MUSIC FEATURE: WDCH 2011/2012 SEASON

LA Phil Music Director Gustavo Dudamel.

Holler for Mahler, Mozart and more

By Ed Rampell

When it comes to L.A. Philharmonic's sprawling new season, it seems fitting to paraphrase Hamlet: “There are more things in heaven and earth, concertgoer, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” 

From a full stage production of Don Giovanni, all of Gustav Mahler's symphonies, the Piatigorsky Cello Festival and the world premiere of two operas, plus much more, the 2011/2012 season may be the L.A. Phil's greatest season ever.

Last night the season kicked off at the world-renowned Walt Disney Concert Hall in downtown Los Angeles with a trio of jazzy George Gershwin classics -- Rhapsody in Blue, An American in Paris and Cuban Overture. Legendary multiple-Grammy Award winning composer and the L.A. Philharmonic's Creative Chair for Jazz Herbie Hancock tickled the ivories under the able baton of that 30-year-old wunderkind, Gustavo Dudamel, who returns for his third season as L.A. Phil’s Music Director.

The WDCH 2011/2012 season highlights include:

A special Halloween screening on Oct. 30 of a German Expressionist masterpiece and trendsetting horror movie, the 1919 silent film, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, accompanied by a live, improvised soundtrack performed by organist Clark Wilson, who has scored many silent pictures, including Fritz Lang’s Metropolis. Nicknamed "The French Fries," the Walt Disney Concert Hall organ has 6,134 pipes that range in size from 800 pounds, 32' to a quarter inch long; 61-note manual keyboards; and 32-note pedal boards...it’s enough to wake a murderous, hypnotized somnambulist up!

After offering his signature Beethoven, plus a world premiere composed by Anders Hillborg, in late November, in early December former L.A. Phil Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen will conduct the world premiere of the late Soviet composer Dmitri Shostakovich’s opera, Orango. Reportedly the story about the corporate media and a human-ape creature, Orango is directed by Peter Sellars, who previously collaborated with John Adams on topical operas, such as Nixon in China and The Death of Klinghoffer.

In celebration of Mahler's 150th birthday anniversary, from Jan. 13 to Feb. 5 “The Mahler Project” -- featuring all of Mahler’s 10 symphonies, plus other works by the Austrian composer – will be performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela. The series kicks off with Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 and his Songs of a Wayfarer, with Dudamel conducting baritone Thomas Hampson and soprano Miah Persson. From there you can get all the Mahler your ears desire (or finances can afford) at what many consider the world's greatest acoustic venue. However, please note that due to the size of production, the Mahler Project’s crown jewel takes place Feb. 4 at L.A.’s Shrine Auditorium, where the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra and L.A. Phil team up, literally, with hundreds of singers to present Mahler’s much vaunted Symphony No. 8, "Symphony of a Thousand." This massive effort to perform all of Mahler's symphonies in such a short time may very well be one of the greatest feats in Los Angeles' musical history. It will certainly be one of Dudamel's defining career efforts.

April 5-7 L.A. Philharmonic Creative Chair John Adams conducts the West Coast premiere of minimalist composer Philip Glass’ Symphony No. 9, which the L.A. Phil co-commissioned. 

If hearing Glass sounds like something crystal cool, crystal cool, crystal cool, just wait until May when Dudamel conducts Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s immortal opera, Don Giovanni, with set designs by none other than Frank Gehry, the imaginative architect who created the Disney Concert Hall’s wavy gravy design. These are already the hottest tickets of the season.

Finally L.A. Phil’s 2011/2012 season closes with a bang: Dudamel will conduct the world premiere of Adams’ vocal work, The Gospel According to the Other Mary, which will run May 31-June 3. In what might be described as Gabriel Garcia Marquez meets the Bible, The Gospel According to the Other Mary mixes New Testament Stories, Latin poetry and a combination of other materials, creating a magical realist take on social justice.  

Throughout L.A. Phil’s eclectic season works by Hector Berlioz, Felix Mendelssohn, Franz Schubert, Jean Sibelius, Edvard Grieg, John Cage, Billie Holiday, etc., will also be played, as will holiday favorites, such as Handel’s Messiah. World renowned pianist Lang Lang, violinist Joshua Bell, guitarist Paco de Lucia, the greatly influential Steve Reich, singer-songwriter Judy Collins and Broadway crooner Elaine Stritch in a rare (and what may be her last) West Coast appearance, are among the solo artists who are also scheduled to take the Disney Concert Hall’s stage during this season’s hectic cavalcade of sound fury – and fun. 

The Boston Symphony Orchestra, Seoul Philharmonic and New York Philharmonic will also perform at WDCH this season.

Lastly, if this sounds great to you, you may want to order your subscription(s) through one of the LA Phil's best kept secrets, Walt Disney Concert Hall's Priority Seating Office. Catering to exclusive patrons, the office can offer you priority seating, free ticket exchange, free ticket replacements, a money back guarantee, free parking, free comp tickets, no taxes and a slew of other benefits not offered anywhere else. You can contact the office at the unpublished number, 323-850-2049. If you are polite and act like you are in the know when you ask for your "representative," they will most likely hook you up (mornings are better).

For more information see: www.laphil.com.   

FILM REVIEW: HAPPY, HAPPY

Kaja (Agnes Kittelsen) in Happy, Happy.

The fears of a frau

By Ed Rampell

Norwegian director Anne Sewitsky’s feature debut, Happy, Happy is a Nordic screwball comedy about marital mayhem, infidelity, closeted homosexuality, slavery and more for adults. Written, shot and produced by women -- screenwriter Ragnhild Tronvoll, cinematographer Anna Myking and producer Synnove Horsdal -- Happy, Happy is also a Scandinavian equivalent to a chick flick.

Kaja (a fetching Agnes Kittelsen) is a wistful wife in a sexless marriage with Eirik (Joachim Rafaelsen). The couple have one son, Theodor (Oskar Hernæs Brandsø), and they live not so happily ever after in a rural part of Norway, where they rent a spare house on adjoining property to an unknown couple: the prettier Elisabeth (Danish actress Maibritt Saerens), Sigve (Henrik Rafaelsen) and their adapted African son, Noa (Ram Shihab Ebedy).

Kaja is curious about the newcomers, whom she disparagingly compares herself to and places on a proverbial pedestal. But far from being the deal couple Kaja imagines them to be, we soon find out that Elisabeth and Sigve have retreated to the countryside due to problems their own marriage is experiencing. The mixture of the two couples proves to be a combustible combination, and all hell breaks loose.

In the hands of a more somber helmer -- say, the Ingmar Bergman of 1973’s Scenes from a Marriage or Francois Truffaut of 1981’s The Woman Next Door -- Happy could have devolved into a tragedy. Instead, Sewitsky directs with a deft, droll touch, saving the film from being about endless, dreary Nordic nights filled with contemplation of the sheer meaninglessness of life, existential angst, oh woe is me, blah, blah and blah. Sewitsky’s comic panache spares us, and a quartet of upbeat musicians periodically appear from out of nowhere to serenade and amuse viewers with folksy tunes sung in English in the otherwise subtitled film.

Although her husband belittles her, Kaja is the central character, not the more glamorous, upscale, colder Elisabeth, precisely because the somewhat cloddish Kaja is essentially a warm woman, full of yearnings for love. Often, when you see films the behavior of characters seems completely inexplicable. But if you listen closely to the dialogue, when Kaja briefly, offhandedly recounts her personal back story, it all makes sense. Kittelsen’s performance reminded me of Sally Hawkins in Mike Leigh’s similarly titled 2008 Happy-Go-Lucky and in 2010’s Made In Dagneham.

The sex scenes alternate between fun and funny (I could almost imagine Lina Wertmuller shooting some of the sequences, with her tongue firmly ensconced in cheek). The exuberance of new love and sexual awakenings are, of course, intoxicating, those rare moments when we feel truly, fully alive. If I have one criticism of this film dealing with sexuality it’s that while there’s full frontal male nudity, the women are, for some strange reason, less revealed. This works against the storyline, as it is largely about Kaja’s self-revelation.

The sexual interplay (and lack of) of the adults is mirrored by the strange role playing of the two sons, which takes on a First World/ Third World twist, as the blond-haired, blue-eyed Theodor “enslaves” his black neighbor. Some viewers may find this subplot to be disturbing, even offensive.

Yet somehow things manage to work themselves out, due to the writer and director’s comic-tragic vision of this journey we call life. Despite the vicissitudes of her relationships, Kaja manages to come into her own as a newly empowered, confident, independent woman. And like Nora before in another Scandinavian work of art, Kaja too leaves her doll’s house.

It’s an affirmation of life that after the dreadful mass murder at Norway this past summer the first Norwegian film to reach our shores is called Happy, Happy -- and seeing this movie, which won Sundance’s World Cinema Jury Prize, I did feel, well, you know: Happy.     

AGLIFF 2011: FIT

A scene from Fit.

To be tied and tried

By Don Simpson

Fit takes place in a fictional world where people judge, belittle and abuse other people merely because their presumed sexual preference is not “normal.” These bullies accuse their prey of being “gay” just because of how they act and dress, knowing nothing of whether or not their prey would prefer to snog a boy or a girl. In other words, just because someone does not conform to the restrictive social constructs of what defines masculinity and femininity, they are teased, ridiculed and beaten. Oh and for some, their interpretation of The Bible says that gays are evil. Sounds pretty crazy, huh?

Cleverly flipping queer stereotypes onto their heads, Fit lays out several red herrings in order to prompt the audience to make early judgments about the characters. Lee (Lydia Toumazou) appears to be a stereotypical tomboy “dyke” while her best friend Karmel (Sasha Frost) is girly, pretty and obviously straight. Tegs (Duncan MacInnes) is the school geek and is labelled as “gay” because of his gentle personality while his best mate, Jordan (Ludvig Bonin), is a talented footballer (read: soccer player) who protects Tegs from bullies such as the hyper-homophobic Isaac (Jay Brown) and Ryan (Stephen Hoo). All on the verge of expulsion from school, they have been sentenced to dance class with a flamboyantly gay teacher, Loris (writer-director Rikki Beadle Blair), as their final warning. We see these six teenagers, in turn, via their own and others’ perspectives.

Unfortunately for all of us, the cinematic world Blair creates for us is significantly more real than it should be. Our society needs Fit just as much now as it did back when I was a teenager in the 1980s. Heck, any world in which people cannot be legally married to someone of the same sex or where someone as hateful and judgmental as Michele Bachmann could even be considered to be a Presidential hopeful in the United States needs a lot of help.

Though it plays a lot like a 100+ minute episode of Degrassi: The Next Generation or Skins — comparisons that some may find more favorable than others — Fit is the most complex and thorough exploration of teenage queerness that I have ever seen. Most of all, it is quite encouraging: people can change, acceptance (and happiness) is possible. Fit should be required viewing for all teenagers. Let us just hope that it is not “too gay” for the haters in the audience.

AGLIFF 2011: MANGUS

Mangus (Ryan Boggus) in Mangus.

Holy handicap

By Don Simpson

Mangus Spedgwick’s (Ryan Boggus) destiny is to be Jesus…in his fictional hometown of Rivercity’s annual production of Jesus Christ Spectacular, that is. It is a long-standing family tradition for the Spedgwick males to play the leading role in Jesus Christ Spectacular — the poor man’s version of Jesus Christ Superstar — and Mangus appears to be a shoe-in to keep that tradition alive.

A freak accident renders Mangus handicapped — or handicapable — and the people of Rivercity vote against having a cripple perform in the role of Jesus. All the while, Mangus’ father (Charles Solomon Jr.) is called to duty in Iraq and Mangus’ evil stepmother (Deborah Theaker) sends Mangus to live with his mother (Jennifer Coolidge) and half-sister (Heather Matarazzo) in their trailer park home.

Other than Mangus’ half-sister coming out as a lesbian, writer-director Ash Christian’s Mangus is not necessarily a “queer film” — or a film with any message or agenda, for that matter. However, Mangus is obviously from a very queer perspective. Everything about Mangus screams queer, from the brightly colored production design (Ryan M. Smith) to the cartoonish performances to the musical production that the plot revolves around.

I did not find the onslaught of handicap jokes to be very funny; otherwise, Mangus is supremely quirky and ridiculous…in a good way. The film’s sense of humor is certainly off-kilter and might be a bit too sparkly of a pill for some to swallow, but I recommend hanging in there until Jennifer Coolidge and Heather Matarazzo’s characters are introduced because that is when Mangus really hits its stride. Not that Ryan Boggus is not fantastic as Mangus — because he truly is — but he is at his best when playing off Coolidge and Matarazzo. Noteworthy cameos by Leslie Jordan, John Waters and a few others really add a dash more zaniness to the overall insanity.

AGLIFF 2011: TRIGGER

Kat (Molly Parker) and Vic (Tracy Wright) in Trigger.

Bang up job

By Don Simpson

Vic (Tracy Wright) and Kat (Molly Parker) are best known for fronting Toronto’s famed 1990s grrrl rock band,Trigger. As is often the case with rock and roll, drugs, alcohol, sex and egos — in no particular order — were all to blame for the band’s thorny demise. In an instant, Trigger was gone.

Director Bruce McDonald’s Trigger finds the two fallen rock stars a decade or so later. After not speaking to each other since Trigger’s break-up, Vic and Kat find themselves facing off across a small table at a chic modern restaurant. Their reunion could not start off much worse. Kat shows up an hour later than Vic, then her cellphone rings (important business to which she must attend). Vic’s disdain for Kat’s fun, flighty and flirty personality promptly rears its ugly head. Both women flash their claws. A violent fight seems eminent. The question remains: Will it happen before, during or after the benefit they are both scheduled to attend?

Over the course of one single night, Vic and Kat regurgitate their history. A battle between ideologies and lifestyles commences. They judge their own pasts -- fluidly alternating between the romanticism and hatred of their memories -- while criticizing each other’s presents. A lot has changed since their days in Trigger. Vic is a recovering drug addict, who still resides in Toronto; she looks to a book titled The Spirituality of Imperfection for the answers to life’s questions, and is negotiating the release of a solo album. The “terminally unique” Kat is a recovering alcoholic; she long ago abandoned Toronto for Los Angeles (well, Silverlake) and works as a music supervisor for Lifetime. Eventually, Vic and Kat’s fiery philosophical clashes simmer down long enough for the two women to delicately discuss their fears and aspirations, as well as their unique perspectives on aging, dying, relationships and love.

On the surface, Trigger plays like a romantic stroll around Toronto at night, as Vic and Kam act as our guides, but the locations are far from romantic (other than Allan Gardens) or noteworthy. At its heart Trigger is a talkie. Trigger is all about screenwriter Daniel MacIvor’s uncanny command of the English language. Ranging from gracefully poetic to subtly rhythmic to downright spastic, the dialog twists and turns between mean, raunchy and bittersweet; yet despite the literary flourishes, every word and every phrase seems perfectly natural. It is completely believable that Vic and Kat would speak in these somewhat affected ways.

Speaking of… Wright and Parker’s performances are nothing short of amazing.Trigger finds both actors at the pinnacle of their craft, portraying characters that were seemingly custom crafted just for them. What reportedly started off as a sequel to McDonald’s punk mockumentary, Hard Core Logo (1996), Triggerquickly evolved into a farewell love letter to Wright, whose health was slipping due to pancreatic cancer. (Wright passed away in June 2010, at the age of 50.) I do not know if Wright’s portrayal of the world-weary Vic, accentuated by her sunken eyes and graying skin, is more amazing if you know she was dying when she shot Trigger or not. No matter what, I cannot imagine a more appropriate swan song for an actor.

AGLIFF 2011: JUDAS KISS

Danny (Richard Harmon) and Zachary (Charlie David) in Judas Kiss.

Backwards in time

By Don Simpson

Zach’s (Charlie David) Hollywood career has consisted thus far of parties and rehab, but he is convinced by Topher (Troy Fischnaller), his best friend and hotshot director, into judging their alma matter’s annual film festival. 

Returning back to Keystone Summit University forces Zach to face his past head-on, especially when Zach has a one-night stand with a budding young filmmaker whose film, Judas Kiss, is in the finals of the competition that Zach is judging. That student goes by the name of Danny Reyes (Richard Harmon) — by no coincidence, that is also Zach’s birth name, the very same name that Zach used while he attended Keystone 15 years ago. Oh, and Zach’s Keystone Film Festival winning film from 15 years ago was also titled Judas Kiss. So, yeah, Zach really screwed himself.

Zach scrambles for the answers to the absurd situations in which he finds himself fatefully intertwined. Can changing Danny’s overly cocksure trajectory really help Zach’s future? You will have to stay tuned to find out, although I bet you can guess the ending.

Fantastic performances by all of the actors and stunningly colorful cinematography by David Berry is marred by a lackluster and over-used narrative trope — someone going back in time to assist his or her younger self in making better decisions. The result is that Judas Kiss comes off as cheesy and moralistic as an ABC Afterschool Special.

THEATER REVIEW: MY NAME IS RACHEL CORRIE

Rachel Corrie (Samara Frame) in My Name is Rachel Corrie.

Think tank

By Ed Rampell

“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” -- John 15:13, King James version of the Bible

Following the Los Angeles premiere of My Name is Rachel Corrie the first of the post-play panel discussions and Q&As scheduled to follow every performance took place at Topanga Canyon’s Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum. In their comments, renowned Oscar winning cinematographer and Medium Cool helmer Haskell Wexler and Susan Angelo, director of this one-woman show starring Samara Frame, each stated it “is not a great play.” Then why did the Theatricum and the company’s Artistic Director Ellen Geer, both stalwarts of L.A.’s theatre scene and renowned for presenting classics by Shakespeare, Chekhov, etc., select this drama as the inaugural performance for adults in its 88-seat S. Mark Taper Foundation Pavilion? Especially given the white-haired Ms. Geer’s contention that pressure was brought to bear against the theater, and that she was threatened, for daring to present My Name is Rachel Corrie, which has a history of being suppressed?

The answer, of course, lies in the subject matter of the play which, in the tradition of “Documentary Theatre,” was largely pieced together from bits and pieces of the eponymous real life title character’s writings. Journalist-editor Katherine Viner of London’s Guardian and British actor Alan Rickman (of Robin Hood and Harry Potter films fame) wove the tale together from Corrie’s journals, letters, emails, etc., as well as from facts known about the young Washington State woman’s life and death.    

In 2003 during the second Intifada the 23-year-old Corrie joined the International Solidarity Movement -- composed of foreigners practicing nonviolent direct action in support of Palestinian rights -- at the Gaza Strip to monitor and protest Israel’s occupation. On March 16, reportedly holding a megaphone and wearing an orange fluorescent jacket, Corrie literally boldly placed herself in harm’s way, standing between an Israeli Defense Force bulldozer and the home of a Palestinian pharmacist. The heavy equipment vehicle literally bulldozed Corrie, breaking her back, killing her and creating a non-Arab martyr for the Palestinian cause.

The Rachel Corrie incident and story has been the subject of much dispute and contentiousness. Critics of Israeli policies contend that this was a case of coldblooded murder and a war crime, while the Russian-born bulldozer operator claimed he didn’t see Corrie.

According to a 2003 Mother Jones report by Joshua Hammer: ”[T]he Israeli army showed no remorse for its action that afternoon. Days after Corrie's death, [Yasser] Arafat's Fatah Party sponsored a memorial service for her in Rafah, attended by representatives of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades as well as ordinary Palestinians. Midway through the service, an Israeli tank pulled up beside the mourners and sprayed them with tear gas. Peace activists chased the tank and tossed flowers and the Israeli soldiers inside the tank threatened, in return, to run them down. After 15 minutes of cat and mouse, Israeli bulldozers and apcs [armored personnel carriers] rolled in, firing guns and percussion bombs and putting a quick end to the memorial.”

After the play’s 2005 award-winning opening at London’s Royal Court Theatre the controversy surrounding Corrie’s actions and death followed Viner and Rickman’s (who, coincidentally, provided the voice of the Caterpillar in Tim Burton’s 2010 Alice in Wonderland) one-woman show. The New York Theatre Workshop postponed its 2006 U.S. premiere of the drama, which eventually opened at the Minetta Lane Theatre in Greenwich Village.

Apparently, like the New York Theatre Workshop, the Theatricum faced opposition to mounting My Name is Rachel Corrie from pro-Israeli forces. The fact of the matter is that, especially since 9/11, Israel and the Arabs (in particular, the Palestinians) have not only been engaged in combat from Gaza to the West Bank to Lebanon, but they have also been locked in a communications war. This propaganda battle aims at claiming the moral high ground in the ongoing conflict.

Pro-Zionist attempts to stifle artistic works that deviate from the official Israeli line, including My Name is Rachel Corrie, the feature Munich and the recent effort to ban a screening of the pro-Palestinian Miral at the U.N. are motivated by the same underlying anxiety. (Munich’s co-writers Tony Kushner and Eric Roth, and both of the movies’ directors -- Steven Spielberg and Julian Schnabel -- are Jewish; the latter’s mother was once reportedly president of Brooklyn’s Hadassah chapter; and while we’re at it, Ellen Geer is part Jewish.) In essence, this is the notion that Jews in general and Israelis in particular are victims, and not victimizers, who perpetuate human rights abuses. However, this agitprop and censorship campaign -- which smacks of book burning and is completely unworthy of the “People of the Book” -- is counterproductive.

Especially in the case of My Name is Rachel Corrie. By trying to muzzle it the play’s pro-Israeli detractors merely shine more light on what is, as the drama’s own Theatricum director herself confesses, not a particularly good play. Samara Frame’s Rachel comes across as a flakey, hippie-dippie girl who one day winds up in the war torn Gaza Strip. This could be a function of the playwriting per se (as noted, Rickman and Viner cobbled together the script from Corrie’s diaries and so on). Likewise, although we get a sense of Corrie’s heightened politicization once she experiences Rafah, her bulldozing just seems to come from out of nowhere. From a dramatic point of view this play has big structural challenges.

Frame is good but not great as Corrie. I’d guess that the actress is a bit too long in the tooth to fully convincingly portray a 23-year-old. I didn’t know Corrie (although wish I did) and don’t know much about this courageous young lady, but Frame’s portrayal makes her seem like a bit of a flake. Okay, having been around the Left my enter life, a good portion of activists do come across, shall we generously say, as rather “quirky” (hey, I’m Exhibit “A”). And maybe Corrie was ditzy, but I couldn’t help feel that this depiction somewhat trivialized someone who so bravely, selflessly sacrificed so much for other suffering people by putting her own life on the line.

(Actress-writer Saria Idana’s Homeless in Homeland, based on her experiences as a progressive Jew in Israel and the occupied territories, is a far better acted and written one-woman show than this play.)

The illuminating film clip of fifth grade Rachel that closes the 70-minute (giver or take a few minutes) one-woman show evinces more conviction and arguably intellect than the onstage adult Corrie does. Not that the production doesn’t score its points, dramatically and philosophically. A non-Jew, Corrie worries about being incorrectly perceived as an anti-Semite because she’s standing up for the rights of beleaguered Palestinians (who, lest we forget, are also Semites). But to me the most telling line is when our Washington State little miss sunshine, confronted by the sheer brutality and inhumanity of the Israeli occupation of Gaza, confessed that she was losing her faith in humanity.

This reminded me of what is probably the most famous quote from another famous young female diarist living in an occupied land, faced with vicious persecution, wrote: “In spite of everything I still believe that people are basically good at heart.” Trapped like a rat hiding from the fascists in an Amsterdam cubbyhole, threatened with extermination, little Anne Frank was still able to express faith in the human spirit in the face of Nazism -- even as the death camp ovens awaited her. Rachel, on the other hand, faced by a systematically savage Israeli occupation, is losing her hope and optimism.

And this is what the would-be censors of art critical of official Israeli policies are so anxious about. Instead of blindly supporting Israeli aggression, audiences might start asking: “Who’s wearing the jackboots now?” Have yesterday’s victims become today’s victimizers?

Just the other day the U.N. Palmer Report declared that Israeli forces used "excessive and unreasonable force" against the freedom flotilla to Gaza, wherein in nine activists were killed in international waters by the IDF aboard the Mavi Marmara ship, which was trying to break Israel’s embargo of Gaza by delivering humanitarian aid on May 31, 2010. Not surprisingly, publication of the report had been delayed three times as Israel frantically struggles to maintain the moral high ground -- even on the high seas.

This is why works like My Name is Rachel Corrie are so important and pose such a threat to the ultra-Zionist status quo, as they present a countervailing narrative to the official line. By the way, outside of the US, much of the rest of the world considers the Israel's occupation of Palestine to be illegal. Often the entire General Assembly votes against Israeli policy in the U.N. -- except for the U.S. and its tiny neo-colonies in Micronesia. And the issue of Palestinian statehood is due to come up soon before that international body which, you know, voted for statehood for Israel in 1948.

Despite its dramatic flaws, My Name is Rachel Corrie raises profound questions that must be publicly aired and discussed. So bravo to the Theatricum, which knows a thing or two about resisting the blacklisting of artists, for having the courage to present the L.A. premiere of this play and for insisting on freedom of speech. In keeping with this spirit a post-performance panel and Q&A with the audience will include an official of a Zionist organization. Pro-Israeli literature is also being distributed at the theater.

My Name is Rachel Corrie runs Sept. 8, 15, 21, and 22 at 8 p.m. at the S. Mark Taper Foundation Pavilion of the Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum: 1419 N. Topanga Canyon Blvd., Topanga, California, 90290. For more information call: 310/455-372; www.Theatricum.com

AGLIFF 2011: LULU SESSIONS

Dr. Louise Nutter in LuLu Sessions.

Close to the heart

By Don Simpson

A hard-drinking, chain-smoking, world-renowned cancer researcher with a tender heart and a mouth like a sailor, Dr. Louise Nutter -- a.k.a. LuLu -- discovered a new anti-cancer drug right around the same time that she was diagnosed with terminal breast cancer. The LuLu Sessions' writer-director (plus, to mention producer and cinematographer) S. Casper Wong was on her way to videotape a friend’s wedding in San Francisco when LuLu asked her to accompany her to her biopsy in Minneapolis. As fate would have it, the wedding was canceled and Wong opted to stay in Minneapolis with Lulu.

Turning the camera toward LuLu, Wong documents the last 15 months of LuLu’s life. The camera documents as LuLu receives the dreaded diagnosis from her oncologist -- judging by Lulu's reaction this is not a reenactment. We observe several key moments during LuLu's treatments, but we also witness the ebbs and flows of Wong's intense relationship with LuLu. Shooting in the cinema verite tradition, Wong suddenly becomes one of the primary subjects in her own documentary.

Not only does The LuLu Sessions explore the transformations in a person while they anticipate a rapidly approaching death, but Wong's film also blurs the definition of same sex relationships. LuLu and Wong share emotions that transcend most platonic relationships. Wong shares an intense bond with LuLu, but it remains unclear if their relationship ever becomes sexual. Then again -- who cares? Why does our society always need to define people and their relationships?

FILM REVIEW: LOVE CRIME

Isabelle (Ludivine Sagnier) and Christine  (Kristen Scott Thomas) in Love Crime.

Business as usual

By Miranda Inganni

French film director Alain Corneau (Tous les matins du monde; Le deuxième soufflé) and co-screenwriter Natalie Carter created Love Crime to be a labyrinthine murder mystery. Unfortunately, as much as the plot's twists and turns are fun, just keep your hand on the left wall and you'll figure out this maze.

Slick, manipulative and crispy Christine (acutely played by the fluently French Kristen Scott Thomas) loves to capitalize on her meek, but mighty bright assistant, the submissive and streamlined Isabelle (Ludivine Sagnier). Both women take pride in their successes, but as Isabelle comes to realize that Christine is using and abusing her for professional gain and personal amusement, she starts to question her loyalty to her powerful boss (though not the corporation in which they both vie for favorable futures).

Instead of Isabelle fighting the corporate system, she decides -- after being pushed to the brink of self-destruction -- to work it from the inside and plots to take down her towering boss.

Humiliation and exploitation lead to murder and the obvious suspect goes to great lengths to establish her guilt, only in order to disprove it.

Don't be fooled. Despite two strong female lead characters, this is not a feminist film and there are no victors (victorias?). While revenge might be a dish best served warm (preferably with a glass of blood-red Bordeaux), there is nothing neither wise nor noble about it. The "winner" still comes out a loser.

In addition to the acting, one of the highlights is the music, or rather the lack thereof. Centered on Pharoah Sanders' improvisational jazz piece, "Kazuko," the score is practically non-existent, which helps to add tension and tenderness at the climax of the film, while not forcing emotion throughout it.

FILM REVIEW: SPECIAL TREATMENT

Mind games

By Ed Rampell

Jeanne Labrune’s Special Treatment is in the tradition of Luis Bunuel’s 1967 disturbingly dark psychological look at prostitution, Belle de Jour. Unlike the youthful, preternaturally beautiful Catherine Deneuve’s prostitute in the latter, Isabelle Huppert -- an acclaimed French actress who has been a fixture on the cinema scene since the 1970s -- plays an over-the-hill hooker in Special Treatment. The specialty, so to speak, of her character, Alice Bergerac, is not so much in the physical pleasuring of her johns, but in role playing. Wigs, costumes, props, S&M, naive schoolgirl personas, scenarios and the like form the basis of Alice’s Kama Sutra technique.

What makes director/co-writer Labrune’s work especially intriguing is the film’s witty parallels to that other type of “treatment”: psychoanalysis. Alice’s sessions with her clients are intercut with the likewise high priced, 50-minute “hours” psychoanalysts have with their patients -- the call-girl’s form of therapy compared to that of the analysts’ “talking cure.” The role of the dominatrix is likened to that played by the analyst.

No shrinking violet, Alice goes on to have encounters with a variety of shrinks, including Xavier Demestre (Bouli Lanners), an overweight, overwrought, middle-aged  psychoanalyst experiencing marital problems with Helene (Valerie Dreville), who also seems to be in the psychiatry racket (uh, I mean profession). Xavier’s midlife crisis leads to his meeting Alice.

Although Special Treatment is about sexuality, it is not especially sexy, with little nudity and no steamy erotic scenes. It is more of a meditation on what makes people tick, sexually and otherwise. What motivates Alice and her johns, Xavier and his patients? Why does Alice do what she does and what does the 40-something whore want to do with the rest of her life? While Alice appears to be a free agent without a pimp or brothel exploiting her, she ultimately comes across as a sex slave of sorts, even if she is imprisoned by herself, instead of by organized crime. Alice Bergerac’s name is probably intended as a play on Cyrano de Bergerac, the lover of over endowed schnoz fame noted for using ruses when it came to romance.