Perhaps appropriate for a film called The Great Man, director Sarah Leonor’s sophomore effort focuses on the transition from adolescence to manhood. The film, ultimately a tale of two soldiers as they transition from serving in the French Foreign Legion to civilian life, opens with a voiceover by the preteen son of one of these men. Khadji (Ramzan Idiev) unfolds the tale of his father, Markov (Surho Sugaipov), and his father’s best friend, Hamilton (Jeremie Renier), as they chase a fierce leopard during their time in service in Afghanistan. They get caught in enemy fire, and Markov must abandon his weapons and the hunt in order to carry his injured friend through the sweltering desert to save his life.

It sounds gruesome and traumatic, but the tone set by Khadji’s narration is a far cry from the abrupt assaults that might open a war film like Saving Private Ryan. Khadji’s retelling is dreamlike and a bit larger than life, capturing a spirit similar to the heroes of great legends like Beowulf or The Odyssey. Perhaps due to his age (he’s 11), there’s less of a focus on the why and more of a focus on the heroic characteristics of each man (“If one drank, the other wasn’t thirsty”). Martin Wheeler’s score, with its slow, careful guitar plucking, seems to reverberate for days, giving us a feeling of warmth (and maybe longing), but definitely not fear or anger. This mood of the nostalgic, though we don’t quite know what for, continues throughout this slow-paced character film.

But after 10 minutes, the poetry of the initial voiceover ends, and we’re transported to present-day France. Markov, despite saving his friend, gets dishonorably discharged for disobeying orders. Leaving the barracks, Markov, a Chechen immigrant without papers, reunites with his son and undergoes the impossible task of finding work in a country with strict anti-immigration laws. Screenwriters Leonor and Emmanuelle Jacob cleverly leave any social criticism up to the viewer—this is a film that whispers, not yells. Showing the film’s love for slow-moving tracking shots, Markov spends his first night with his son (who he hasn’t seen in five years) on a tour boat gently gliding along the river. Khadji, feeling a bit abandoned, isn’t terribly interested in hearing what his dad has to say. But Markov persists, retelling the story of how the boy’s mother was hit by shrapnel during a Russian raid. It won’t be the first time people are surprisingly upfront with the boy, whose silent acceptance of everything is hopefully a sign of maturity and not despondency. But as Khadji shows great maturity in accepting the whirlwind information of the day, Markov still ends the night putting his coat on the boy. Khadji is brave, but he still needs a protector.

Despite the film’s lack of action and outward intensity (even when the situation warrants it), it’s impossible not to feel entirely invested in the budding relationship between father and son, which becomes something of a triangle after an injured Hamilton is reintroduced. The war stories, which first Markov and later Hamilton tell to Khadji, are the most thrilling moments of the film. Unexpectedly, given the film’s opening sequence, these retellings are sparse—maybe three in total. It’s almost like their sparsity makes us thirst for them even more, as certainly Khadji does, since they’re the surest way he has of growing close to his father.

Hamilton’s relationship with the boy is a lot less straightforward—partially because Hamilton has some growing up to do himself. He must at first seem nothing like the brave soldier depicted in Markov’s stories, the type of man who can hear the silent encroachment of a snake and with godlike reflexes. After a medical leave, he’s just like any other 20-something, immature and without commitments, set on partying and sleeping with girls he can barely hold a conversation with. But this is his story too, and without hitting us over the head with melodrama, The Great Man portrays how bureaucracy and circumstances can destroy men—or allow them to rise to the occasion. The performances by the three lead men (including Idiev here) are both believable and affecting. That’s why we’re willing to take silent journeys on trains; long, windy motorcycle rides through the streets of Paris; and observe serene but uneventful scuba diving scenes. The film’s sense of spacious, meandering time makes the moments of true intimate conversation feel intense and lasting. Like they may just as quickly be lost. And when we learn why Khadji has taken up the task of remembering the two men, we crave every detail just as much as he does.

The childlike lens Khadji’s narration provides allows for the film to hint at larger sociological issues while still prioritizing the immediacy of relationships. For more than just Khadji, The Great Man is a film about how empowering it can be when one man treats another with dignity and compassion, even when a cold world may not. And in capturing that bond, The Great Man more than succeeds.

A version of this review was first published as part of our ND/NF 2015 coverage. 

In late 2012 saw Love, Marilyn, a documentary about the life of Marilyn Monroe. While so much had already been written about the iconic actress, what made that doc unique was how the narrative was presented. Rather than follow a traditional documentary structure, the actress’ life was instead presented in a series of her own personal writings—and the writings of those who knew her—as read by a parade of modern Hollywood stars.

After successful debuts at both Sundance and New Directors/New Films festival, this week sees the limited release of Listen to Me Marlon, a documentary about another iconic celebrity, Marlon Brando. Like Marilyn’s doc, the story is told in a unique way, but instead of using the voices of others to tell Marlon’s tale, director Stevan Riley uses Brando’s own voice as the narrator.

As lifetime highlight reels go, Listen to Me Marlon does a very good job. Riley covers the actor’s childhood, his relationship with his parents, his studies at The New School under the legendary Stella Adler, his film career (with plenty of clips), his children, his activism, the decline of his career, the rebirth of his career, and the tumult and tragedy that filled so much of his later life. Riley also pivots deftly from subject to subject, routinely veering away from a linear telling but never losing the viewer in the process. He hits key moments in Brando’s past not according to a calendar but when they need to be hit to make the right point about the actor’s life or career. As a bonus, the director is not afraid to return to people from Brando’s past, like his parents or Adler, as the narrative warrants it.

Given the breadth of Brando’s career, his devastating charisma, and his real-life drama, this highlight reel (with its endless trove of remarkable still photographs, movie clips, news footage, and other source audio/video) and the way it is structured would have made for a compelling—or at least entertaining—biography. It’s Riley’s narrative approach that puts the doc on another level, and the opening title card says it all:

“Throughout his lifetime Marlon Brando made hundreds of hours of private audio recordings none of which have been heard by the public until now.”

“Until now.” This is what makes Listen to Me Marlon such a hypnotic film: every narrated word is in Brando’s own voice, culled from tapes and assembled in an incredible marriage of image and voice. But even “narrated word” is misleading because Brando doesn’t truly narrate the film. The late actor reflects and ruminates and espouses and regrets and mourns and more, all through a collection of stream-of-consciousness moments that are paired with perfect visual accompaniment. This is Brando opening up, not reading a script.

Or is it?

Of course he’s not literally reading a script, but there is something to raise an eyebrow about here. Riley, in an effort to present “Brando on Brando” with all of this terrific source material, doesn’t consider that a two-time Oscar winner (Best Actor for both 1954’s On the Waterfront and 1972’s The Godfather) and one of the greatest actors Hollywood has ever produced might just be acting on tape for an audience of one: himself.

He is enamored by his own profession, his place in its history, and his persona. He even takes time to name-check a few actors from 1930s/1940s Hollywood and compare them to breakfast cereal in the sense that the audience knows what it’s going to get with every role (like a box of cereal each morning, the same thing over and over).

Since Brando is not without ego, there’s something to be said for his collection of hours of himself on tape (a collection that includes recordings of self-hypnosis sessions). To what end did he do it? Is part of it a symptom of OCD? Maybe. But he must have considered the tapes would one day be heard, so surely it’s not impossible that Brando might have embellished or dramatized some of his free-form stories. This is never explored, so we are left to take Brando at his word that what he is saying is not just for the sake of putting on a show.

(And even if it is, it’s a damn good show.)

As I am not well-versed in the history of Marlon Brando, I cannot say what, if any, of this documentary offers anything in terms of substance beyond what has already been published or produced. Regardless, Listen to Me Marlon is a spellbinding watch, a great exercise in alternative story presentation, and a terrific collection of clips and pics of a Hollywood legend.

A version of this review was first published as part of our ND/NF 2015 coverage. The film releases in NYC July 29 and LA July 31, 2015.

Directed by Oscar Ruiz Navia, Los Hongos follows teenage friends Calvin (Calvin Buenaventura Tascon) and Ras (Jovan Alexis Maquinez Angulo) who, inspired by the resistance shown within the Arab Spring, immerse themselves in the street art scene of the Colombian city of Cali. Ras has to steal paint from his job in order to create street art, whilst Calvin is bank-rolled by his father (Gustovo Ruiz Montoya), attending art classes to improve his technique.

There is not a great deal of plot in Los Hongos. The film meanders along at a snails pace, with Navia not keen to lead the audience by the hand, or even give the plot any real direction. The main arc initially appears to be about street art, and Calvin and Ras’ emergence within a counter cultural group expressing their disillusionment with the current political class. However, beyond the initial Arab Spring comparisons, we gain little insight into the reasons why Calvin and Ras feel oppressed by their government. Only two scenes hint at Colombia’s systemic problems: one involving Calvin’s father describing issues with the country’s drug gangs, and another alluding to the potentially problematic ties between church and state. Navia’s commentary is brief and lacks any real impact, taking the life out of a film that’s clearly frustrated with its own country’s political situation.

The film’s political commentary might fail to land any heavy blows, but Navia’s emphasis on the two characters’ struggle with growing up strikes a chord. Ras struggles to break away from the expectations of his family to find work and settle down, whilst Calvin is given carte blanche by his father who, despite his financial support, appears more interested in himself than his own son. Yet, despite their different backgrounds, Calvin and Ras are drawn together in their search to establish a sense of identity, as symbolized pertinently by their desire to create distinctive art. Their shared struggle is easily the most powerful message of the film. The slow pace of Los Hongos‘ makes it a difficult film to enjoy at times. However it does give both actors ample room to explore their characters, providing brilliant performances that give off a sense of authenticity in its portrayal of life in Cali.

Navia also surrounds Los Hongos with distinctive characters, giving his film a much-needed boost of energy. Calvin’s father is uniquely quirky, a charismatic opera singer who practices in his bathroom mirror to his neighbours’ morning alarm, while Calvin and Ras’ graffiti artist friends—including one who only talks through a gas mask—are also colourful characters. The best supporting character is Calvin’s grandmother Norma, (Atala Estrada) whose frank honesty with Calvin on the pitfalls of alcohol and girls provides some of the film’s funniest moments.

Los Hongos is not without flaws. Its political commentary is underdeveloped, and a lack of narrative structure gives off a frustrating level of ambiguity and aimlessness at times. Yet Navia’s observations on life are poignant, and Los Hongos shows promise from a talented director.

The financial crisis that struck several short years ago feels like a thing of the past, despite the several sectors still recovering. And despite the continued recovery, movies and TV have steered well clear of the territory for the most part, with some notable exceptions (the excellent Margin Call, the upcoming 99 Homes, and several documentaries). Even fewer of these films focus in on a single family during their struggles. All of this makes the Georgian film, Line Of Credit, all the more surprising.

The film centers around Nino (Nino Kasradze), a woman in her 40s trying her best to keep her family afloat. Decades ago her father provided for the family by doing some shady deals with Russia. Now, the cafe below their massive apartment is a ghost town, the money for the children’s private school tuition is nearly tapped, and Nino has knotted herself into a complex hurricane of debt. Week by week she calls on friends for loans, pawns jewelry, and sells everything she can get her hands on, all while trying to keep up the illusion of comfort and stability, urging everyone she borrows from to keep the matters hush-hush.

It’s easy to forget that the rest of the world was hit just as hard, if not harder, by the financial crisis. And while Line Of Credit, writer/director Salome Alexi’s debut feature, serves as a reminder, it unfortunately does little else. The plot is both wildly intricate and exceptionally dull in its narrative trajectory. To pay for a party, Nino pawns a ring. To keep the gas turned on, she borrows from a friend. To get the ring back she sells a tea set. And so goes the movie. Everyone is willing to loan Nino whatever she needs. Some friends go so far as to take out massive loans in their own name for her. This ease with which Nino passes through the world serves to keep the conflict to a lazy-Sunday-morning minimum. And not once do we get to see her doing anything else. Nino is either borrowing or being asked to repay. Simple as that.

But while the film becomes predictable from a mile off, the 84 minute run time keeps it manageable. That, and the beautiful cinematography. Shot by Jean-Louis Padis, Line Of Credit is thick with matte pastels and gorgeously framed shots of the small Georgian town. But while it looks beautiful, the camera never moves and claustrophobia sets in, sucking the life from many scenes–especially those few where Nino is allowed a good time, keeping us glued in place a mile away.

Line Of Credit is a harmless film about a very important and overlooked subject—roughly 14% of Georgian families lost their houses to the mortgage crisis—but it could use something, anything aside of a payout or a payment.

The purpose of the New Directors/New Films festival is to profile exciting new works by emerging talent across the world, a perfect description for Benjamin Crotty’s Fort Buchanan. Crotty, an American artist based in Paris, crafts a film that’s the sign of something fresh and distinct. Taking place on a French army base, Fort Buchanan follows Roger (Andy Gillet) as he stays behind while his soldier husband Frank (David Baiot) goes to work in Djibouti. Roger has little to do at the fort, aside from interacting with his abusive teenage daughter Roxy and the army wives waiting for their husbands to return.

In just over an hour, Crotty creates his own bizarre little world with Fort Buchanan. The fort itself is an area of sexual frustration, with the women eager to sleep with anyone they can find on the fort (including each other). Crotty also imbues his film with an off-kilter tone and sense of humour defying almost all conventions. There’s a sense of complete sincerity for every character, but Crotty regularly veers off into the realm of slapstick and surrealism. It’s a strange clash that feels like a direct mash-up between French arthouse and American indie.

Crotty’s balancing act doesn’t always work out in his favour, like when he tries shifting the narrative to a new character in the final act. But when it does work the results are hilarious and truly singular, a mishmash of styles and genres that work effortlessly. Fort Buchanan is the kind of debut that should get people excited; it’s original, strange, flawed, and brimming with potential. Most films have a hard time being this entertaining in two hours; Crotty does that and more in less than 65 minutes.

Filming can be considered a form of poetry, visual of course. Otherwise, as a written medium and highly subjective art form I’ve most often found the use of poetry in film to be unmoving. In Nadav Lapid’s Israeli film The Kindergarten Teacher a middle-aged woman, Nira (Sarit Larry), has recently discovered a love of poetry and begun to practice it, reciting to her husband who responds encouragingly but indifferently. One day a student in her Kindergarten class, a small five-year-old named Yoav (Avi Shnaidman) announces to his nanny in the school yard that he has a poem. She runs to grab paper and Nira watches as the boy paces back and forth, trance like, reciting a simple but beautiful poem about emotions and experiences he can’t possibly understand. She’s moved and inspired.

She recites his poem in her poetry class later and is delighted and affirmed to hear that it’s considered excellent by her peers. Though, they don’t know the poem isn’t hers. When Yoav’s nanny is rather flippant about the boy’s genius, and she learns his single-parent father cares nothing for nurturing this element of his son, her instincts kick into high gear to protect and encourage the boy’s talent. But after pushing the boy to perform publicly, things spiral and Nira becomes unhinged, obsessed as she is with Yoav and his abilities.

The performances of The Kindergarten Teacher are what safeguard the film from being maudlin or even psychotic, two extremes the film could have fallen into. Lapid’s decision to treat the camera casually, allowing actors to touch, run into, and even stare directly into it, providing a jarring self-aware element that isn’t always understood but certainly grounds the film from becoming lost in the head-in-the-clouds behavior of Nira. Poetry is still quite subjective, but the young Shnaidman’s straight forward youthful recitations cause even this dispassionate viewer to pay attention and appreciate. The film is an excellent first feature and touches on the need in creatives to find beauty and art in life and help it to flourish, even if it stands as a reminder of one’s own inability.

In the first 30 minutes of Ow, Yohei Suzuki’s debut feature, I was prepared to consider it one of my favourites of ND/NF so far. It’s hard to find a direct comparison to the tonal juggling act Suzuki pulls off, but think of it as the sort of set-up you would see in an episode of Doctor Who. The film opens with jobless, 26-year-old Tetsuo ambling about his family home until his girlfriend shows up to have sex with him. Shortly after doing the deed, both of them get stuck in some sort of trance when they stare at a giant, floating orb that suddenly appears in Tetsuo’s bedroom. And when I say stuck, I mean it literally; the moment they lay eyes on the orb, both of them stay frozen in place. Tetsuo’s father comes home later, barging into his son’s bedroom to make a tearful confession: he was laid off from his job weeks ago, and every morning he’s been pretending to go to work. The reveal gets cut short though, as Tetsuo’s dad also winds up staring at the orb.

From there, Suzuki frantically goes back and forth between thriller and comedy mode as the police get involved. One by one, police officers go upstairs to investigate, only to get transfixed by the orb once they set their eyes on it. This entire first act with the orb is highly entertaining to watch, a kind of fantastically strange and funny sci-fi/mystery that quickly escalates into a morbid comedy of errors. Unfortunately, once the orb goes away and everyone comes of their trance, Suzuki doesn’t really know where to take the story. The police, having no clue how to explain what happened, make up a story for the public, and Suzuki shifts the focus to an amateur reporter trying to expose the cover-up. The problem with this change-up is that Suzuki already showed everything that happened in the first half hour; watching the reporter spend the rest of the film playing catch-up gets pretty tedious to watch by the end. And the ending itself is a bit of a mess, a Shinya Tsukamoto inspired bit of insanity––including one character flat-out referencing Tetsuo: The Iron Man—that doesn’t feel earned compared to the relatively low-key material beforehand.

At least Suzuki never loses the off-kilter tone he establishes from the outset. The strange quirks he employs at the beginning—on-screen captions describing basic stats for each character as they’re introduced, a strange, percussive score, and a bonkers police detective—help set up the bizarre atmosphere permeating the rest of the film. After the orb leaves the picture, everyone unlucky enough to look at it winds up having a side effect where their bodies randomly go catatonic. There’s a point where Tetsuo’s mother and grandmother push the frozen bodies of Tetsuo and his girlfriend around town in wheelchairs, gleefully commenting on how cute the two look together. It’s those kinds of surreal moments that make Ow a film that’s hard to forget, bad story or no.

It’s disappointing to see White God’s marketing put so much emphasis on the climax, where canine protagonist Hagen (played by brothers Luke and Bodie Miller) rallies hundreds of other dogs into an uprising against humans. While I can’t blame the need to show off director Kornel Mundruczo’s incredible feat (I don’t think anyone has achieved what he’s done here), it’s obvious from the beginning that the epic conclusion is meant to be a surprise. White God starts off as a family drama of sorts, when 13-year-old Lili (Zsofia Psotta) gets sent to live with her father (Sandor Zsostar) after her mom leaves the country. Lili brings Hagen along to her father’s apartment, only to have him abandon her dog on the streets after he loses his patience with the mutt.

Mundruczo focuses on Hagen after he gets abandoned, crosscutting between his attempts to survive as a stray and Lili’s efforts to find her beloved pet. It doesn’t come as a surprise that Hagen’s scenes are far more engrossing to watch than the by-the-numbers father/daughter drama going on, but Mundruczo has a point (I guess). Both Hagen and Lili are going through rough times, facing oppression from superiors around them, and Mundruczo parallels their stories before eventually bringing them back together. As an allegory for society’s underprivileged fighting back, White God isn’t especially great; Lili and Hagen’s relationship is too specific, making any extensions to the real world easily fall apart. In fact, it’s the humans that wind up hurting things, as any scene without Hagen makes the pace slow to a crawl. But once Hagen begins his grand scale attack on Budapest, it’s easy to sit back and enjoy the elaborately prepared chaos on display (animal trainer Teresa Miller deserves just as much credit as Mundruczo for pulling everything off with hundreds of shelter dogs). White God’s attempts to merge arthouse sensibilities with B-movie fun tends to be hit or miss, but while Mundruczo may falter on the arthouse side, he certainly knows how to make an entertaining genre film.

A nautical thriller with a surprisingly nasty mean streak, Shim Sung-Bo’s Haemoo is an impressive debut feature for the South Korean screenwriter. Shim, who has a working relationship with director Bong Joon-Ho—Shim co-wrote Memories of Murder, and Bong shares a writing credit on Haemoo with Shim—doesn’t reach the same levels as his masterful collaborator, but Haemoo shows Shim has plenty of potential to reach those same heights one day.

Taking place in the late ’90s, shortly after the Asian financial crisis of 1997, Haemoo immediately establishes a tone of desperation with its characters. On the old, rundown fishing ship “Junjin,” Captain Kang (Kim Yoon-seok) finds himself in a bit of trouble. With his crew not catching enough fish on their most recent trip, and his boss trying to sell off the boat to earn some quick cash, it won’t be long before he’s out of a job. With little to no options left for Kang and his coworkers, he takes a deal to smuggle Chinese-Korean immigrants on “Junjin” in order to stay afloat.

With that relatively brief set-up, Kang and his crew head off to pick up their illegal cargo. Kang’s crew is where Shim has the most trouble with his film, reducing the majority of the supporting cast to annoying, one-note characters. The only exceptions would be Dong-sik (Park Yu-chun), a young crew member who doesn’t seem to fit in too well, and Wan-ho (Moon Sung-keun), the ship’s elder and chief engineer. The rest of the crew is reduced to childish horndogs, excited about the trip for the chance to hook up with some of the female immigrants on board.

After an intense sequence showing the immigrants trying to jump on Kang’s boat during a storm, a small romance begins blossoming between Dong-sik and Hong-mae (Han Ye-ri), a young woman Dong-sik rescues from the sea after she falls in during the transfer. Chemistry between the two feels forced, but that’s kind of the point; Dong-sik’s feelings for Hong-mae resemble those of a high school crush, and Hong-mae certainly isn’t having any of it. Shim begins profiling some of the immigrants on board—including an agitator trying to cause a mutiny, and a woman sleeping with crew members in order to get better treatment—setting up what looks like an odd couple story between the ship’s hard-nosed crew and their wily cargo.

But anyone familiar with South Korea’s recent cinematic output, or any of Bong Joon-Ho’s films, knows that subverting expectations is this country’s bread and butter. Things take a shocking turn around the halfway mark, and suddenly Haemoo becomes a whole other film. As a sea fog rolls in—“Haemoo” literally translates to “sea fog”—the foggy haze covering the boat becomes symbolic. What was once clear is now hard to see, and under the cover of the fog, Kang and his crew succumb to their immoral, selfish survival instincts.

Surprisingly, given Shim and Bong’s previous writing credits, the biggest issues with Haemoo come from the screenplay. Both writers have an excellent handle on pacing, with the second half steadily ratcheting up the tension as things continue to take a turn for the worst, but their handling of characters leaves a lot to be desired. The forced romance between Dong-sik and Hong-mae transitions into a real one rather suddenly, leading to an incredibly awkward sex scene after one character is murdered in cold blood right in front of them. The underdeveloped supporting cast only get more grating once the stakes get higher, functioning as nothing more than barriers preventing the protagonists from reaching a happy ending. The poor characterizations wind up clashing with the mostly excellent structure and plotting of the screenplay, producing a final result that’s frustratingly flawed.

The same can’t be said for Shim’s direction, as he shows a remarkably assured hand behind the camera. He handles the film’s sharp tonal shifts with ease, and with the help of cinematographer Hong Kyeong-pyo sustains an eerie mood once the thick sea fog envelops the boat and its surroundings. Park does a serviceable job as the young Dong-sik, but Kim Yoon-seok is the cast’s MVP as Captain Kang. Kim, who some fans of South Korean’s new wave might recognize from The Chaser, makes Kang a likable yet intimidating force, a man fueled purely by his need to survive. And while the film has more than a few issues with its screenplay, Haemoo is still a fun ride for the most part. It’s yet another example of how South Korea continues to beat Hollywood at its own game, combining different genre elements into something appealing, entertaining and refreshingly mature.

Britni West takes the tried-and-true path with her directorial debut Tired Moonlight and films what she knows. Freewheeling the camera with DP Adam Ginsberg around her hometown of Kalispell, Montana, West collates a variety of poems from local dreamers and romantics into a cinematic (and brazenly American) quilt. The trouble is, it itches. Not that it doesn’t look great, which it absolutely does thanks to the felt aesthetic of Super 16 mm film; the kind you want to put your fingers through. The remoteness of middle America captured here is everything. And while the scenery shoots itself, West takes the extra step of complementing it with a score befitting cobwebbed elevators of some haunted castle, making the atmosphere dominantly present. The Herzogian mountain peaks in the opening are a perfect example.

The unscratchable itch is caused by how much engagement relies on the appreciation of the poetry, and the random back-and-forths between characters we never really spend quality time with. That’s where the film loses me. We see children, teenage mothers, Russian emigrants, and lonely people desperate to connect, but they’re silhouettes. Interactions, and the few grasps at narrative continuity, feel vapid. It’s a film disheveled at its core because it’s trying to be a poem, like a lost ship anchored to nothing, but its mumblecore roots and free-verse nature will definitely click for some. For me, Tired Moonlight is a satiating slice of American pie, one where the crust ends up tasting better than the filling.