dir. Menno Meyjes
Set shortly after World War I in Munich, Germany, Max is about a sophisticated and wealthy Jewish art dealer (John Cusack) who takes a side interest in the work of a poor and struggling artist named Adolf Hitler (Noah Taylor). The two develop an awkward friendship, with Hitler looking up to the one-armed Max Rothman (whose arm was claimed by the "war to end all wars") and Max taking pity on Hitler (who is an obnoxious but innocuous anti-Semite). The two walk around a moody and decaying Munich (the film was shot in Budapest), discussing art, politics, and history. They go to cafes, where Hitler drinks lemonade and Max drinks black coffee; they go to whorehouses, where Hitler sits alone and across the table from him Max is cuddled by two decadent beauties. Max Rothman, however, does not exist in history; he is a composite of Jewish art dealers who sold and bought Hitler's work during that gloomy period. None of the events in the film actually happened as such, and the autumn-sad relationship between the art dealer and the artist finds its ultimate truth in the cinematic imagination of the screenplay writer/director Menno Meyjes. All in all, Max is an unimportant film, but it does manage to extract a decent performance out of John Cusack. CHARLES MUDEDE
Amandla!
dir. Lee Hirsch
Fri March 7-Thurs March 13 at the Varsity.
In an age of entertainment and consumption, it's easy to forget that the simple human act of singing against injustice can be more than merely "authentic"; it can be authentically revolutionary. After seeing Amandla!, a staggeringly inspirational documentary about the unique role of music in the 40-plus-year struggle against apartheid in South Africa, this notion becomes indelible.
The documentary, whose title means "power," is constructed conventionally, with newsreel footage and talking-head interviews with South African musicians and activists (many of whom suffered exile, arrest, and torture for their efforts against institutionalized oppression). They tell the same story: When all other attempts to be heard failed, black citizens were left only with the power of music to resist the government. And though the resistance was nonviolent, the music was not; interviewees recall lines like "we will shoot you, we will kill you," and "we will kill you with our machine guns." Not all the lyrics were so blunt, but they shared the relentless conviction that change had to and would come. The message is clear: These are songs of freedom, not peace. And they prevailed.
The experience of viewing Amandla! consists of a complicated series of jolts to the consciousness. It's astonishing to see so much history encapsulated so effectively, to hear so many eloquent accounts of such inhuman misery, to be exposed to so much stirring music. But the biggest jolt is generated by a simple fact: For nearly half of the 20th century, the governing principle of a predominantly black nation was that black people were not entitled to the same social, legal, and human rights as a tiny minority of white people.
It's easy to sound pious when discussing such well-known history, but it's just as easy to let it go unspoken. Amandla! is a testament to the importance of remembering, and to the power of film to make the memory vivid and alive. SEAN NELSON
The Safety of Objects
dir. Rose Troche
In this deeply unsatisfying drama, the distraught lives of weird suburban parents and the parents' weirder kids are intertwined through divorce, backseat teenage sex, yoga, and most importantly, a tragic auto accident that leaves a young man in a coma.
The fractured lives, furtive affairs, creepy kids, and stunted sexuality of the suburban set are not new terrain, and this flick gives the genre a bad reading. A spiraling lawyer finds redemption as a 24-hour personal trainer for a woman in a "hands on a hardbody" SUV contest at the local mall. A prepubescent boy is literally having an affair with his sister's Barbie doll. The whole movie is stuff like that.
However, one subplot--a darkly realistic child abduction involving the neighborhood handyman (Timothy Olyphant) and the neighborhood tomboy (Kristen Stewart)--is well scripted and well acted, giving an otherwise soupy movie some stock. Just not nearly enough to warrant a recommendation. JOSH FEIT
Open Hearts
dir. Susanne Bier
While waiting for Open Hearts to begin, I flipped through the thick sheaf of info on the Danish film. One page caught my eye--it explained how the film was shot according to the Dogme 95 manifesto, a Danish film pledge that prohibits special lighting, sets, or sound--anything that doesn't occur naturally in the scene. In other words, the movie is shot as-is, focusing on the story and characters instead of frills.
I'd never heard of this, and was skeptical. It seemed like I was in for a crappy low-budget flick.
Wrong. I soon forgot about the low lighting, lack of soundtrack, and other atypical film elements, and got sucked into the story--as intended. A handsome young couple get engaged, the next day the boy is hit by a car and paralyzed, and the girl ends up having an affair with one of his doctors--a doctor whose wife happened to be driving the car that hit the boy. People's lives--especially that of the beautiful girl, Cecilie--fall apart and get reassembled simultaneously. It sounds like a trite, melodramatic story, but filmmaker Susanne Bier uses Dogme 95 to her advantage by making every last character pitiful and charming at the same time--like real folks who've gotten caught up in bizarre circumstances. AMY JENNIGES
Cradle 2 the Grave
dir. Andrzej Bartkowiak
With Cradle 2 the Grave, director Andrzej Bartkowiak dips into the same well of hiphop and kung fu that helped him make Romeo Must Die, but this time pulls up a muddy skeleton of a movie. Starring rapper DMX as Tony Fait, charismatic ringleader of a band of jewel thieves who heist some mysterious black diamonds, the film starts out promisingly as a goofy caper flick but soon kills itself with bad action sequences, inexplicable racial jokes, and dishonest writing (Fait is a crook, but wait! He's also good because he says his prayers!). Even worse is Bartkowiak's self-conscious, constantly moving camera work. Martial arts whiz Jet Li plays a Taiwanese special agent assigned to recover the stolen diamonds, but his skills are largely wasted due to inept directing and lazy choreography, making one appreciate his work in the so-so Romeo Must Die so much more. Sure this movie has a few laughs and thrills, but Jet Li fans are in for a major disappointment. SCOTT McGEATH
