FILM REVIEW: BIG BOYS GONE BANANAS!

Fredrik Gertten in Big Boys Gone Bananas!

Dole out some justice

By Ed Rampell

In 2009 Swedish director Fredrik Gertten’s documentary Bananas! was the most controversial Scandinavian import to America since I Am Curious (Yellow). Forty years earlier Vilgot Sjoman’s 1967 film was seized by U.S. Customs because the X-rated film dared show sex acts and full frontal nudity. But Gertten dared to take on an even touchier (no pun intended) subject in his nonfiction film: corporate America.

Bananas! exposed Dole Food’s role in spraying poisonous pesticide on bananas in Nicaragua and exposing agricultural workers to DBCP, which allegedly resulted in sterility for some of the affected campesinos. Gertten’s doc included footage of a Dole executive basically confessing on the witness stand during a lawsuit brought by the banana proletarians to using the pesticide in its Central America plantations.

The results of Gertten’s temerity were entirely predictable. The multi-billion dollar multi-national banana bullies headquartered near Los Angeles went bananas, waging a heavy handed P.R. offensive against the director and documentary as it was about to debut at the Los Angeles Film Festival, wreaking havoc and movie mayhem at one of L.A.’s top film festivals. The unfortunate LAFF brouhaha (which was no laughing matter), Dole’s aggressive publicity campaign, the corporation’s defamation lawsuit against the filmmakers and Gertten’s bold countersuit formed the basis for a great sequel, in that grand cinematic tradition: Big Boys Gone Bananas! (Even Sjoman made a sequel of sorts to his hit: 1968’s I Am Curious (Blue).)

Unlike retrograde reviewers who blithely reveal plot spoilers, your humble cinema scribe won’t ruin the fun for you. Suffice it to say, in that great silent screen slapstick tradition, that Dole slips on a banana peel. In any case, Dear Viewers, if you see only one movie this summer, get thee to the Pasadena Playhouse 7 (and wherever else it is theatrically released and screened) pronto to see this epic David against Goliath saga of biblical proportions, as Sweden’s WG Film -- with its four employees -- go up against the wall, motherfuckers, fighting the $7 billion corporation that has 75,000 employees. Forget about Spidey or Batman, Gertten is cinema’s superhero, as he fights against all odds for freedom of speech -- something U.S. journalists should take note of, especially those despicable pigs, media miscreants and Dole shills who stabbed Gertten in the back with pens and keyboards.

The role David Magdael and his L.A.-based P.R. firm also plays onscreen and off is also truly inspiring -- would that more publicists valued ballyhooing truth and artistic integrity over commercialism (but that would be a sci-fi fantasy flick). And those Swedes, who passed legal free speech protections way back in 1766, 10 years before our Revolution, can teach us a thing or two about freedom of the press and that crazy little thing called “democracy.”

Big Boys Gone Bananas! is highly dramatic and great fun (arguably a worthy successor to Woody Allen’s 1971, Bananas), with many twists and turns, and far more entertaining than most Hollywood features. During his quixotic crusade Gertten fights back on a number of fronts, but most effectively, this veteran filmmaker, who also produced the stellar 2008 Oscar nominated doc, Burma VJ, does battle with his mighty weapon of choice: a movie camera. If you value a free press and enjoy stand up and cheer movies, don’t miss Big Boys Gone Bananas! Bravo!

And, on a personal note, may I add: "Mahalo nui loa," thank you very much, to the Dole family for the role your forebears played in overthrowing Queen Liliuokalani and the independent Kingdom of Hawaii and turning it into a pineapple and banana republic.

   

  

 

 

 

LAFF 2011: THE SEDUCTION OF INGMAR BERGMAN

The booklet of The Seduction of Ingmar Bergman.

Sparks fly 

By Miranda Inganni

Probably the event of 2011 Los Angeles Film Festival, on Saturday night at the Ford Amphitheatre the musical group Sparks (Kimono My House) and film director Guy Madden (The Saddest Music in the World) presented The Seduction of Ingmar Bergman.

Based on an original story, written and staged by Sparks' Ron and Russell Mael and directed by Madden, the performance was based on the eponymous 2009 album by Sparks, which chronicles the imaginary travels and temptations of Swedish auteur, Ingmar Bergman (Wild Strawberries), on an imaginary trip to Hollywood, California.

It's 1950-something and a Hollywood film mogul (Russell) has the idea to lure Bergman (Peter Franzen) to Tinseltown to direct blockbusters. He sends limos and ladies to help convince the practical quintessential existentialSwede. While black-clad minions move scenery in the shadows, back at his Hollywood headquarters Bergman tosses and turns on his upright, red-sheeted bed, all the while contemplating his next move or movie.

The brothers Mael are pitch-perfect (in every sense of the term) and Franzen turns in a great(ly), conflicted Bergman. Should the writer-director stay to enjoy the warm weather yet endure the torment of tourists, or return home to a chilly climate yet critical acclaim (a lá his Cannes Festival win for Smiles Of a Summer Night)?

With Warhol-colored images projected on the screen behind the action, this brilliant bit of deconstructed musical theater is like a hyper staged reading -- all of it worth a viewing, seeing, listening and experiencing.

SFIFF 2011: THE BLACK POWER MIXTAPE 1967-1975

Angela Davis in The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975.

Remember me to America

By Don Simpson

You never know what you might discover in those dusty old boxes that have been sitting in the basement for decades. In the case of Swedish documentary director Göran Hugo Olsson, he unearthed — technically, undusted — a treasure trove of pristine, never-before-seen, 30-year-old 16mm reels of film in the basement of the Swedish Television network. The footage was originally shot by Swedish Television journalists who studiously documented the Black Power movement in the United States during the 1960s and ’70s.

Why were the Swedes so damn interested in the Black Power movement in the U.S.? (Rumor has it that the Swedes amassed more footage of the Black Power movement than the entire U.S.) Well, as far as I can surmise from the footage, the Swedes were probably attempting to prove that they shared a Utopian goal of “equal rights for all” with the Black Power movement. (Swedes were also notably obsessed with the anti-war movement in the U.S. as well, a movement with which Black Power was synonymous.)

While the mainstream media in the U.S. tried their best to ignore the Black Power movement altogether — or they painted Black Power as a form of violent terrorism — Swedish Television practically glorified the likes of Stokely Carmichael, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Eldridge Cleaver, Bobby Seale, Huey Newton, Emile de Antonio and Angela Davis -- all of whom appear in The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975. This is more than likely why TV Guide considered Swedish Television’s coverage of the U.S. to be anti-American. (The U.S. broke diplomatic ties with Sweden in 1972 after the Swedish Prime Minister compared the atrocities in Vietnam to those of the Nazis.) Besides, white America was too busy pretending that everything was alright to pay attention to a bunch of "Socialist" Scandinavians; Olsson is quick to place The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 into its proper context, beginning the documentary with archival footage of a white Miami Beach restaurateur obliviously touting the incomparable freedom and equality in the U.S., a statement that is promptly negated by clips of Hallandale, a poor black shantytown a short drive north of Miami Beach.

Olsson’s The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 views the Black Power movement via the kino eye of Swedish filmmakers — outsiders philosophizing about the state de la démocratie en Amérique. One would assume that these white-as-driven-snow foreign journalists probably had a difficult time immersing themselves into the black as midnight as a moonless night subculture, but the resulting footage reveals a deeply entrenched kinship and trust between the filmmakers and their subjects. The outsider perspective lends a very unique advantage to the footage. Although we can all but prove the journalists’ allegiance to the Black Power movement, the footage is still significantly less culturally biased than film shot by a member of the Black Power movement. 

The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 features voice overs by a menagerie of prominent black personalities of the 21st century: Davis, Harry Belafonte, ?uestlove, Erykah Badu, Sonia Sanchez, Talib Kweli, Robin Kelley, Kathleen Cleaver, Abiodun Oyewole and John Forte. For the most part, the narrations seem to be unscripted, as if the participants are reacting naturally to the Swedish Television footage (you know, like a DVD commentary).

The titular mixtape refers simultaneously to both sound and image. ?uestlove provides an impeccable compilation of era-appropriate tunes, while Olsson reveals a priceless compilation of 16mm footage: Carmichael is practically worshiped as an iconic hero in Europe; J. Edgar Hoover declares the Panthers’ Free Breakfast Program to be the most dangerous internal threat to America; iconic images of Che Guevara purposefully sneak into the frame from time to time; school children studying at a Black Panther headquarters sing a song with the refrain “pick up the gun”; a Swedish tour guide warns his all-white audience not to visit Harlem; Lewis Farrakhan emerges as a rising Muslim star, providing strict discipline in a very chaotic time; an imprisoned Davis provides a comprehensive refutation of the Black Power movement’s supposed embrace of violence. 

The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 provides us with a glorious portrait of the socially and economically conscious side of the Black Panthers as they try their best to address their local impoverished communities’ basic needs while always keeping larger national issues (the Vietnam war, record levels of incarceration, extreme poverty, drug addiction, lack of government accountability, failing public schools and the pervasiveness of structural racism) in their sights. The Black Power movement did fuel societal change even if their influence on other liberation struggles and political movements has been erased from U.S. history textbooks.

Thankfully, we now have access to this rare Swedish footage to remind us of the significance of Black Power as Olsson contextualizes the movement and highlights its successes and failures.

The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 screens April 30, 9 p.m., Sundance Kabuki Cinemas; May 3, 6 p.m., New People. For more information: Renegades of funk. 

SFIFF 2011: SHE MONKEYS

Emma (Mathilda Paradeiser) in She Monkeys.

Persona non-grata

By Miranda Inganni

Set in a rural Swedish town, Lisa Aschan’s first feature film, She Monkeys, centers on Emma (Mathilda Paradeiser) and her bid to land a spot on the local horse vaulting team. It’s at the tryouts that she meets the beautiful, pouty Cassandra (Linda Molin), who pulls Emma out of her shell, only to push her around.

Emma’s life seems to be all about control – from perfecting her vaulting moves, to “click” training the family dog, to tightly plaiting her hair – so much so that her coach comments, “it’s not all about strength and control…it’s about presence.” Cassandra, on the other hand, has an abundance of presence. As the two girls flirt, with local boys (Adam Lungren and Sigmund Hovind) and each other, their friendship turns from one of frivolity to jealously to love then hatred.

Initially, Emma enjoys being told what to do by Cassandra, but the increasingly perverse trust games the girls engage in forces Emma to realize her own seductive power (and the power of seduction). The control volleys between the two, with the quiet but tough Emma eventually showing a slightly sadistic side.

While Emma toys with the idea of being in love with Cassandra (or just wanting to be Cassandra), her younger sister, Sara (Isabella Lindquist), a preternaturally sexual yet pudgy child, tries to seduce her much older babysitter, Sebastian (Kevin Caicedo Vega) who happens to be her cousin.

Nothing scares Emma or Sara, but both are filled with anger -- and though it is never mentioned in the film, perhaps it is because there is no mother? -- some of which is finally released when each expresses their rage and frustration through violence.

Conveying the idea that one must hide one’s feelings or risk getting hurt – something often found in Swedish films – She Monkeys (by the way, a lousy title) is a concisely lensed film with some strong performances by young actors.