those things come in the reverse order. You have a vision of the finished project in mind but the capricious nature of the process doesn’t lend itself to rigidity.

Your film settles into a kind of rhythm as it goes along, going back and forth between the Haataja mystery and profiling Chadron itself. Was it difficult to develop this kind of structure during production? Did you ever have trouble in deciding what to focus on, or where it would fit within your film while editing?

DJ: Oh man – it was arduous to put it mildly. There were always three elements that were going to form the foundation of the film: Poe’s story, Steven Haataja’s story, and the story of Chadron itself. I was very familiar with Poe’s work before approaching him about doing [the film]. He spoke my language and I figured that what I knew of his life could turn into an interesting film no matter what. When we began shooting it was well before [Poe’s memoir] was published, so all I knew about it was a short description I’d read. For me, the unsolved death was intriguing but I had no clue where it would lead or how fulfilling that story thread would be. But I did know that I did not want the film to be an archetypal “true crime” documentary or procedural. And as soon as I arrived in Chadron on a scout trip and began meeting and talking to people I believed that if I could effectively capture a snapshot of what the town was like, people would find it interesting.

Poe Ballentine believes Steven Haataja was murdered, but your film gives time to different theories surrounding his death. How did your opinion on Mr. Haataja’s death develop while you were making your film, and where do you personally stand on the matter now?

DJ: It was like a pendulum. There isn’t a great deal of objective information surrounding the Haataja case so a good portion of what I was hearing was hearsay or not necessarily related to the death. But that doesn’t mean it didn’t have value. It was strange because I’d often talk with three or four people in a row who had similar opinions and it would really start to make sense. But I’d go back and look over the evidence or talk to three more people with divergent viewpoints and my opinion would flip. It’s really difficult not to suffer from confirmation bias – to have a preconceived conclusion and place extra emphasis on the evidence that supports it – but I think it’s imperative to keep an open mind to all possibilities. Occam’s razor can be helpful, but the assumptions start piling up pretty quickly and one hypotheses ends up as riddled with holes as the next. While I wouldn’t go on record saying I think it was a cold blooded murder I will say that I think, at the very least, someone else was involved or knows what happened. I realize that’s a cop-out and the fact that I couldn’t get a definitive answer is (in my opinion) a failing of the film. But life’s endings are rarely served neat and I think an ambiguous conclusion is fitting. At least for now. Steven’s story is incomplete – it’s built upon first and second hand accounts, conjecture, rumor, and a few solid pieces of evidence. But I guess that’s how history is usually written.

Since the documentary isn’t exactly an adaptation, how would the two of you characterize the relationship between the film and memoir?

DJ: I’d say the film and the memoir parallel each other and that I hope the experience of one enriches the other.

PB: Even though it has a lot of fancy writing in it, the core of my memoir is journalistic. Dave is more interested in faces, landscape, local color, and letting people talk. We’ve both examined the way in which reality is filtered and altered by whoever’s turn it is to tell a story, which explains why collaborative accounts such as news and even history itself so often miss the mark. Both of our projects are grounded in the central mystery and the portraiture of a small town reacting to a spectacularly tragic event, but I think Dave is more stylistically content with an open ending. While text gives you more room for laughs, asides, and waxing philosophical, film is better at straight exposition. We also attempt to retrace Steven’s freezing moonlit journey across private ranch land to the place where he was found, and I think the film does a better job than my book of showing how prohibitive and unlikely that venture was, at least on foot. Both of our examinations were intended to invite more information in the hopeful solution of this case. In this and many other ways I think our two projects make good companions.

Mr. Haataja’s family have publicly expressed their dislike with your documentary along with Poe Ballantine’s memoir. Since you didn’t have access to the people who knew Steven Haataja best, my question is how you, as a documentary filmmaker, try to compensate for these kinds of restrictions. How do you adapt yourself to give a fair portrayal to your subject(s)/subject matter, even if you aren’t able to include some key perspectives?

DJ: Perspective is the key word in your question. I did talk with Steven’s family early on, and their discontent with the book and film are articulated on various blogs and message boards. I had to do a lot of soul searching and tried to keep up a dialogue with them throughout the process but it’s not much fun to be reviled. Who should be able to tell Steven’s story? Is it exploitative for people who didn’t know him to undertake projects that outline some of the details of his life and death? It’s a moral grey area and I’ve had emails from people who knew Steven both excoriating me and thanking me. But that’s where the most interesting stories live. Black and white is too easy, it’s boring. It’s when the questions you’re asking are in shades of grey that you’ll tend to find the most value. All that being said – without Steven’s family on board [and for budgetary reasons] I made the decision fairly early on to restrict the perspective to the town of Chadron. Even though Steven only lived in town a short time before he disappeared I feel like I was able to find people who had an understanding of him as a person and who could communicate the essence of who he was. The tragedy of Steven is only one element of the film. If it were entirely about Steven and his death I do think [it would be exploitative].

I will say, however, that the process was made much more difficult after an edict from [Steven’s former employer] forbid their employees to discuss the case with me. This was after a meeting in which their director of communications seemed amenable to the idea of the documentary. I’ve even heard rumors that they now put something in their contracts for new employees saying they can’t discuss the Haataja case. What are they trying to hide?

The memoir wasn’t actually finished while filming took place (It was published in the summer of 2013, and you can buy a copy here). Did the filming process influence the writing process, and vice versa?

DJ: When I first arrived in Chadron, Poe had an umpteenth draft of the book that was basically shelved. He hadn’t been able to get it right, was worried about how the town would react, and was almost relieved that it was resting quietly in the shadows. He even remarked to me at one point that he hoped it could be published posthumously. I decided that I wouldn’t read a draft right away because I wanted the film to be its own entity. But I was interacting with [Poe] daily while we were filming so his ideas were seeping into the film whether I liked it or not. As I started conducting interviews he went back to his book and started [revising]. After about a year I read a draft of the book and we were able to talk more clearly. On subsequent trips we worked hard, watched movies, discussed books, ate homemade seafood étouffée, drank, and above all talked about stories. And these things, more than the book itself, impacted the actual production and editing process.

PB: Dave’s film gave me a chance to review every aspect of the case from another perspective, so it’s a much more thorough, balanced, and accurate treatment than it would’ve been without his intervention. I also started carrying around a megaphone and calling everyone “babe.”

What do the both of you hope Love and Terror on the Howling Plains of Nowhere will achieve, and are you concerned with how Chadron will react?

DJ: The case of Steven Haataja’s death is still unsolved, and I think there’s more to the story. I hope that the combination of the film and book are able to knock something loose and lead to a resolution. This might not happen right away but the film will be around for people to examine. Maybe in 50 years when I’m sucking pureed brussels sprouts through a straw in a convalescent hospital someone will finally be able to put all the pieces together and figure it out.

As one of the interviewees says in the film, “If it had been a fucking football coach who disappeared they would’ve called in the National Guard.” I’ll add that if Steven was an attractive blonde female or privileged white male they wouldn’t have rested until they had all the answers. Part of the tragedy is that Steven was a quiet, gentle, cerebral wallflower. This story wouldn’t have been told if they’d found him right away. But I don’t blame Chadron as much as contemporary America. I loved it out there, made some great friends, and hope to go back often. I don’t think I portrayed anything or anyone unfairly but that doesn’t mean I won’t piss some people off. So yeah, I’m a bit concerned. But as Poe wrote to me in an early email, “It’s quite possible, since Haataja was burned alive, that there is still a killer at large, and dozens of citizens, some dangerous, will not be happy to see their accounts presented or their deeds come to light, and so the risk in this is not only artistic, but that’s of course the very quality that makes it fascinating.”

I also hope the film does its part to nudge Poe from the literary shadows. And I’d obviously like audiences to see and enjoy the documentary, to spend a little bit of time pondering the positive effect of one man’s life on a small community, the way in which facts sometimes have very little to do with the truth, and that the truth is gossamer anyway.

PB: Mr. Jannetta and I have discussed this extensively. We both want standing ovations and frenzied women ripping off our clothes. We’d also like to put Chadron on the map and prove once and for all that the place called Nebraska really exists. As with the book, most will be pleased by the documentary, but there will be grumps, rubes, dorks, loafers, and killers who’ll choose not to like it. Vive la difference!

Paradise goes up in flames in The Galapagos Affair: Satan Came to Eden, a stranger-than-fiction murder mystery in documentary form. There’s something fascinatingly bizarre about the events surrounding the unexplained deaths that struck a handful of bickering European settlers that arrived at Galapagos in the 1930s. To tell the true-crime tale, directors Dayna Goldfine and Dan Geller combine a veritable treasure trove of archival film footage of the actual participants with dramatic readings of their diaries by an international cast (Cate Blanchett, Diane Kruger, Josh Radnor) and modern-day interviews with the descendants and acquaintances of the original settlers. It’s an absorbing examination of the psychological effects of being a societal outsider.

Beneath the obvious appeal of the Hitchcockian unsolved murders are deeper musings about the pitfalls of human isolation. In 1929, a German doctor and Nietzsche devotee by the name of Fredrich Ritter and his lover Dore Strauch fled their civilized home of Berlin (and their respective spouses) to start anew, alone, on the Galapagos island of Floreana. Their pie-in-the-sky dream was to carve out a splendid existence on the island, with Dr. Ritter free to form and jot down his philosophies and Strauch free to…well, play with her donkey, her only friend. (Ritter’s view on the role of women made Dore’s life in Eden considerably less ideal, as he considers her affection for the donkey a “great disappointment to me.”) The resourceful couple build a nice island life for themselves, growing a garden and even building a working shower.

Their private paradise wouldn’t remain private for long, however, as word of their “modern-day Adam and Eve” story made its way to Europe. Just a couple years after Ritter and Strauch staked their claim on Floreana, another couple, Heinz and Margaret Wittmer, boated ashore, shattering the couple’s tropical solitude. Fredrich was not pleased. Even more invasive was a maniacal, self-aggrandizing Austrian Baroness who settled on the island not long after, bringing with her a rifle, two young lovers, and plans to build a luxury resort for the wealthy to indulge in. Fredrich was incensed. “We shall resist the establishment of any community.”

The combustible relationships between the three parties eventually led to mysterious deaths, ones that no one has yet to explain. Goldfine and Geller take a whodunnit approach to the unsolved incidents, using charts, photos, and speculative modern-day interviews with island residents to piece together clues and present the various motives each of the settlers may have had to commit the strange atrocities. This portion of the film tickles the inner-detective (and gossiper) in all of us.

The photos and videos at Goldfine and Geller’s disposal are astounding, particularly footage of a silent film the sinister Baroness shot with her two slave boys, in which she reenacts her version of her interactions with Dr. Ritter and the other islanders. Her affection for the camera is disturbing. The Baroness, the most outlandish character in the film, is the only main participant that we don’t get a first-hand account from, as she didn’t keep a diary like the others. This adds to her nutty persona in a way.

Goldfine and Geller accentuate the weirdness of the tale with the playful interplay between the old footage and the actors’ readings. It’s haunting listening to the settlers describe the events of the photos we see on screen. One typically feels a certain disconnect when looking at old black and white photos like these, but the readings bridge that gap and give the photos an eerie immediacy.

The present-day interviews provide further insight into the psychology of island life, while also attempting to puff up the legend the murders, but they only succeed in the former. Though The Galapagos Affair is entirely intoxicating, it never feels as suspenseful as one would expect from a film billed as “Hitchcock-meets-Darwin”. The film’s score, by Laura Karpman, is fittingly kooky and one of Goldfine and Geller’s best assets. The weirdos on Floreana deserve nothing less.

The Galapagos Affair trailer

For many (myself included), the work of Iranian director Asghar Farhadi was relatively unfamiliar before a little film called A Separation rode on a huge wave success; from unprecedented victory in every major category at the Berlinale Film Festival, to an Oscar for Foreign-language feature a whole year later. As a result, worldwide audiences were exposed to a kind of intellectually, culturally and morally even-handed cinema marked by a direct visual approach and equally balanced, literate screenwriting. To those who have yet to see the director’s About Elly — where a L’Avventura-esque mystery eventually reveals itself as an incisive and finally humane look at contemporary Iranian society — I cannot recommend it enough. But by the same token, About Elly’s embryonic formal and tonal strategies for what would later blueprint A Separation become clear in hindsight. The lingering question on the minds of most remained whether such clarity and slow-burning intricacy in Farhadi’s stories could persist in absence of the intricate nuances of Iranian life he obviously knows so well. Farhadi’s answer to that is The Past (Le Passé).

Set in Paris, The Past opens on Marie (Bérénice Bejo, The Artist), a French woman grappling with her myriad of relationships at various points of burgeoning and disintegration. Chief among them is the visit from her husband Ahmad (Ali Mosaffa), who is returning to France to sign divorce papers after four years back in his native Iran. Complicating matters more, Marie plans to marry Samir (Tahar Rahim, A Prophet), whose child she is pregnant with. Both Marie and Samir bring children from previous romances to densify the relational web Farhadi spins, and as the story progresses Marie’s eldest, Lucie (Pauline Burlet) plays an especially pivotal role as we learn of her possible involvement with Samir’s present wife, who is eight months comatose. All of that sounds cinematically heightened because it is. But unlike the matters of faith and custom that so drove the dramatic urgency of his earlier work, Farhadi here seems to relish the opportunity to take an otherwise melodramatic premise and make it agonisingly, persistently relatable, regardless of cultural context.

It’s not my aim to delve too much into the plot, as many of The Past’s pleasures are drawn not merely from the revelations that Farhadi offers (stunning as they are), but the simultaneous deftness and weight with which he announces them: the director’s inherent ability to doubly affect our minds and hearts, to wring empathy from the brink of apathy, is so evident through The Past’s deliberate 130 minutes. The escalating tension that A Separation played straight and fast is here rendered rather more exponentially: curiosities and twists in the narrative are slower to creep in and more pronounced in their unraveling. This has led some to criticise the third act that plays overtly dramatic, but the crescendo that forms is a result of a more patient, more measured setup—so it’s only natural that once those emotional blows arrive, they seem to land harder.

Farhadi is helped in sticking said moments by an ensemble of performances that play like a well-pitched orchestra, Burlet and Elyes Aguis (as Samir’s young son Fouad, quietly absorbing each familial interaction to form his own worldview of death and consequence) offering breadth beyond their years; Bejo’s elastic, rangy Marie providing sharp contrast to both her silent, charming breakout role in The Artist and her co-star Rahim. In the thankless role of the imposing fourth wheel to an existing (though fractured) family unit, Rahim takes his one-dimension and makes it many, playing Samir’s troubled fatherhood, splintered devotions and not inconsequential guilt in a manner so implicitly interiorized that it’s perhaps the most impressive part of the film.

For all the histrionics that threaten to topple The Past overboard, Farhadi ends the film on a contemplative note that revisits (no pun intended) the multiple thematic readings of its aptly abstract title. It gives away nothing to reveal that the closing scene features Samir at his wife’s bedside, speaking though he knows she can’t hear, and asking though he knows she can’t do — a silent, microcosmic moment that flawlessly summarises the film, yet leaves audiences in perpetual wonderment. If my party line here is that The Past is great precisely because it isn’t overly indebted to A Separation, then I’m thankful that they still share instances of Farhadi’s profound ability to close a movie out.

The Past trailer