NYLON - February 2008 - (Page 111) CHICAGO 10 Brett Morgan’s previous documentary feature, the hagiographic cult hit The Kid Stays in the Picture, strictly adhered to the dogmatic memory of its narrator and subject, Hollywood super-mogul Robert Evans. Morgan’s latest work, the docu-drama Chicago 10, follows the riotous protests in the Windy City that accompanied the 1968 Democratic National Convention and the subsequent trial of the protesters, known as the Chicago 8. Using a mixture of archival footage and animation, Morgan is able to cover ground documentaries have missed and dramas have flubbed, balancing the courtroom tension (rendered as animation) with the horrific violence in the streets with a seamless authority. Morgan’s film is appropriately onesided, portraying Yippies Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, as well as Black Panther co-founder Bobby Seale, as prescient saints, while Judge Julius Hoffman and Mayor Richard Daley are presented as demagogic tyrants. This may seem like irresponsible filmmaking until it’s realized that Hoffman really did bind and gag Seale in court and Daley did give the OK to unleash deadly force on unarmed college students (foreshadowing the tragic events at Kent State less than two years later). Morgan’s filmmaking skills are keenly attuned to stories of injustice, lending emotional credence to Chicago 10, which is a powerful indictment of a uniquely American brand of fascism that turned an innocent, idealistic generation into drug addicts, terrorists, and consumers. JARED FLINT FILM3 WSTRIPS 4 MONTHS, EEKS, EDITED BY LUKE CRISELL AND 2 DAY S Romania was a wretched place to be when Nicolae Ceausescu was in charge of it. Up until his execution for genocide in 1989, the Communist dictator dragged the country (known then as the Romanian People’s Republic) into a Tartaros-like state; a regime fueled, pitifully, by black market economics (shampoo and Kent cigarettes sold from under jackets on every street corner) and characterized by the pollution and subsequent disintegration of social relations. It’s into this pallid milieu that Romanian director Cristian Mungiu (who grew up during the dictatorship) wades in his searing 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, a film that was unexpectedly awarded the Palme D’Or at Cannes last summer. Set in the winter of 1987, near the bitter end of the Ceausescu era, Mungiu’s film is about two women—the matter-of-fact Otilia and the whimsical Gabita—who are sharing a dorm room while they attend college in a non-descript provincial town. Gabita is pregnant and doesn’t want to be—an unfortunate predicament in a country where abortion was outlawed in 1966—and so, under pressure from Gabita, Otilia sets about arranging an illegal abortion for her friend. Tragically, the abortionist turns out to be a man with a chilling absence of morality. Half a million women reportedly died from such operations during the last two decades of Communism, a context in which Mungiu has said “abortion stopped being a moral issue [and became] an act of rebellion,” and the womens’ desperation is apparent in practically every frame of 4 Months… which unfolds in something close to real time and is choreographed in extremely long takes. So while the camera might start off focused on a character, as they move around a room it won’t always follow them, creating a discomfiting feeling that both expounds the ominous air that creeps through the film and marks its achievement. As Mungiu has said, those living in Romania at the time weren’t aware of the extent of the oppression they were living under, and thus his sinister vignette doesn’t dwell on the bigger picture, instead painting an intensely realistic, personal portrait of human interaction that is absolutely unmissable. LUKE CRISELL sex and death 101 In Sex and Death 101 writer/director Daniel Waters (of Heathers fame) imagines what would happen if a bachelor received a chronological list, days before his wedding, of every woman he has had, and will ever have, sex with. A parallel plot follows Gillian (Winona Ryder), the last woman on his list, named ‘Death Nell’ by the media for seducing various men and sending them into comas. The bachelor, Roderick (Simon Baker), breaks off his engagement and eagerly crosses out name after name. What follows—sex with strippers, grandmothers, lesbians, schoolgirls— culminates into what feels something like a 90-minute Axe commercial. In recurring far-fetched segments, Roderick is transported to a matrix-like realm where advice and witticisms are exchanged with three men connected to the accidental release of the list of his future bedfellows. These scenes supply most of the entertainment, while Ryder and Baker make the best of things elsewhere. Though it’s clear throughout the film that the two will eventually meet, it takes too long to get there, and by the time it does you’re too bored to care how it happened. MALLORY RICE T H E A I R I B R E AT H E Based on a Chinese proverb about the emotional touchstones of existence—happiness, pleasure, sorrow, and love—Jieho Lee’s The Air I Breathe examines each element in narratives that stand alone but gain momentum as they are woven together. After betting his life on a horse named Butterfly in “Happiness,” a businessman grappling with severe anxiety (Forest Whitaker) is in debt to crime boss Fingers (Andy Garcia) who gets his moniker—and what he wants—by removing offenders’ digits. In “Sorrow” rising pop star Trista (Sarah Michelle Gellar), finds her management contract in the unlucky clutches of Fingers, and crosses paths with a clairvoyant thug (Brendan Fraser) who can see the future of everyone he meets in “Pleasure.” The lynchpin here, as he so often is, is Kevin Bacon—who in “Love” plays a doctor trying to come to terms with his unrequited love for Julie Delpy. STAR BLACK CITY OF MEN As in 2002’s Oscar-nominated City of God, the drug-dealing street gangs of Rio de Janeiro provide the context for City of Men (a feature-length follow-up to the cult mini-series of the same title) in which two rudderless teenagers—best friends Acerola (Douglas Silva) and Laranjinha (Darlan Cunha)—are thrust into the maelstrom of manhood and forced to come to terms with issues of paternity. While Laranjinha seeks out his real father (now on parole for manslaughter), Acerola must man-up when his wife takes a job in São Paulo, leaving him to fend for their two-year-old son. The boys’ friendship is tested as they align themselves on opposite sides of a gang war and discover their fathers’ history bleeds all-too readily into their lives. City of God’s director and producer Fernando Meirelles produces again here, and while Men’s director Paulo Morelli lacks Meirelles’s mastery of motion, his film succeeds as conventional narrative, confidently employing the archetypes of rites of passage and the quest for identity. Meanwhile cinematographer Adriano Goldman (The Year My Parents Went on Vacation) expertly captures the beauty of the sun-kissed physiques and the dramatic city, and the young stars rise to the demands of their roles. REBECCA RODRIGUEZ
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