Digital Week – August 20

The border crisis—a political hot potato not only in the U.S. but Europe as well—is the subject of Agnieszka Holland’s incendiary film, which forcefully wears its anger on its sleeve. Never sugarcoating her stance, Holland climbs onto her metaphorical soapbox to bemoan the treatment of migrants by gaslighting politicians and intolerant police/border guards but even well-intentioned activists who are less effective than they hope to be. The film takes place in 2021 on the border between Poland and Belarus, a heavily forested area. Opening with a drone shot over the dense cluster of deep green foliage (hence the evocative title), Holland cuts to the sharp, stark B&W photography of Tomasz Naumiuk for the rest of the film’s 150 minutes. Holland and cowriters Maciej Pisuk and Gabriela Łazarkiewicz-Sieczko are unafraid to be unsubtle, repeatedly showing that inhumanity and dehumanization are baked into the process of dealing with so many refugees. Then there are moments of shared humanity: African refugees and the children of the family in a safe house, or the tow truck driver who volunteers to help transport refugees. Alongside professional actors as border guards, police and activists, Holland adroitly assembled amateurs to play refugees, and their authentic, lived-in appearance greatly contributes to “Green Border’s” verisimilitude.

When it was originally released in 1980, director Tinto Brass and writer Gore Vidal disowned the film they had worked on, ostensibly because producer and Penthouse publisher Bob Guccione gratuitously added hardcore inserts to a movie that was already an explicit chronicle of ancient Rome’s debauchery during Caligula’s reign. It’s considered one of the worst films ever made—it’s not, just a humorless mess—and has gained a cult following. But producer Thomas Negovan decided, when pristine footage was found, to create an entirely new version, pointedly without  Guccione’s X-rated scenes. At nearly three hours, “the ultimate cut” wallows in the same repetitious depravity as the earlier version, but perhaps even more ponderously—maybe Guccione was right adding porn to alleviate the rest. Yes, Malcolm McDowell’s entertainingly hammy Caligula gets to breathe a little more, and Brass’ eye for composition and design is more fully discernable. While it’s no lost masterpiece, “Caligula” is a fuzzy but watchable mess.

When aspiring writer Renn returns to his hometown of Cleveland for his mother Lily’s funeral, he must deal with his sister Leigh, father Darren, and his stepfather Rick along with Zoe, the therapist he met on the plane and his own memories of his relationship with Lily—the good and bad, hence the title—in Robert Schwartzman’s alternately wise and wobbly character study. Some intimate moments (between Renn and the three women in his life) ring true, while others (a confrontation between Renn and Rick, a late-night break-in of Rick and Lily’s home) decidedly don’t. There’s a fine cast—Nick Jonas (Renn), Brittany Snow (Leigh), Matt Walsh (Darren), David Arquette (Rick) and Alexandra Shipp (Zoe)—that’s led by a gracious, winning turn as Lily by Elisabeth Shue.

In Jeff Nichols’ fact-based drama, a group of motorcycle riders forms a club in the Chicago area in the 1960s, and we watch its growth and demise—and the irretrievable damage to those involved—through the eyes of Kathy (a game but misdirected Jodie Comer), wife of biker Benny. Based on Nichols’ conventional treatment, this subject doesn’t cry out for dramatization; a documentary might have been a better alternative. The disjointed and episodic approach—an interviewer talks to Kathy years later—lacks narrative propulsion; even the bike-riding sequences are desultory. Tom Hardy (Johnny, the club’s founder) and Austin Butler (Benny) inhabit their roles persuasively, but a little of this goes a long way; Nichols doesn’t personalize these characters’ stories enough to make them individuals worth watching. There’s a fine UHD transfer; extras comprise Nichols’ commentary and cast and crew interviews.

The last Mad Max sequel, 2015’s “Fury Road” with Charlize Theron, had the usual breathtaking stuntwork and razor-sharp filmmaking, but there’s something distancing about watching a bunch of survivors vying for supremacy amid the industrial and desert wastelands that populate the series’ post-apocalyptic setting. The latest, “Furiosa,” is more of the same—even an emotive, appealing performer like Anya Taylor-Joy gets lost in the endless chase sequences. Of course, George Miller is a superior hand at this sort of thing, but for all the technical proficiency, I prefer the bygone days of the first “Mad Max” films, where the stunts and visual imaginativeness were actually in front of the camera and not so much CGI. The film does look spectacular in 4K; extras include several interviews and featurettes.

Czech composer Bohuslav Martinů (1890-1959), an underrated 20th century giant whose estimable musical career ran the stylistic gamut from chamber music to stage works, created this powerful opera from a novel by Greek author Nikos Kazantzakis, which is set in a small village during the Passion Play that recreates the days before Jesus’ crucifixion. Simon Stone’s uncluttered 2023 production—the first time the Salzburg Festival staged a Martinů work—makes a crucial change from Martinů’s libretto: the Turkish refugees arriving in the village have a much bigger role, an obvious allusion to Europe’s current refugee crisis. Although it adds an interesting aspect to the story, it detracts from the small-scale drama at hand. It is a musically riveting account as Maxime Pascal leads the Vienna Philharmonic in a perceptive run through Martinů’s arresting score, while a fine singing cast is led by Sebastian Kohlhepp, Sara Jakubiak and Christina Gansch.

This excruciatingly slow, blackly comic 2023 exploration of Croatia’s seedy underbelly, the final film of director Lukas Nola before dying of cancer at age 58, in 2022, has unsavory characters exploiting, double crossing, harassing, and blackmailing one another, as 40-year-old businessman Miro—after having sex and sharing cocaine with her—discovers dead escort Maja in his hotel bathroom, and things unsurprisingly spiral from there. Nola made a heavily satiric drama about his country’s cynicism and corruption, but since everyone is appalling it’s simply loads of thickly laded-on dramatic irony alongside metaphorical shots of birds and animals. Lena Medar as Maja and Hrvojka Begović as Miro’s wife Darija on enliven the proceedings in their brief appearances. 

Co-writer-director Anna Novion has created pulse-pounding suspense out of the seemingly mundane subject of math: a grad school whiz, Marguerite (a superlative and complex turn by Belgian actress Ella Rumpf), sees her academic life fall apart when it’s discovered that the theorem she has worked on for years has a fatal error. Novion’s brilliantly observed character study follows a young woman who slowly realizes that her life can be far more than mere numbers and proofs on a blackboard; Novion and Rumpf make Marguerite a truly compelling character, and it’s easy to share in her triumphs (her first orgasm is particularly wittily shot) and to cheer for her ultimate redemption.