Home Media Magazine - August 19-25, 2007 - (Page 28)

REVIEWS I PUNISH ME Street 9/11 Picture This, Drama, $26.95 DVD, NR. In German with English subtitles. Stars Maren Kroymann, Kostja Ullmann. www.homemediamagazine.com unish Me throws an additional kink into a sadomasochistic love story: a May-December romance that in some municipalities could constitute pedophilia. Elsa (Kroymann) is a 50-year-old probation officer for juveniles, kind but stern. Jan (Ullmann), her new charge, is a 15year-old with soulful eyes and a sexual braggadocio belying his age. Jan taunts her, stalks her, stares at her with frank attraction, and finally tells Elsa that he’s hers to have. As Elsa tries to responsibly deal with this unwanted attention, Jan almost sociopathically cements himself into her life. She finally cedes to temptation, beginning a master-servant relationship with the boy. What seems at first an erotic exploration of a double-tabooed relationship begins to slowly feel very wrong as the power is transferred from the stalking Jan to Elsa, who by her career and age is already in a position of power. As his partner in this affair, she finds new ways to beat him and control his moves, while he is often reduced to tears but still rapt for her attention and discipline. You wonder if he’s looking for stimulation or a warped version of a parental figure. Director Angelina Maccarone offers a spare black-and-white vision of this relationship with Dogme 95-like austerity. All pretense is stripped, natural light and sound fill the screen; Kroymann even appears in little makeup, allowing every line on her face to show. This is not a bad thing. It’s brave filmmaking, and a masterful stroke to let the performers and story take the lead. Kroymann and Ullmann are marvelous actors, so subtly portraying the power exchange that once the viewer becomes aware of the film’s journey from eroticism to the dangerous ground of teen exploitation, it’s as shocking as Jan’s first slap. Less artificial than its S&M predecessors 9-1/2 Weeks or Secretary, and never played for laughs or cheap thrills, Punish Me is as thought-provoking as it is stimulating. Foreign and indie film fans who got hot under the collar recently by watching IFC’s Indie Sex documentary series would do well to add this lesser-known film to their list. P I TWO WEEKS Prebook 8/22; Street 9/18 Fox/MGM, Drama, B.O. $0.05 million, $27.98 DVD, ‘R’ for language, including some sexual references. Stars Sally Field, Ben Chaplin, Tom Cavanagh, Julianne Nicholson. n this small, family drama, a woman enters the final stages of terminal cancer, and her four children gather to help care for her during her last days and try to find some way to say goodbye. I one complicated family. Not only is the cast uniformly Confined to the good, but they house in which have a remarkthey grew up and able chemistry surrounded by the with each other. people with whom They act with they have the most each other as history, both good families do: lovand bad, the famiing, hateful, jeally goes through the stages of de- ous, angry, affectionate and acnial, fear and grief. All of it tem- cepting. Fields and Chaplin delivpered by humor, much of it of the er especially powerful performgallows variety. It’s an intimate ances as a mother and son with a look at a brutal time in the life of complex relationship. Extras include a number of deleted scenes, at least one of which actually clarifies some minor dialogue that is in the film. Also included is a documentary in which the film’s writer-director, Steve Stockman, discusses the ways in which his own mother’s death informed the writing and shooting of the piece; a group discussion guide that aims to be a jumping off place for a consideration of death and dying and the ways in which families deal with that inevitability; and an audio commentary by the director. — Anne Sherber I DIMENSION Prebook 8/22; Street 9/18 Cinequest, Drama, $24.99 DVD, NR. Stars Paul Turner, Mary Kay Cook, Sarah VonderHaar, Harlan Hogan, Deanna Dunagan. — Laura Tiffany imension tantalizes in small ways with what might have been, reminiscent of an average “Twilight Zone” episode, but minus Rod Serling’s trademark cynicism and macabre detailing. The premise involves an unassuming hardware salesman named Chance who has been given a special gift by God. As a kind of heavenly compensation for the untimely D death of his family, he is endowed with the privilege of granting needy customers a three-inch adjustment to their lives. How that three inches is employed is up to them, and ranges dynamically from the obvious (three inches added to the male member) to the highly creative (three inches of calendar pages taken off of one’s life). Chance dutifully carries out his heavenly injunction, but it does not make him happy in the least. He longs to be reunited with his family, a moment God has ambiguously promised to deliver “when the time is right.” Ironically, it is only through the intervention of the devil that Chance might get his opportunity. Dimension satisfies most when it is exploring the varying ways people avail themselves of their allotted three. Characters are, in effect, summarized by their choices, and it’s not surprising that the more imaginative among them belong to the characters most developed within the narrative. The tone is even throughout, and among the performances, Dunagan gives a sympathetic turn as an aging widow who makes a romantic gesture of her wish. — Eddie Mullins 28 Home Media Magazine August 19–25, 2007 http://www.homemediamagazine.com

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Home Media Magazine - August 19-25, 2007

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