This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Nov 19, 2010 - Summer in Genoa: In wintry Chicago, a family is shattered by the accidental death of the mother. It takes a "Summer in Genoa" for these walking wounded to take the first baby steps toward rebuilding themselves as a family.
Each handles grief differently. Father and professor (Colin Firth) displays the flat numbness that deflects emotion although two women -- an old friend and a young student -- search for some cracks in his exterior. Teenage Kelly (Willa Holland) rebels by taking a Vespa-riding Italian boyfriend and heartlessly rebuffs her younger sister Mary (Perla Haney-Jardine), possibly because she blames Mary for the family's misfortune. And guilt-ridden Mary, whose piercing sobs wake her father at night, is haunted by her role in her mother's death. This heart-wrenching performance of a child who cannot suppress her pain gives the movie its emotional center and power.
It's to this film's considerable credit that the family's pain and mourning aren't tied up in a pretty Hollywood package. Their loss has no easy resolution: The hot Italian sun and the cool waters off the rocky Ligurian beaches do not burn away or wash away the family's sorrows. If anything, the dark, labrythine alleys of Genoa offer a more insightful guide to their inner crises. (As the girls wander these narrow corridors, director Michael Winterbottom gives a nod to "Don't Look Now," creating a vague suspicion that something terrible will occur when, of course, something terrible has already happened.)
But mostly in the movie it's only everyday life that occurs -- piano lessons, a day at the beach, slurping up spaghetti carbonara -- as the family creates new routines. Yet while this ordinariness (coupled with an inconclusive ending) may be truer to life, it may cause some viewers to be thankful that summer is over.
--Review by Susan Hegger
In My Mind
Pianist Jason Moran, a superb younger musician who nicely incorporates elements of the avant garde into traditional post-bop jazz, assembled an octet last year to pay tribute to Thelonious Monk. The resulting performance marked the 50th anniversary of a notable 1959 concert at New York's Town Hall by Monk, who remains one of the most important influences in the jazz of today.
Gary Hawkins' documentary about the 1959 and 2009 concerts suffers from a lack of film footage of the Town Hall event, but he makes up in part by playing old audio tape of a rehearsal, along with showing us numerous still pictures from the rehearsal by the great photographer Eugene Smith. Much of the rest of the film was shot at or just before the 2009 concert, and Hawkins interviewed Moran and the other musicians in the octet.
He also talked to French horn player Robert "Brother Ah" Northern, who played with Monk at Town Hall. The result is an uneven film with some slow, talky stretches, some great musical moments and a touching visit to the hamlet in North Carolina where Monk's ancestors once were held in slavery. Jazz fans should find "In My Mind" well worth seeing.
- Review by Harper Barnes
Do It Again
Movies about obsessive behavior have become a staple of the documentary film. They fall into two sub-genres - dangerous obsessions (living with grizzly bears, sailing alone around the world) and basically harmless ones - like reuniting a long-defunct rock band. The problem with harmless obsessions for the purposes of a feature-length film is that, basically, who cares? Somehow the pursuit and the pursuer must become interesting enough to offset the essentially trivial nature of the goal.
Boston Globe reporter Geoff Edgers and film director Robert Patton-Spruill do a pretty good job of getting us involved in Edgers' obsession: bringing back together the seminal if now-obscure 1960s British band the Kinks ("You Really Got Me"). The band was torn apart by sibling rivalry between lead singer Ray Davies and lead guitarist Dave Davies, and Edgers discovers that the jealousy and hatred between the two still burns hot.
Just turning 40, his journalistic profession seemingly turning to ashes around him, Edgers manages to talk to anyone he thinks might be able to help with the Kinks project, including recording-company czar Clive Davis, singer-actress Zooey Deschanel - a big Kinks fan - and musicians Sting, Robyn Hitchcock and Peter Buck. Some have enthusiasm for his obsession, some throw water at it, but virtually all advise him that he has a mighty task ahead of him.
I won't reveal the ending, but I will say that the filmmakers did manage to get permission to play a lot of the Kinks' music, some of it performed by Edgers himself in duets with the musicians he interviewed.
- Review by Harper Barnes
A Little Help
Remember in high school, when you were playing tennis and a ball went astray and you yelled "little help?" to the people on the next court or the other side of the fence? Every character in the film that gives St. Louis actress Jenna Fischer her first starring role could use "A Little Help."
Fischer plays Laura, a dental hygienist who smokes and guzzles Budweiser and is generally trying to escape an unhappy marriage with Bob, played by Chris O'Donnell. His sudden death doesn't make life any easier as she tries to raise her 12-year-old son - a strong performance by newcomer Daniel Yelsky - among a disapproving sister and mother, a clueless father and a brother-in-law who has long adored her.
The dramedy, which takes place on Long Island in the year after 9/11, lets Fischer escape her cutesy role on "The Office," and for the most part she carries the movie well. Her helplessness and haplessness come through strongly when she confronts a lawyer who is trying to sort out her finances and cuts through the legalese to ask plaintively, "Can you just tell me if I'm broke or not?"
Veteran actors Ron Leibman and Lesley Ann Warren head a good supporting cast. And the music is an added attraction - original songs written and performed by Jakob Dylan, plus a touching singalong by Fischer and her son to "Runaround Sue," followed by a cameo by Dion DiMucci himself.
"A Little Help" is the feature-film debut of Michael Weithorn, whose television work includes credits as a writer/producer on "Family Ties" and creator of "King of Queens."
Fischer is scheduled to appear after the screening and receive SLIFF's Cinema St. Louis Award.
Film trailer: www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ljN1DV8B1w
-- Review by Dale Singer
Circus Kids
The Arches - the local circus kids who flip through the air and clown around at Circus Flora and at the City Museum - are one of the wonders of St. Louis. This area is tragically divided economically and racially, but the Arches are proof that we can indeed all get along - even if we, like the Arches, inevitably find ourselves bickering from time to time.
In 2007, the Arches were invited to Israel to spend two weeks on tour with Circus Galilee, which brings together Arab and Jewish kids. Filmmaker Alexandra Lipsitz went along for the trip, and the result is an engagingly chaotic film called "Circus Kids."
Once in Israel, the Arches discovered that they were much more acrobatic and skilled in performing than most members of Circus Galilee. They also discovered that many of the Israeli kids spoke very little English. There were tensions in the beginning, and not just between the two groups. Lipsitz shows us teenage tempers flaring up within the two groups, tensions undoubtedly exacerbated by the pressure of traveling and living in close quarters - at one point, in tents in the desert.
But the tensions seemed to dissipate as the trip went along, and by the time the two troupes had melded and reached Jerusalem, understanding, friendship and even puppy love had been achieved. The early performances had been extremely sloppy, as one of the Arches admitted. By the end, the two troupes together performed in a fairly reasonable approximation of the kind of professionalism St. Louisans are used to. We gather that the Arches were an inspiration to the Israelis to make their circus more than, as one man put it, "just an after-school program."
The Arches are part of Circus Harmony, a St. Louis-based circus school and social circus (a circus with a goal of motivating social change). Circus Harmony was founded and is directed by Jessica Hentoff. (See interview) As the documentary makes clear, Hentoff is a master at dealing with the minute-by-minute crises inherent in traveling through a foreign country with a group of children. The further miracle is that she can also get them to perform.
- By Harper Barnes