18 1/2 Philadelphia Film Festival - Saturday

Second in a Series of Three Reports From PFF

Oct 18, 2009

Nothing on Saturday was half as impacting as Antichrist, however, Bronson represents one of the season's outstanding character performances.

October 16 through 19 marks the 18 1/2 Philadelphia Film Festival. The three film's highlighted below are from Saturday's selection of screenings.

There are few trends in supposed art house cinema more infuriating than the “all our lives connect because we’re humans” multi-storyline film. Bastardized from the loins of Robert Altman’s Nashville (perhaps more closely, Short Cuts), films like Babel and Crash purport to show just how similar we all are by connecting people across cultural, social and circumstantial lines of separation.

While Ajami – Israel’s submission for the upcoming Foreign Language Oscar – does come with the interconnecting lives structure, what Shani and Copti offer is world’s more believable than Traffic or any of the aforementioned films (Altman’s aside). Focusing on several young Arab-Israeli (and one Arab and one Israeli) men from the Ajami neighborhood of Jafa (near Tel Aviv), Ajami is intensely personal and tragic in its portrayal of cultural conflict and identity crisis in modern Israel.

A blood vendetta between a local gang and an Arab-Israeli family sparks the tragic chain of events covered across two hours of segmented action. When Shani and Copti steer away from the central group of friends, the film loses its intimacy and veers into a lot of convenient plotting, though nothing so unbelievable as what occurs in Babel or Crash.

What separates this impressive debut from a similar touchstone like City of God is how little Shani/Copti offset the tragedy with any sort of levity. At two hours, it proves to be a bit much for one sitting, though still a lovingly crafted start from two filmmakers who we will likely see more from in the future.

The Overbrook Brothers – Desperately Seeking That Comforting (Mainstream) Pedigree

By definition, The Overbrook Brothers is an indie film. Yet for some reason, John E. Bryant and Jason Foxworth’s overly broad comedy has no real interest in being independent – in other words, it suffers all the financial limitations of indie cinema while enjoying none of the freedoms. That’s not to say the film isn’t without its pleasurable quirks. But rather than really going for broke, Overbrook reaches broad at nearly every turn.

The non-committal, aspiring writer Jason (Nathan Harlan) and girlfriend Shelly (Lauren Whitsett) suffer a miserable family Christmas celebration that ends in fists between Jason and one of his brothers, the insufferable Todd (Mark Reeb). One thing leads to another and before long, the brothers set out on a road trip to discover their separate biological parents.

Overbrook works best when director Bryant lets Reeb flesh out the regressed borderline psychosis of Todd. The fisticuffs and scatological jokes feel played out as they arrive dead on the scene – a “freeze out” competition (both brothers strip and endure the freezing Midwest night to Shelly’s despair), however, really cuts to the heart of how crazy the sibling rivalry has become between the two.

The film’s ultimate flaw lies in how much Bryant and Foxworth (both are credited for the script) shy away for these revealing moments in favor of lamer, flatter material. Embrace the insanity guys – it should have been Overbrook’s selling point.

Bronson Drives Home Nicolas Winding Refn’s Stagey Ode To an Untamable Spirit

In the case of Bronson, it’s the man that makes the movie. The character Michael Peterson (who eventually adapted the alias Charles Bronson) greets us front-and-center in the frame, announcing himself like the star of a one-man show. Behind the character, actor Tom Hardy is the true show man, delivering a performance of great wit and physicality.

The real-life Peterson enjoys the notoriety of being Great Britain’s most violent prisoner. A brawler from childhood, Peterson found his one true calling after being carted off to prison: He was born to fight. Prison guards, orderlies – almost anyone will do.

Screenwriters Brock Norman Brock and Winding Refn cast Peterson a mythic figure who defies interpretation or psychological analysis. He’s not a hero, railing against authority, but he’s not exactly a complete knave or brute either. He just is – violence is his nature, and the means through which Peterson becomes something of a self-obsessed celebrity…at least in his eyes.

Beyond Hardy’s dynamic, greased naked (literally) turn in the lead, Bronson is lean and stylish, hard boiled but never harder than it needs to be. Part of the emotional impact may be dulled by the nature of the subject – for the filmmakers, he seems to be more of an intellectual curiosity than anything else.

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