LAFF 2013: CONCUSSION

Abby (Robyn Weigert) in Concussion.

Homo superior

By Don Simpson 

Sure, some of the situations in Stacie Passon’s Concussionmay seem a bit ridiculous at times, but Robin Weigert is always convincing as Abby. Consistently intense with intent, Weigert’s Abby is a woman on a mission. Passon thankfully never sexualizes Abby; instead, she develops Abby into a complex and thought-provoking character. Despite the tangled web of a secret life that Abby weaves, she remains empathetic. We feel for Abby, we want her to have a happy sex life; all the while, Abby wants to help make other women happy as well. This is precisely Passon’s true genius — her ability to portray prostitution as a social service. Abby is neither skanky nor sleazy, poor nor desperate; she is an intelligent, talented and successful woman who just so happens to rediscover her love of sex by way of prostitution. If she can teach other women how to have healthy and happy sex lives — and make some decent cash while doing so — why the heck not? What other choice does she have? Would it be better for her to never experience sexual pleasure with another woman?

 

We have watched plenty of films over the decades in which a husband strays from a sexless heterosexual marriage to enjoy sex with prostitutes. When a man does that to a woman that is bad, right? At least that is what the history of cinema has taught us. That is what I find most interesting about Concussion, because Abby seems to be in the right. So, why is Abby so different than her male predecessors in cinema? Is it because she is a woman? Is it because she is having sex with other women? Or, is it simply because Passon adequately justifies Abby’s actions?

 

 

Concussion screens at LAFF 2013: June 19, 7:30 p.m., Regal Cinemas; June 21, 4:30 p.m. Regal Cinemas. For more information: Concussion at LAFF 2013.

THEATER REVIEW: EUGENE ONEGIN

Despina  (Roxana Constantinescu) in Eugene Onegin. 

In Russia with love

By Ed Rampell

L.A. Opera has launched its new season with two operas that have a single, controversial theme: Infidelity. Both works are conducted by James Conlon. One, Eugene Onegin, is a Russian tragedy composed by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, based on Alexander Pushkin’s novel in verse. The other, Così Fan Tutte, is an Opera buffa, an Italian comedy composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte.

Sung almost entirely in Russian, in Eugene Onegin’s Act I Tatiana (Ukrainian soprano Oksana Dyka) is a virginal, repressed young woman living in Russia’s countryside. Tatiana throws herself at the dashing newcomer from Petrograd, Onegin (Slovakian baritone Dalibor Jenis), the friend of her sister Olga’s (Russian mezzo-soprano Ekaterina Semenchuk) fiancée, the poet Lensky (Russian tenor Vsevolod Grivnov). However, for some reason -- unlike the Beatles – “well, the Ukraine girls don’t really knock Onegin out, Moscow girls don’t make him sing and shout and Georgia’s apparently not always on his mind.” Onegin declines Tatiana’s impulsive proposal, declaring their marriage would never work due to certain unspecified characteristics he possesses which would inflict misery upon her.

At a party in Act II Onegin dances with and ogles Olga, prompting his jealous best friend Lensky to challenge him to a duel. The outcome propels Onegin to embark upon a self-imposed exile; in Act III Onegin is back in the pre-U.S.S.R. He’s been away so long he hardly knows the place; gee, it’s good to be back home. At Saint Petersburg he stumbles upon a ball being thrown by elderly Prince Gremin (American bass James Creswell), who has wed a now radiantly beautiful and worldly Tatiana. In a moment of lucidity, Onegin realizes his woes were triggered by snubbing Tatiana, and pursues the now married sophisticated beauty. Although she still has the hots for Onegin, Tatiana won’t come and keep her comrade warm; the tables are turned and now it’s Tanya’s doing the rejecting. You don’t know how unlucky you are, boy! (My sincere apologies to Lenin and Lennon/McCartney.)

Eugene Onegin’s sets are co-stars in L.A. Opera productions, and while scenic designer Antony McDonald’s ho-hum interiors are serviceable, his glowing exteriors are glorious. In the first act McDonald brings alive Mother Russia’s vast steppes, as reapers rhapsodize about the harvest in a great ensemble number with about 40 performers onstage. Old McDonald’s farm is truly beautiful. As at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas, lighting designer Peter Mumford creates a sense of the natural passage of time with his colorful, lovely lights. A pond of water makes a big splash and is imaginatively put to good use; it later serves as a skating rink as winter sports are enacted in the third act, wherein McDonald provides a sumptuous, panoramic view of Petrograd (which I recognized from all of those Eisenstein and Pudovkin films about the storming of the Winter Palace). McDonald also acquits himself well with the cast’s 1820s costumes, but those Russian exteriors are eye popping. Bravo1

The score is sonorous and well-conducted; director Francesca Gilpin’s mise-en-scene and choreographer Linda Dobell’s dances are on point. There is, however, a gremlin in the Kremlin. Gremin is played by a performer who is much younger than the prince is supposed to be – and his age is an important plot point obscured by this casting of 30-something Creswell. But this is a mere quibble that should not deter opera lovers from experiencing Tchaikovsky’s lamentation of love loss. 

Eugene Onegin runs through Oct. 9 at L.A. Opera at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 135 N. Grand Ave. For more info: 213/972-8001; www.laopera.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.