Film Movement Movie Review: Final Set (2021)

Opens Virtually & in NYC on 8/27

“If you'd won quicker, you'd suffer less.”

 
Watching her son, thirty-something professional tennis player Thomas Edison (Alex Lutz) apply an ice pack to his knee during dinner, Judith (Kristin Scott Thomas) can't help but ask, “why lose the first set?”

 
Having helped propel Thomas to early greatness as a young prodigy, Judith struggles to remove her coaching hat to support her son the way that a typical mother would. Coming from a place of not only criticism but also love – because to care for Thomas and the knee he'd had operated on multiple times in the past is to question why he still feels the need to try to compete against the top players of the world at his age – to say that their relationship is complicated would be an understatement. But understating it is precisely what makes their dynamic and everything else in French writer-director Quentin Reynaud's “Final Set” so real and compelling.

 
Minimal and precise, the dialogue between not only Thomas and Judith but also Thomas and his loving, supportive, but equally conflicted wife Eve (Ana Girardot) is spare throughout the work which boasts a quasi-documentary feel. Yet, delivered by this exceptional group of actors who can say so much with a look or tone, we feel the weight of one’s meaning even though the English subtitled lines are spoken in French. In fact, generating a great deal of conflict and depth from these micro-moments, it's a film where those inquisitive looks over dinner or cautious actions – even the way one character packs or carries a tennis bag – speak louder than words.

From the Australian Open in January to the ATP finals for the highest-ranked male players in November, tennis, more than most sports, is essentially played for eleven months out of the year. Unfortunately, with a ranking of 245, which is a far cry from the great hope he was supposed to be twenty years earlier when he choked during a grand slam, Thomas' respectable but still low stats keep him out of most major tournaments, which cater only to the top players in the sport. 

And while he would prefer to enter every competition he can, his wife – a former player herself who now handles the behind-the-scenes business decisions – has to gently remind her husband that when you subtract the travel, food, and lodging costs, far too often, the actual winnings from some of these events don't justify the expense. Supplementing the income he barely receives from matches he's allowed to enter by working as a children's coach at his mother's tennis club, while everyone around him is waiting for him to hang up his racket or join the over thirty-five tour, Thomas decides to make one last stand at Roland Garros.

 
Otherwise known as the French Open, at Roland Garros, tennis is played on courts of famous red clay where the surface of the terrain not only sticks to a player's shoes, socks, legs, clothes, and arms if they take a nasty fall, but as legends like Andre Agassi and Roger Federer are first to admit, it's also sheer hell on the knees. And if it's hard on those joints at any age, you know it's destined to be agony for Thomas whose prominent knee surgery scars, arthritis, ligament lesions, and osteoarthritis are shown and discussed within the first five minutes of Reynaud's movie.

Nonetheless, knowing he doesn't have a lot of time left but not quite ready to follow in his wife's footsteps and train for another career because – despite being a husband and father – a life outside of tennis isn't something he's ever considered, Thomas decides to make a run at the Open by playing several brutal rounds as a qualifier. Facing other players not lucky enough to get in via wild card or ranked highly enough, even though his wife Eve tells him to “have fun” before he leaves for a match, we know that for the serious Thomas, fun doesn't really enter the equation. No, in this quixotic, underdog run, it's just about determination, desperation, and the work.

Drawing a parallel throughout to a cocky, young, but exceptionally gifted seventeen-year-old phenom on the rise (played by real pro player Jürgen Briand), who even Eve admits reminds her of her husband, obviously, you know that eventually, the two men will have to square off at some point to achieve the dramatic potential of Thomas “playing himself” in “Final Set.” Still, it's in the authenticity of the film's battle to that battle – and particularly the amount of regret, guilt, excitement, frustration, and pain of both the past and present that flood our main ensemble from start to finish – that makes this film feel like something beyond just your typical inspirational sports drama.

 
Furthermore, the time that Reynaud takes off the court and how much trust he puts into this excellent trio of actors (with once again, Scott Thomas doing some of her best work both later in life and in French) makes his bold decision to spend the film's final twenty-five minutes on the court so incredibly effective. Set during a showdown between the two pros at different points in their life, Reynaud goes right for the greatest hits of dramatic tennis. 

Zeroing in on a five-set grand slam match between a David and a Goliath, which features a never-ending deuce, racket smashes, cramps, long rallies, and more, the film achieves something so thrillingly intense that for a long time, I actually forgot for a while that I was watching a movie instead of championship play. More than that, as someone whose TV is often left on The Tennis Channel, it was only after the movie ended when I was reading the film's production notes that I realized that the final match went on for nearly the length of a traditional “act” of a Syd Field screenplay.

 
Yet, similar to the way that I love a good football movie even if it isn't a sport I actually watch, this isn't to say that one needs to be an avid tennis fan or even know much about the sport to enjoy “Final Set.” Filmed at Roland Garros and using that tried and true blueprint of “Rocky,” which similarly spends a good chunk of the film's last half right in that boxing ring as we watch events unfold in what I'd call “hyper-real time,” Reynaud's film is wildly ambitious in its scope. Refreshingly, though, it's as invested in the human story as it is in its tennis, which comes through in the film's fully earned last shot. A superbly executed ensemble effort that plays out against a backdrop that's the stuff of modern myth-making, as we watch Alex Lutz's Thomas fight against time and his own body's wear-and-tear, we're right there with him, eager to battle it out to the very end.

Text ©2021, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. https://www.filmintuition.com  Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  Also, as an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases made off my site through ad links. FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I may have received a review copy or screener link of this title to voluntarily decide to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique. Cookies Notice: This site incorporates tools (including advertiser partners and widgets) that use cookies and may collect some personal information to display ads tailored to you etc. Please be advised that neither Film Intuition nor its site owner has any access to this data beyond general site statistics (geographical region etc.) as your privacy is our main concern.

Warner Archive Collection Blu-ray Review: Tin Cup (1996)

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The way that driving range pro Roy McAvoy (Kevin Costner) sees it, all you need to win a game of golf is a trusty 7 iron — although a rake, a shovel, or a baseball bat will work in a pinch — and a dogged Don Quixote-like belief that when life hands you a defining moment, you define the moment or it defines you. And to Roy, there's no moment more loaded with existential questioning than when you're 230 yards away from the tee and the only thing standing in your way is a small body of water. Do you lay up or do you "grip it and rip it?"

Relying on instinct and adrenaline, most of the time he doesn't hesitate to grab his trusty 7 iron and "let the big dog eat," but after he meets and falls for beautiful "doctor lady" Molly Griswold (played by Rene Russo), he vows to prove to her that he isn't just a small time golf jock. Second-guessing his need to always put pride ahead of logic, especially when he discovers that her boyfriend is none other than his old college tour partner, the phony, smooth-as-silk professional golfer David Simms (Don Johnson), he sets off on a quest to win the U.S. Open, kick her boyfriend's ass, and of course, get the girl.

Reuniting with his magnetic Bull Durham star Kevin Costner at the height of the actor's fame as an internationally successful movie star in the 1990s following the The Bodyguard and Dances With Wolves, writer-director Ron Shelton's Tin Cup is much more than just the golf version of the now-contemporary classic comedy that launched his career.

Lighter and even more laid-back, while Bull Durham is perhaps the most intricate and sophisticated sports themed romcom in Shelton's filmography, this one gives us a chance to see Costner's goofy side as a man perhaps halfway between his in-control character in Durham and the one played by Tim Robbins, who was the exact opposite.

As articulate and highly verbal as ever, however, which gives Costner the chance to deliver some epic speeches penned by Shelton and his co-writer John Norville, what Roy McAvoy lacks in formal education, he makes up for with his honesty and earnestness in telling whomever is listening exactly what's on his mind at all times. Obviously unfamiliar with the concept of having a filter, whether he's telling Molly — who he first meets when she takes lessons at his driving range — to just give in and listen to that tuning fork that goes off in her loins or telling off David Simms when he caddies for him in a position that's short lived, Roy has no interest in playing anything safe.

Using sports as a metaphor for life, especially when it comes to dealing with the opposite sex or deciding what a certain golf shot says about him deep down, he and Molly make a tentative agreement to trade services, with him offering golf lessons in exchange for her help as a head doctor. Joining his best friend, trusty caddy, and swing doctor Romeo (a wonderful Cheech Marin) on the road as he wins one tournament after another to qualify for the Open, the two try to help Roy confront whatever it is about him that just refuses to play conservatively when there's an opportunity to assert his greatness.

Another fascinating look at gender and (especially) the competitiveness of straight men, both in terms of their athletic skill as well as when it comes to pursuing and possessing a member of the opposite sex, if you watch this film after Shelton's Bull Durham and White Men Can't Jump, these themes hit you as hard as a 7 iron to the head. Begging to be explored in greater detail, especially as part of an overall inventory that spans the rest of the sports-centric titles of Shelton's entire filmography, much like Sofia Coppola is drawn to the period in a girl's life when she comes into her own as a self-possessed woman, Shelton's dedication to the pride and pitfalls of athletic heterosexual American males is truly captivating.

And nobody brings these affably conflicted men to life quite like Kevin Costner, who trained with former professional golfer Gary McCord to play the game well enough that a majority of the swings and shots he makes onscreen are ones legitimately hit by Costner. The inspiration for the film's gut-wrenching — so painful it's funny — climactic golf sequence where Roy must decide once and for all just which shot to take and how that translates to the man he wants to be, Costner learned so much from McCord for his Golden Globe and New York Film Critics Circle nominated performance that he wrote the forward to McCord's book Golf For Dummies.

A true movie star turn in that it's filled with pathos and more going on just below the surface, even when the film's scenes threaten to be a little sitcomish, Costner leads by example and Tin Cup's terrific ensemble cast — well-balanced by Don Johnson as the anti-Roy — helps center Shelton's chaotic world overall.

Additionally known for writing some extraordinarily complex roles for his leading ladies, which — punctuated by the Preston Sturges like screwball rhythm of his dialogue — are often daffy but wise, Rene Russo's scene-stealing portrayal of Molly marks Ron Shelton's last great female character, and a worthy successor to Susan Sarandon in Bull Durham and Rosie Perez in White Men Can't Jump.

As much fun to watch on its own as it is back-to-back-to-back with a few other Shelton works, the 1996 romcom has recently been given a sharp, sunshine bright transfer to Blu-ray from Warner Archive at long last and for longtime fans, the difference in picture and sound is immediately apparent. From the witty country twang of the great singer-songwriter tunes on the soundtrack that play like a southwestern Greek chorus for our West Texas driving range pro to the discernible thwack of a club soaring through the wind on its way to connect with a ball that shoots out of one's back speakers, the impact of the sound easily matches the clarity of the Blu-ray image.

Don Quixote on the eighteenth hole of life in deciding what he wants to do as well as how to play the game, much like Roy McAvoy, Tin Cup digs in and doesn't let go until we're completely won over by its audacity, brashness, and charm.

Text ©2020, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. https://www.filmintuition.com  Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  Also, as an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases made off my site through ad links. FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I may have received a review copy or screener link of this title in order to voluntarily decide to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique. Cookies Notice: This site incorporates tools (including advertiser partners and widgets) that use cookies and may collect some personal information in order to display ads tailored to you etc. Please be advised that neither Film Intuition nor its site owner has any access to this data beyond general site statistics (geographical region etc.) as your privacy is our main concern.

DVD Review: Back of the Net (2019)

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Before she accidentally got on the wrong bus and wound up not at Harold Academy Australian Semester at Sea but Harold Soccer Academy instead, the only experience that young gifted American science student Cory Bailey (Sofia Wylie) had with the sport was spray painting soccer balls for her AP solar system diorama.

Forced to get a lot more acquainted with soccer since, by the time she's discovered her mistake her ship has literally sailed and her parents are practicing medicine in New Dehli at the moment, Cory has no choice but to make peace with the ball she'd much rather paint than kick.

Thrilled when she finds out she'll be able to study chemistry — as all student athletes are required to take classes at the academy as well — although soccer takes some getting used to, Cory is determined to make the best of it. Buoyed by a great group of new friends including cute, talented player Oliver (Trae Robin), though she's tested throughout Louise Alston's jubilant feature Back of the Net, Cory's positive attitude goes a long way when she makes an enemy out of Tiarnie Coupland's queen bee, Edie.

While there's nothing original about TV movie veterans Alison Spuck McNeeley and Casie Tabanou's admittedly paint-by-numbers script which adheres very closely to the underdog sports movie playbook established over the last five decades of cinematic storytelling, Net stays afloat with its upbeat spirit and breakneck pace.

Planting the seeds for actual depth and/or stronger subplot potential early on, such as when we learn that Oliver's financially strapped family has been going through a tough time, unfortunately the eighty-two minute feature doesn't give moments like these the time or support needed to let them bloom. Yet although it might not win over adults who've seen so many underdog sports movies that they've gotten the mechanics of the plot down to a science, by refreshingly centering its tale on a young woman of color and hiring women behind-the-scenes to bring it to life, this girl power movie's heart is definitely in the right place.

A surprisingly effective — if ultimately underwhelming — combination of science and sport, Alston's film is sure to strike a chord with its target audience who may have seen the Australian feature on the Disney Channel before its recent DVD release. While Back of the Net doesn't manage to transcend its predictable formula, by moving as fast as a soccer ball down the field, its irrepressible enthusiasm and infectious energy is hard to deny.

Text ©2019, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. https://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I may have received a review copy or screener link of this title in order to voluntarily decide to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique. Cookies Notice: This site incorporates tools (including advertiser partners and widgets) that use cookies and may collect some personal information in order to display ads tailored to you etc. Please be advised that neither Film Intuition nor its site owner has any access to this data beyond general site statistics (geographical region etc.) as your privacy is our main concern.

Netflix Movie Review: High Flying Bird (2019)

Arriving on Netflix: 
Feb. 8

The way Bill Duke's community basketball coach sees it, "you either care all the way or you don't care at all, man," and it only takes a few minutes of screen time for us to realize that, when it comes to looking out for his clients during an NBA lockout, André Holland's basketball agent Ray is a man who cares all the way.

Trying to save his lottery pick player Erick (Melvin Gregg) from bankruptcy and himself from unemployment, Ray spends a majority of Steven Soderbergh's ninety minute movie in motion. Talking at the speed of a playoffs game, over the course of a few fateful days, Ray maneuvers between the labor dispute's offense and defense.

A subversive look at "the game on top of the game" of basketball but without any court action in sight, the film, written by playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney (Moonlight) and modeled on Sweet Smell of Success, raises valid, urgent questions about the commoditization of predominantly black athletes by white owners.

Making moves to redistribute the balance of power, money, and control back into the hands of the players alongside his brainy, ambitious assistant Sam (a terrific Zazie Beetz), in High Flying Bird, we get the chance to go behind the curtain of what Ray dubs "the sexiest sport."

Using an outsider's perspective to explore new terrain in an unexpected way, Soderbergh's bold decision to take basketball itself out of the equation gives us a closer look at what we're really seeing when we watch a game on TV.

One of our most curious filmmakers, especially given the scope and objectivity of his character driven films, it's safe to say that had he not entered the film industry, Steven Soderbergh would have made one hell of an investigative reporter.

A unique mix of vintage and modern Soderbergh filmmaking techniques, although Bird was shot on an iPhone (like his recent underrated thriller Unsane), Bird's frames are sharper and more polished, perhaps owing as much to advances in technology as the film's smoother, less frantic tone and approach.

Comprised of the same set-up of two people in a room talking that he says made his name thirty years ago in Sex, Lies, and Videotape, the end result is a fascinating blend of theater, journalism, and cinéma vérité brought to life with verve and skill by its top-notch cast in just three weeks.

Best appreciated the second time around when we're better able to digest McCraney's gorgeously penned, theatrical monologues which are so full of meaning that they occasionally feel too big for the screen, Bird also makes for an ideal double feature with the 1957 classic Sweet Smell of Success.

Used by Soderbergh as a template for the film when he was first developing it on the set of The Knick alongside Holland, even without Success, Bird is sure to inspire its fair share of think pieces and make for engaging post-film discussion regardless.

Although those looking for a traditional sports movie will be disappointed by its lack of well, sports, those willing to keep an open mind might be surprised to discover that, whether it’s about sports or film, much like Ray (or McCraney or Soderbergh for that matter), they too "care all the way."

Text ©2019, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I may have received a review copy or screener link of this title in order to voluntarily decide to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique. Cookies Notice: This site incorporates tools (including advertiser partners and widgets) that use cookies and may collect some personal information in order to display ads tailored to you etc. Please be advised that neither Film Intuition nor its site owner has any access to this data beyond general site statistics (geographical region etc.) as your privacy is our main concern.

Film Movement DVD Review: Between Land and Sea (2016)

Now Available

For Ollie O'Flaherty, who is just one of a handful of Irish surfers at the heart of Ross Whitaker's fascinating documentary Between Land and Sea, the patience you need to find, charge at, and ride just the right wave, "is what makes it so addicting."

In the Atlantic surf town of Lahinch on Liscannor Bay on the northwest corner of County Clare, Ireland, which is like as O'Flaherty muses "having a playground on [his]...doorstep, only my playground is the ocean," Whitaker and his crew took his advice on patience literally while chronicling a year in the life of a core group of surfers and their loved ones.

Similar to the way O'Flaherty says the ocean "can offer the wave of a lifetime in the best amphitheater in the world but everywhere you look there's danger," each year the community virtually closes down for winter until Easter when the locals hope to make enough money from tourists to get by until the following year.

Although it might not have the same impact as a couple hundred feet of water hitting a fifteen foot shelf, given not only the ever-dwindling amount of travelers as well as the number of different pop-up shops selling beautifully handcrafted boards and gear as well as surf schools, it can hit residents supporting themselves as well as their loved ones on that income just as hard.

Introducing us to a couple of men who run surf related businesses such as Lahinch Surf Experience and Lahinch Surf School where a few current and former pro surfers (including O'Flaherty) moonlight as instructors, Whitaker gives us a good reason why some places close down in winter as one year earlier in a bad storm, the waves did twenty-three million pounds of damage to local businesses.

Having either aged out of the sport or embarked on a different endeavor, we're first introduced to Tom Doidge-Harrison, who, despite acknowledging that "some things in life have slipped by" him, has settled into a cozy life with his beautiful pregnant wife and daughter.

Trained as a mining engineer which he does for money and to enable him to make surfboards for enjoyment, Tom's wife Raquel has also had to think outside the box since leaving her home in Bristol by using her scientific background to make handmade soaps as she was unable to find something in her field in Lahinch.

While we don't exactly know if Raquel's soap-making is for money and/or enjoyment, by including her story alongside her husband's, it's a subtle study of contrasts and similarities and part of what makes the observational documentary so compelling on a human level.

One of many people looking for new purpose, having walked away from the life of a professional surfer where he spent too much time chasing sponsors, Australian Fergal Smith has returned to his roots growing up on an organic farm.

And over the course of the year captured in Whitaker's observational documentary, Fergal embarks on perhaps the biggest risk captured either on or off the ocean as he and his wife and child put everything into the soil and live in a yurt while waiting for both their venture and crops to grow.

Of course, you don't check out a surfing documentary if you aren't interested in surfing. Yet while Whitaker is far more focused on a fly-on-the-wall approach in making the viewer feel like an honorary Lahinch resident for its ninety-four minute running time, the film's surf's scenes (directed by Kev I Smith and featuring a cameo by Hawaiian big wave legend Shane Dorian and crew) are quite thrilling to watch.

With the breathtaking backdrop of Ireland's cliffs by the sea, whenever the lens zeroes in on a color deeper than the shades we mostly see of mossy green, brown soil, and saltwater blue, we're immediately taken in and Land and Sea delivers on this front repeatedly – alternating from orange red skies to later on, a rainbow streaking across the sky.

Released by Film Movement, admittedly, this highly recommended slice-of-life documentary might bore viewers reared on traditional stunt filled sports documentaries geared toward those with the shortest of attention spans.

Less like a feature length music video, Land is more reminiscent in spirit of director Michael Apted's Up series, which was an obvious influence on Hoop Dreams director Steve James, whose work seems to have in turn inspired Whitaker.

The end result makes this one wave you'll definitely want to take, as long as that you have the patience to learn not only what makes it so stimulating for the surfers but also what's at stake.

Text ©2018, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I may have received a review copy or screener link of this title in order to voluntarily decide to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique. Cookies Notice: This site incorporates tools (including advertiser partners and widgets) that use cookies and may collect some personal information in order to display ads tailored to you etc. Please be advised that neither Film Intuition nor its site owner has any access to this data beyond general site statistics (geographical region etc.) as your privacy is our main concern.

Movie Review: Mountain (2017)

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Fascinated by the kind of synesthesia that occurs at the opera wherein “you end up listening more with your eyes and seeing more with your ears,” Australia Chamber Orchestra Artistic Director Richard Tognetti was inspired to see if the same phenomenon could be true of film.

Commissioning documentarian Jennifer Peedom to help put this to the test, the two worked alongside Mountains of the Mind author Robert Macfarlane, principle cinematographer Renan Ozturk, and Oscar nominated actor Willem Dafoe to create Mountain.

Best described by Peedom as “a marriage of music, words and picture,” in which all but nine of the film’s seventy-four minute running time is devoid of music, this ambitious follow-up to her 2015 award-winner Sherpa is an extraordinary sensuous feast.

Longing to explore the various ways in which our ever-changing relationship to mountains have changed in a relatively short period of time, Peedom tapped Macfarlane to pen the film’s intentionally sparse narration.

A writerly marvel, with its rhythmic blend of research and poetry made all the more intoxicating by Dafoe’s pitch-perfect delivery, in spite of its short length, Macfarlane's script would make quite a compelling book in its own right.

Cutting the film’s excellently curated and state-of-the-art original cinematography together with its Australia Chamber Orchestra soundtrack of Chopin, Grieg, Vivaldi, Beethoven, and new compositions by Tognetti, we’re hypnotized by the way Mountain’s constantly moving camera glides over snow like a bow over strings.

Watching traffic queue up a mountainside curly-cue style before showering the screen with an almost otherworldly view of the night skies, Peedom and her team use music, cinematography, and editing to give us a vicarious emotional experience of the Everest highs to the volcanic lows of mountain life that's simply amazing to behold.

Filmed in twenty-two countries, this experimental work pushes the boundaries of what we use to define a documentary. Released in three distinct versions including theatrical, IMAX, and a special live edit to go along with orchestral accompaniment, Peedom's film dazzles regardless of format.

That said, of course, similar to the way that climbers need the best gear, audiences do as well. Much like its subject, size (and in this case sound) matters, and this Mountain is best experienced on the biggest screen you can find.

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Text ©2018, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I may have received a review copy or screener link of this title in order to voluntarily decide to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique. Cookies Notice: This site incorporates tools (including advertiser partners and widgets) that use cookies and may collect some personal information in order to display ads tailored to you etc. Please be advised that neither Film Intuition nor its site owner has any access to this data beyond general site statistics (geographical region etc.) as your privacy is our main concern.

DVD Review: Next Goal Wins (2014)

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Photo Slideshow   

For professional athletes, the phrase "you can't win 'em all" is not only a cliched motto – it's also a job hazard that goes along with the territory. But at the start of this moving documentary, we meet the members of a soccer team on the opposite end of the spectrum that's out to prove that they can't (and won't) lose 'em all either since even one win would be a step in the right direction.

And while every player has had a bad night, only one has ever endured the horror of having served as goalie during an infamous match back in 2001 when Australia beat the American Samoa soccer team with a spirit-crushing victory of 31-0.

Still haunted by the events of that game and the obnoxiously adhesive, unjust nickname of “the world’s worst goalkeeper” that followed him to the mainland after Nicky Salapu emigrated to Seattle, the dutiful and dedicated player returns to his homeland nearly every year to take his place on the team and (hopefully) change the world’s mind in the process.

Getting revenge for a career that’s been relegated to the stuff of sports trivia on pub quiz nights (which British helmers Mike Brett and Steve Jamison acknowledged was part of the reason they chose to tell his team's tale for their nonfiction feature filmmaking debut), Salapu engages in a nightly ritual where he replays that game vs. Australia on his Xbox.

Illustrating the passionate drive, national pride and indefatigable spirit of the team where players show up to practice despite working anywhere from three to five jobs, going to school, and fulfilling all their obligations to family, church and community, Brett and Jamison bring us one of the most easily memorable and naturally uplifting sports-related documentaries I’ve seen in a long time.

Matching the commitment displayed onscreen by the team offscreen with their film, after Salpu temporarily retired (having never won a game in his entire life), the directors remained devoted to capturing the efforts of the players who refused to give up despite being ranked dead last for ages.

As such they encountered one of the biggest surprise of their filmmaking lives when – after American Samoa management called the soccer federation for help before a FIFA World Cup qualifying match – they're sent the one and only applicant for the job in the form of Dutch coach Thomas Rongen who has a mere month to turn things around.

A tough-talking atheist who’s overcome a devastating loss in his own life, Rongen arrives as a Cool Runnings-like fish-out-of-water. Initially hitting the community with the force of a tropical storm, the colorful Rongen immediately clashes with those in charge before ultimately changing the team and by extension the future of the Pacific Island community in a twist so perfectly plotted that you'd almost believe the filmmakers had planned it that way all along.

Reaching out to not only Salapu but a couple of other prospects who – like far too many of the island’s youths leave American Samoa for the mainland or the military because there are so few opportunities available there to make a living – Rongen brings in athletes ready to play for the pride they have in their cultural heritage vs. (the nonexistent) big payday.

Vowing to whip the existing team into shape, the middle-aged Rongen takes a grueling three hour hiking trail up a mountain in order to inspire some of his players that can't physically last through an entire game to get into peak World Cup condition.

Working with their former coach (whom in the addictive first act we discover is almost as quotable as their far more boisterous replacement) to help get a better read on the team, Rongen is able to bring the group together on the field and off in a way that’s as emotionally moving as it is downright entertaining.

And although it’s the infectious enthusiasm and integrity of the players that eventually winds up making global headlines after the team not only scores a goal but manages to win a game, Next's viewers are quick to realize that we've been witnessing heroism all along (regardless of whether the scores or statistics reflected that).

Much like the eponymous kids who hurriedly yell “next goal wins” before returning home for dinner or back to class in time after recess, Brett and Jamison’s vital work celebrates those who play for the love of the game.

A stunning and vivacious digitally shot production, Next Goal Wins is refreshing in that it has absolutely nothing to do with headlines about draft picks, contract negotiations, free agent greed, or commercial endorsements that we hear about far too often and everything about who the American Samoan players are as individual people and as an overall team.

Whether it’s in the simple victory of a game for Salapu or a much more emotionally cathartic journey than Rongen had ever knew awaited him when he first stepped off the plane with his wife, Goal is naturally inspiring in its study of a team that’s never known the meaning of the phrase “paycheck player” and a community where there’s no such thing as a "fair-weather fan."

And this is particularly evident in the film’s most moving portrait about a player who (despite being listed as Johnny on the roster) lives 24/7 as Jaiyah Saelua as a member of fa'afafine or Samoa’s third gender and not only brings her full heart and soul to each game but is also – as we quickly discover – the heart and soul of the overall team.

From chronicling Jaiyah's evolution from the biggest fan on the bench to the first transgender player ever to start in a World Cup qualifying game to the way a teammate that didn’t see a single second of game-time is nonetheless captured in a New York Times photo with an enormously proud smile on his face, Goal is a winner in every sense of the word.

And with this in mind, I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before the House of Mouse turns Next Goal Wins into another finely crafted formulaic Disney sports movie inspired by actual events in the same vein of Runnings, Remember the Titans, or Glory Road.

Yet even if they do, they’ll never be able to duplicate the authenticity, excitement and hard won wisdom of the actual American Samoan players in this Tribeca Film Festival official selection.

A mesmerizing debut, Goal champions the true American underdog spirit far away from the continental U.S. that exists on a tiny pacific island where a certain goalkeeper returns every year, waiting for a non Xbox-related Australian rematch.

Text ©2014, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I may have received a review copy of this title in order to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique.

Movie Review: Northern Light (2013)

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Photo Slideshow 
 

Like an object in the rearview mirror that might be closer than it appears or the blurry image you don’t recognize as an obstacle until your snowmobile is only a half a mile away, initially Northern Light tricks you into thinking it’s one film before a few miles and thirty minutes go by onscreen and you realize that it’s something different altogether.

Centered around three hardworking families in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula who live and breathe snowmobile racing and put their heart and soul into preparing for each annual competitive season, Northern Light may be described as a sports documentary but it has less to do with sleds flying around in circles on a frozen lake than it does with bringing us into the everyday lives of the people who call the community home.

A true "window on the world" observational documentary in every sense of the word, the American studies infused slice-of-life has an old-fashioned Albert and David Maysles or Barbara Kopple inspired home movie feel to Light that both helps and hinders what is essentially a work of cultural anthropology masquerading as a competitive nonfiction film.

Needless to say, for those uninitiated in the experimental filmmaking style, the absence of formal introductions to our subjects (including everything from names to character relation), lack of traditional interviews, or even a race-centered structure does take some getting used to.

And even for those of us who’ve seen our fair share of observational works (from the post-Italian neorealist movement that picked up momentum in the ‘50s and ‘60s), even though we find ourselves easily lost in cameraman/director Nick Bentgen’s lush, naturalist cinematography, we have a hard time getting into the rhythm of the opaque Light because of its confusing structure.

Thus we're left using context clues and guesswork to try and figure out just who the film is intending to focus on and what subtextual points (if any) that Bentgen and producer plus credited co-director Lisa Kjerulff are trying to make with the juxtaposition of Yoonha Park’s intriguing edits.

With the exception of, say, D.A. Pennebaker’s controversial Don’t Look Back, traditionally this nonfiction subgenre attempts to paint as objective of a picture as possible before incorporating only the bare minimum of artistic interpretation in the post-production process.

And in addition to Park's intriguing post-discussion worthy edits, the partially Kickstarter funded production (newly released on DVD) boasts a tremendous orchestral score from Saunder Jurriaans and Danny Bensi.

Of course, observational filmmaking is a quite stylistically different from some of the subjectively analytic investigative documentaries that have become particularly popular in the last three decades with journalist helmers such as Michael Moore, Errol Morris, Morgan Spurlock and others using the medium to inform as well as inspire action and change.

And although I appreciate the director’s observational anthropological approach to the Upper Peninsula, there are some vastly more fascinating narratives left unexplored by Light’s method than the snowmobile related through-line allows.

For example, the film touches on but never truly delves into issues of economic hardship, child welfare, governmental assistance, gender dynamics, and more to create a surface level tapestry of what could’ve potentially been a much deeper film.

Refreshingly humanistic and unapologetic, the filmmakers challenge stereotypes by leaving in some of the saltier conversations of Light’s subjects that are occasionally sprinkled with homophobia and racism while relishing in the complexities of its characters by showing all sides of their personalities.

At its best when it celebrates the everyday heroism of the film’s quietest and most easily overlooked characters, Light’s generosity of spirit is on full display when we encounter a hardworking mother struggling to complete her GED, a caring couple who takes in their daughter’s friend to save her from an abusive situation despite their own limited resources, as well as youngsters who dare to dream.

Unfortunately with so much footage captured over the two year production, there are a lot of small vignettes that get lost in the shuffle of the film that meanders more than it creates a completely complementary mosaic.

From characters we wish we could’ve seen more of including a young boy who wants to become a dancer along with a number of contrasts between the genders and a complicated dynamic between a young couple that are in full support of one another’s (non-snowmobile) dreams, moving moments of life beyond the periphery sneak into frame every so often and leave much too quickly.

One of the purest examples of observational documentary filmmaking served up since its heyday, while it doesn’t glide nearly as easily as one of the snowmobiles seen far too fleetingly in a film that’s purported to be centered around racing season, Northern Light nonetheless burns bright as a moving anthropological portrait of small town American life.

 

Text ©2014, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I may have received a review copy of this title in order to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique.

DVD Review: Weekend of a Champion (1972)

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Alternate Title: Afternoon of a Champion

It’d been nearly three weeks since Jackie Stewart had had a decent night’s sleep. Yet unlike others in Monaco in May of 1971, he wasn’t awakened simply by the roar of Formula One motorcar engines speeding around the curvy, curb-filled city streets that were never meant to be driven the same way as a racetrack.

No, for almost three weeks Stewart found himself driven to near-insomnia out of sheer preparation and passionate dedication, scientifically strategizing the precise place he should brake before a turn and figuring out which gear made the most sense for every single maneuver he planned to utilize in his attempt to win the Monaco Grand Prix for the first time since 1966.

With the added pressure of an untested car thrown into the mix along with consenting to be captured throughout the course of the entire weekend by his good friend, filmmaker Roman Polanski as well as the documentarian Frank Simon (that Polanski has tapped to execute his first foray into nonfiction moviemaking), Stewart’s anxiety is easily understandable.

And when you toss in the variable of unpredictable weather that required Stewart to shift his thinking (and his car) on a dime to recalibrate the plan of attack he’d take behind the wheel should he suddenly find himself driving in the rain, you have the makings of a compelling cinema verite feature.

Weekend of a Champion truly brings you inside the pressure-cooker that is Formula One racing and finds a intellectually stimulating subject in Jackie Stewart at the peak of his powers. With the race itself taking a backseat to Simon’s cinematic slice-of-life approach, Weekend zeroes in on Stewart’s fascinating point-of-view.

In doing so, Simon illustrates the excruciating amount of mental focus and physical stamina (from the deep blisters received from constant gear changing to the lack of support for the neck) required to make it in Formula One during the horrifically tragic era when two out of three racers were killed in the span of a five-year period.

Offering those uninitiated in the sport an unprecedented first person account of just how much of a true art-form racing actually is, when you view it through that lens in retrospect, it’s no surprise that the subject would’ve attracted Polanski enough to serve as the jumping-off point for this intriguing work.

Whereas a documentary centered on his own profession may have easily bored him, Champion gives Polanski – through Simon – a chance to indulge his hunger for knowledge and let his imagination go wild.

If there’s one thing that Champion has in common with his other work is that it centers on a psychologically focused study of a subject’s confrontation and likewise exploration of a whole new world that typically they’ve never been privy to before.

From the devilish goings-on in a nearby apartment (via Rosemary’s Baby), in the seedier side of Frantic’s Paris or the eponymous Chinatown, the heroes and heroines of Polanski’s films are put to the test and must either succumb to or rise above the increasingly dangerous situations in which they find themselves in everything from Knife in the Water to The Ghost Writer.

Riveted by the human response when people are pushed to extremes, even though Polanski is an uncredited filmmaker on Weekend, the Frank Simon co-production easily fits into Polanski's own filmography.

Jokingly chided that as a racing driver, he’s a very good film director by a nervous Stewart who later laughs that the blood spilled from his Grand Prix morning shave has supplied the helmer with the requisite gore demanded by a Polanski picture, the film walks that fine balance of violent danger and seductive glamour evident in his other work.

And sure enough, Stewart echoes this, acknowledging that the “anything can happen,” air of a race is inevitably what draws the sport’s spectators.

With racers like Mario Andretti wailing around the city streets on cars that maneuver like they’re on a “knife’s edge” dangerously close to the crowd with the threat of a crash just a shift away, Stewart theorizes the allure of Formula One while doing everything he can to keep safe.

Likening the car to “a best friend,” “wife,” or “fantastic affair,” there’s undoubtedly something sexual about the injection he says he feels when behind the wheel where undoubtedly the three weeks of anticipation and foreplay have paid off as he can “become one with the car” while going all the way to the finish line.

Although the newly added twenty minute contemporary postscript added by Polanski that finds the two friends reminiscing in the same suite they stayed in years earlier is interesting as it better acknowledges Stewart’s loyal, beautiful and courageous wife Helen as he discusses his efforts to make racing safer, ultimately it doesn’t offer any other new insight into the aforementioned weekend.

To this end, perhaps it would've better appreciated as a behind-the-scenes DVD extra as others have suggested. While fans will undoubtedly enjoy the conversation, the slice-of-life, place-in-time snapshot is so complete on its own that it’s a bit jarring for those who had gotten into the flow of the race, (similar to the way Stewart had in ’71) to be quickly pulled back into the current reality.

Almost destroyed by archivists who called Polanski and asked him what to do with the original film negatives, Weekend is a riveting discovery. Likewise it makes a terrific follow-up and companion piece to the recent slew of titles about the racing world from the informative historical chronicle documentaries 1 and Senna to the indie biopic Snake and Mongoose as well as Ron Howard’s big screen Rush.

A wonderful filmic flashback to that weekend in May when Polanski and Simon journeyed to Monaco to bring us a portrait of his friend (and artist in his own right), Champion zooms in on the mindset of Stewart – determined to do whatever it takes to ensure that come race day, he won’t be asleep at the wheel but all revved up and ready to go.
   

Text ©2014, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I may have received a review copy of this title in order to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique.