‘Devil’s Playground’ (2002, Wellspring)

Directed by Lucy Walker 

Man, do these Amish kids know how to party.  ‘The Devil’s Playground’ is a cool documentary about “Rumspringa”, an Amish word that pretty much translates as running wild.  When Amish kids turn 16, they get to experience the big bad modern world and all its temptations.  They can drive, booze it up, and get jobs.  Some (mostly the boys) dress in regular clothes.   A few even get involved in drugs and crime.  And they throw huge parties with hundreds of other Amish kids from all over the country.  Eventually, they have to make a choice to either continue living in the modern world, or get baptized (the Amish believe only an adult can be Baptized) and return to the Amish way of life. 

This film follows a few kids through this process, and shows how hard that decision can be to make.  As the film goes on, one young man name Faron becomes the primary focus.  Faron is living away from home, hooked on crank and dealing it as well to support his habit.  He has a non-Amish girlfriend and seems pretty happy with his freedom.  He says he wants to commit to the church, but as with any really good documentary there are lots of unexpected twists and turns on Faraon’s journey that make it nearly impossible to predict what he’ll ultimately do.  The same is true for the other kids in the movie, but they have a pretty smooth ride compared to Faron.   

We also get to see a woman who chose to be baptized and later regretted it.  When she quit the church, all her friends and family shunned her as Amish beliefs require.  In their minds, to commit to the church and then quit is breaking a promise to God.  Although pressure to join is strong, deciding not to join results in no such censure.  While I won’t tell you what Faron decides, I will say I was surprised to learn about 90% of these kids decide to join the church.  All in all, this was a very interesting documentary.  Considering the large Amish population in Ohio, it’s certainly worth watching just to get some insight into the culture. (Bob Ignizio)

‘The Monkey’s Mask’ (2000, Ventura Distribution)

Directed by Samantha Lang 

This is hardboiled detective yarn in the vein of a Mickey Spillane “Mike Hammer” story with a lesbian as the main character.  Jill (Susie Porter) runs the requisite rundown detective agency, and when she’s hired to find a missing girl her investigations lead her into the sordid underworld of…poets.  I always knew there was something shady about those pretentious assholes.  Anyway, in the course of her investigation our heroine meets Diana Maitland (Kelly McGillis), a poetry professor who had the missing girl in her class.  Sparks fly, and soon the two of them are getting busy.  A lot.   

Soon the body of the missing girl turns up, and Jill finds herself involved in a full on murder mystery.  She questions several members of the poetry underground, all of whom have something to hide, and slowly starts to put the pieces together.  Slowly, because she’s still too busy fooling around with Kelly McGillis.  I suppose you can’t really blame her, but you’d think anyone with even a passing familiarity with crime fiction would be able to figure this one out pretty quickly.  I’m guessing most viewers will, anyway.  The various red herrings thrown out to cast doubt in the viewer’s mind are pretty obvious, and there’s no real drive or suspense to the story.   

What ‘The Monkey’s Mask’ does have going for it is a realistic, matter of fact portrayal of its lesbian characters.  Aside from the numerous explicit sex scenes which might turn off some viewers (although they’ll probably turn on more), the character’s sexuality is well integrated into the story.  If Hammer, Spade, Marlowe, and the like can do a little romancing while they work, why not Jill?  Unfortunately the mystery just wasn’t that compelling to me.  The grainy look of the film and bland cinematography don’t help, and the sex scenes aren’t hot enough to recommend the flick on that basis, either.  And I still can’t figure out what the title has to do with anything.  (Bob Ignizio)

‘The Pianist’ (2002, theatrical release)

Directed by Roman Polanski 

This is the token ‘art’ film that everyone has to see this year, and thankfully it’s deserving of the attention.  Adrian Brody plays a Jewish pianist named Wladyslaw Szpilman who at the start of the film is performing live on Polish radio as the Nazi invasion of Poland is underway.  While the studio is practically falling apart around him and everyone else is trying to get the hell out, he keeps playing, unscathed.  This one scene pretty much sums up the core of the film.  Aside from his musical ability, there is nothing exceptional about Szpilman.  In fact there’s little to distinguish him except a will to keep going on no matter what.  Even as things get worse for the Jewish population and they are moved into the ghettoes, Szpilman avoids becoming involved with either the resistance or those few Jews who think they can save themselves through collaboration. 

Eventually, the time comes when most of the remaining ghetto residents are sent off to concentration camps.  Szpilman’s entire family gets on the train, but he is saved at the last moment by a Jewish collaborator and so gets to stay on as slave labor in the ghetto along with a few others.  The rest of the film is simply a meditation on survival as Szpilman simply tries to make it through the everyday horrors and privations he is faced with.  Brody is excellent in the role, and his Oscar nomination is well deserved.  My money is on him walking away with the statue. 

Roman Polanski was the perfect director for this film.  The story echoes his own experiences as a child growing up in the same time and place.  Like Szpilman, he too survived the Holocaust by mere chance so he completely understands the material.  He never “Hollywoodizes” the material; never makes Szpilman look like a hero.  I know there’s been a ton of Holocaust movies made, nearly every one of them labeled mandatory viewing by the critics, but ‘The Pianist’ truly ranks among the best of them.  It tells its story in shades of grey rather than black and white, and shows the real humanity of the ordinary people who lived through this dark period of history.  (Bob Ignizio) 

‘Talk to Her’ (2002, theatrical release)

Directed by Pedro Almodovar 

The latest film from Spanish director Pedro Almodovar shows him returning to his controversial roots after a string of well received and more accessible (by his standards, anyway) films culminating in 2001’s ‘All About my Mother’.   The first section of the film details the romance between a writer named Benigno (Javier Cámara) and a female toreador named Lydia (Rosario Flores).   When the toreador is severely injured in a bullfight she goes into a coma which the doctors all say she will never recover from.  The grief stricken writer stays by her bedside at the hospital and eventually meets Marco (Dario Grandinetti), a male nurse caring for another comatose woman named Alicia (Leonor Watling).  Marco regularly talks to Alicia, believing that this will help in her recovery, and tells Benigno to do the same with his comatose lover.   

As the two men become friends, Benigno slowly learns that Marco‘s compassion may have crossed the line to dangerous obsession.  Eventually that obsession lands Marco in serious trouble, and Benigno is the only one who can help.  It would be irresponsible of me to give away any more of the plot details, so you’ll just have to see the movie to find out what happens.  One thing I can mention is the bizarre movie within the movie, a silent film that Marcor describes to Alicia while he is taking care of her.  Almodovar gets every detail right, but as lax as standards were in the pre-production code era of filmmaking it’s unlikely a movie this sexually perverse would have been released even then.  It’s sort of a twist on ‘The Incredible Shrinking Man’ that should appeal to those with a giantess fetish.   

Although I don’t think ‘Talk to Her’ is quite as good as such previous Almodovar films as ‘All About My Mother’ or ‘Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down’, it’s still a solid film that dares to explore ideas Hollywood would probably shy away from.  The performances are excellent, and the movie looks absolutely beautiful.  While kinky sex isn’t the main focus of the film, Almodovar’s fondness for perversity makes ‘Talk to Her’ a film that definitely isn’t for everyone.  For those not bothered by non exploitative depictions of sexual weirdness, however, the film has much to offer.  At its heart it really is a genuinely touching story of friendship, love, and the distance between people and how that can be overcome. (Bob Ignizio)