FILM REVIEW: A WILL FOR THE WOODS

Clark Wang in A Will for the Woods. 

Back to nature

By John Esther

Faced with a terminal illness, Clark Wang decides to eschew America's typical burial methods and take the green way out and under. 

At most a slight deviation from the way most humans have been buried since time memorial, and continue to do so in much of the world, a green burial is the eco-friendly, formalized ritual where the deceased is laid to rest in a natural setting using biodegradable materials. There is no embalming or concrete involved. Often a simple stone is used as the marking spot. 

Not only does this ritual allow one to "return to the earth" in an environmentally responsible way, it also allows natural land to remain free from development since the land is now a burial site. 

While the "green burial movement" does play a notable role in A Will for the Woods, the documentary's other strength is how it captures Clark and his partner, Jane Ezzard, coming to grips with his impending death. Clark may not be very old, but this psychiatrist, musician, dancer, and overall very nice guy has been very sick for many years. We are here to witness Clark's last days

Credited with four film directors -- Amy Browne, Jeremy Kaplan, Tony Hale and Brian Wilson -- A Will for the Woods offers a unique and unflinching examination of how Clark lost the ultimate battle (as we all will) yet in the process won over many hearts and minds of those who came to know him both off and on screen (as only some will). Writing of which, A Will for the Woods is a worthy companion to Life Itself, Steve James' recent documentary on the late film writer, Roger Ebert. 

LAFF 2013: FORTY YEARS FROM YESTERDAY

Bruce (Bruce Graham) in Forty Years from Yesterday.

When the eclipse arrives

By Don Simpson

When Bruce (Bruce Graham) returns home from his morning jogging regimen, the very last thing that he expects to see is his wife, Suzette (Suzette Graham), dead on their bedroom floor. Considering the shock that weighs heavily upon Bruce’s face, we can only assume that Suzette’s death was totally unexpected. Being that the film begins with Suzette’s death, we never get to experience the two characters interacting with each other; and instead of relying upon flashbacks to explain Bruce and Suzette’s past, Forty Years from Yesterday allows Bruce’s intense state of grief to speak for itself. Barely able to pick his feet up off the floor as he walks, this version of Bruce is drastically different than the one who was jogging at the onset of the film. As we watch Bruce mope aimlessly around the quiet house, we begin to imagine just how much this man loved his wife.

All the while, we also observe as Robert (Robert Eddington) and his two assistants — Lowell (Matt Valdez) and Lawson (Wyatt Eddington) — extract Suzette from Bruce’s home and prepare her for the funeral. Everything they do is calculated and regimented, reminding us of the professional side of death. Dealing with death, day after day, Robert’s detached and emotionless persona is a necessary protection for his career. So whereas Bruce’s half of the narrative is dripping with raw emotion, Robert’s half of the narrative is coldly clinical.

Forty Years from Yesterdayis a gorgeously minimalist meditation on the moods and tones experienced shortly after a loved one’s death. We observe the characters — all of whom are non-actors — as if they are subjects of a cinema verite documentary. Since Bruce internalizes most of his feelings and reactions, conversation is kept to a bare minimum. Alexander Sablow’s camera allows every line and pore on Bruce’s face to function as a roadmap for his feelings as well as his personal history. Graham handles with surprising skill and fortitude the burden of having to carry much of the narrative solely with his face.

Bruce’s house plays just as major of a dramatic role as the people who walk within it. Just prior to Suzette’s death, the house appears to be a living and breathing organism; the blowing curtains of the bedroom give shape to the air (and life) as it passes in and out of the house. Then, as we acclimate to the interiors of the house, it begins to function (quite subtly, I might add) as a museum of memories, filled with reminders of Suzette’s life in that space.

Forty Years from Yesterdayoperates in sharp opposition to Hollywood films about death; there is no soundtrack to trigger our emotions, nothing is over-explained or over-sentimentalized. Directors Robert Machoian and Rodrigo Ojeda-Beck have quite purposefully made a film that may not be enjoyable in the traditional sense, there is no comedy or light-heartedness to ease the heartache, but that is only because they are striving to achieve a greater level of realism. Regardless, Forty Years from Yesterday is a transcendental experience that plays to the inherent — yet, woefully underused — strengths of the cinematic medium.


Forty Years from Yesterday screens at the Los Angeles Film Festival, June 22, 7:30, Regal Cinemas. For more information: FYFY at LAFF 2013.

THEATER REVIEW: HOLDING ON - LETTING GO

Bobby (Barry Wiggins) and Lee (Iona Morris) in Holding On - Letting Go.

End zones

By Ed Rampell

Plenty of plays die, but few focus on dying. In our culture, death is the ultimate taboo, on and offstage. But Bryan Harnetiaux is not afraid. Holding On – Letting Go is the third in his end-of-life cycle of plays -- along with Vesta and Dusk. In Holding On – Letting Go the playwright not only explores the death process, which is a universal fixture of the human condition, but also in particular how it affects those involved in a realm where peak physical condition and health are especially important: Athletics.

Bobby (the towering Barry Wiggins) and his wife, Lee (the formidable Iona Morris), are former athletes now in their fifties. Past their sporting prime, both have become NCAA basketball coaches, but as the play opens, Bobby has already been struck by cancer and walks with the help of a cane.

Produced and performed at the Fremont Center Theatre in South Pasadena, the play follows the couple as they grapple with the disease that not only consumes and ravages Bobby, but threatens to do the same to their longtime union. Wiggins does a convincing job playing a man as he physically declines and must come to grips with fatal illness, death and with a wife who must be convinced her suffering husband is not “a quitter.”

Morris -- who directed, under extremely tough circumstances, Still Standing, the musical I wrote the book for and which was produced in Switzerland -- brings the steely determination I remember to bear on her character. Imbued with the spirit of the competitive world of sports, Lee is determined to win and beat the Big C. She views Bobby’s attitude as “quitting”; to him, it’s simply “realism.” For Lee, losing is simply not an option, and when conventional Western medicine fails, she insists on playing with another team via alternative healing, and embarks on a mission impossible.

Morris delivers a nuanced, bravura performance. Underneath the iron-willed persona beats a vulnerable heart, terrified at the finality of separation from her lifelong mate. Having finally met her match – the Grim Reaper -- the fearless competitor turns from defiance to denial. I’m sure Morris' father, actor Greg Morris, would be proud of his daughter’s sterling performance, which, Iona says, was crafted in part by watching hours of NCAA championship games.

In addition to Morris and Wiggens, the ensemble is deftly directed by James Reynolds. The rest of this two act drama’s cast is also up to par. As May, Amentha Dymally is poignant as Bobby’s doting mom, who comes to terms not only with her son’s demise, but with the daughter-in-law she has underestimated. As the devoted nurse Virginia, whom we’d all wish to have care for our loved ones in moments of need, Jill Remez (The Green Hornet, Lorca) excels. In addition to confronting the declining Bobby’s plague, she has to deal with the possessiveness, if not outright jealousy, of Lee, who, after years of marriage, is forced to allow another female tend to her husband’s bodily needs.

As the social worker Gabe and pastor Roger, Lamar Hughes and the appropriately named Christian Malmin round out the sympathetically drawn cast members who form Bobby’s support squad as he heads for that final round with the great scorekeeper in the sky.

Interestingly, the Fremont Center Theatre is actually a former mortuary, and I had reservations about seeing a play that revolved around the topic of death. But instead of feeling morbid, Harnetiaux’s drama is actually an enlightening, realistic look at the one fact of life none of us will ever escape, as well as at home and hospice care. The audience in the sold-out house applauded after each scene and gave a standing ovation at the end of the play, which on the night I attended was followed by a discussion with the cast and Vitas representatives. I ended up being glad I experienced this enlightening piece of live theatre, which you have a last chance to see before it fades to black next weekend. 

Holding On – Letting Go runs through June 3 at Fremont Centre Theatre, 1000 Fremont Ave. (at El Centro), South Pasadena, CA 91030. For reservations and information: (866)811-4111; www.fremontcentretheatre.com.

 

 

LAFF 2011: BAD INTENTIONS

Cayetana de la Heros (Fatima Buntinx) in Bad Intentions.

Death to the bourgeoisie

By Don Simpson

Writer-director Rosario Garcia-Montero’s The Bad Intentions is a coming-of-age story which centers around a quirky-yet-morose nine-year-old girl, Cayetana de la Heros (Fatima Buntinx). Cayetana’s parents (Katerina D'Onofrio and Jean Paul Strauss) are divorced -- which, as she learns at her Catholic school, means they are going to hell. Cayetana is raised primarily by the servants (Liliana Alegría, Tania Ruiz, Melchor Gorrochátegui) at her Valium-popping mother’s bourgeois home in Lima, Peru. Whenever Cayetana does spend time with her mother, she devises new and interesting ways to play torturous mind games with her. And though Cayetana’s father seems too preoccupied with life -- especially attractive young women -- to pay her much mind, Cayetana idolizes him nonetheless.

As her surname suggests, Cayetana is obsessed with heroes. It seems most of Peru’s heroes are losers and Cayetana is specifically interested in their heroic deaths. Cayetana’s fascination with death, especially violent deaths during battle, lends her the morbid air of a Peruvian Wednesday Addams. Death’s allure becomes even more personal when Cayetana suddenly -- and quite irrationally -- concludes that she will die on the day that her pregnant mother gives birth. Cayetana is not very worried about dying, but she seems utterly frightened of being rendered invisible.

Of her entire family, Cayetana’s most sane and rewarding relationship is with her cousin, Jimena (Kani Hart). When Cayetana becomes too much for her mother to handle, she is sent to spend the summer at the beach with her cousin. When Jimena becomes mysteriously ill, Cayetana is snapped back into reality. Death is more than just a magic realism-tinged dream; death becomes real for Cayetana.

The Bad Intentions takes place in 1982 and the brutal guerrilla attacks of the Maoist group, the Shining Path (Sendero Luminoso), hover around the periphery of the narrative. The terrorists always seem to be lurking around the corner; as the violence creeps closer to Cayetana, her mind is catapulted into more frequent and fervent daydreams about Peru’s past war heroes.

Garcia-Montero’s film functions as an absurd allegory for bourgeois feelings of ambivalence towards an uncertain future. The invisible yet always-present threat of death has warped repercussions in the mind of a nine-year-old child; Cayetana is riddled with Catholic guilt, consciously for her parents’ unholy divorce and subconsciously for being a part of a bourgeois household that is quite similar to the colonialists that her favorite revolutionary heroes fought against.

FILM REVIEW: PUTTY HILL

Zoe (Zoe Vance) in Putty Hill.

The shape of things

By Don Simpson

The setting is a poor, working-class suburb of Baltimore that descriptive adjectives such as decrepit, depressing and boring seem to fit best. There is nothing of merit or worth here. It seems like no one works -- with the exception of drug dealers. This location is not the Baltimore of John Waters, nor is it the Baltimore that we have seen in The Wire. This is a place that the U.S. economy left behind a long time ago.

This, dare I say, “white trash” community -- of tattoos, dreadlocks, torn clothing, skateboarders and BMXers, graffiti, paintball and video games, and drugs -- seems like something Harmony Korine would have concocted for the silver screen but, in the sympathetic hands of writer-director Matthew Porterfield, Putty Hill brims with subtle neorealism. It feels like Porterfield is one of these characters, as if he knows them and understands their lives. Honesty and delicacy prevail throughout this film.

Cory -- the underlying link to the ensemble of characters in Putty Hill -- has died of a drug overdose. It was an untimely death but, if anything, his funeral propels his fractured and disjointed family to come together. Few of his family conversed with Cory on a regular basis; none of them really knew him. Friends didn’t even know Cory. So a majority of them do not seem all that upset that Cory died. But something about Cory brought everyone back together. Maybe they recognize that they should be closer, that they should know each other better. In some ways it might be harder to lose a relative (especially a sibling or child) if you were not close to them. Things like death seem to make you think about your relationships more.

Putty Hill is a story with a multitude of interconnected characters who do not communicate very well. Most of the characters only speak when asked a question (and sometimes those questions need to come from off camera -- presumably from Porterfield -- in true mockumentary fashion); but the heart of Putty Hill is what the actors do while they are not talking, when they are doing nothing. In a strange kind of way, Putty Hill is like Mumblecore for the working class. As with Mumblecore the focus of importance is on the space between the lines of dialog; the quiet between the action. Not much happens in Putty Hill, to be perfectly blunt. This is a character-driven story to the nth degree yet with little individual character development. I think that’s the key to Porterfield’s film and what makes it special. Who would dare make a character-driven film without proper character development? Strangely enough, it works quite well.