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      ‘Sansón and Me’ Review: Retracing a Path to Prison

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      The filmmaker Rodrigo Reyes examines immigration and incarceration through the story of a young undocumented man caught up in gang violence.To support himself and his family while pursuing a filmmaking career, the Mexican American director Rodrigo Reyes has worked as a court interpreter. It was in this capacity that he met Sansón Noe Andrade, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico who landed in California’s Merced County as a boy — and who, in 2012, at the age of 19, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for serving as a driver in a gang-related shooting.The sentence infuriated Reyes, who would later refer to it as a life “being thrown away.” He became determined to make a documentary about Andrade’s case, but was thwarted by carceral bureaucracy. Denied permission to conduct on-camera interviews with Andrade, he conceived a meta-documentary of sorts; “Sansón and Me” is the result.Traveling to the town of Tecomán, where Andrade’s alcoholic father was a fisherman until he died in a car accident very early in his son’s life, Reyes meets members of Andrade’s extended family and “casts” them to re-enact scenes from the young man’s life.The film is an unusually layered look at how the combination of privation, misplaced familial loyalty and just plain rotten luck can make the immigrant experience in America a nightmare. As Andrade’s letters to Reyes reiterate his aversion to gangs, both outside and inside prison, the viewer’s curiosity about how the young man got into this fix is stretched almost to the point of exasperation. This is perhaps part of Reyes’s point: How much do you need to know before you decide to extend compassion to his subject?Be that as it may, it makes for a lopsided viewing experience at times. Ultimately, though, discomfort turns to outrage, and Reyes makes the case that an appalling, albeit commonplace, injustice has been done here.Sansón and MeNot rated. In Spanish and English, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 23 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Film, the Living Record of Our Memory’ Review: How to Save the Movies

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      This documentary walks through the delicate task of saving the history of movies with the help of enchanting clips and eagle-eyed preservationistsA canard of the internet age is that more movies are accessible than ever, but “Film, the Living Record of Our Memory” reminds us that our cultural heritage is ever-vanishing and requires constant care just to survive. In this multifarious introduction to motion picture preservation, a crowd of devoted professionals in the field hold up film as not just a vital art form but an essential record of humanity.Film history is scarred with moments when nobody was minding the store, and when many in the industry were actively burning the store down. Preservationists from across the globe — including rarely represented African, Asian and Latin American archives — here walk through the delicate process of preservation. Obstacles range from epochal shifts (the dumping of silents, the worship of digital), hostile governments (the neglect of Cinemateca Brasileira that led to a fire), and the weather (humidity kills!). Images of rotting reels keep recurring in the film, like a haunting vision.The film’s director, Inés Toharia, illustrates feats of preservation with lovely clips from obscurities and classics (like “Lawrence of Arabia,” whose sprawling prints were divvied into quarters for restoration by different work groups). Ken Loach, Wim Wenders, Jonas Mekas and Ridley Scott testify, and Martin Scorsese, mastermind of the Film Foundation, is confirmed to be a prince.Even if you know the basics, you’ll pick something up (like Detroit’s massive industrial film output, or how Satyajit Ray’s work was restored with burned reels). For a documentary largely about archives, it should be better organized, but its breathless profusion of information underscores the scale of the task at hand.Film, the Living Record of Our MemoryNot rated. Running time: 2 hours. In theaters. More

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      French Documentary ‘On the Adamant’ Wins Top Prize at Berlin Film Festival

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      Christian Petzold’s “Afire” took the runner-up award at this year’s Berlinale, where geopolitical crises in Europe and Iran loomed large.The top prize at this year’s Berlin International Film Festival, the Golden Bear, was awarded to “On the Adamant,” a French documentary about a floating barge in central Paris that offers care to people with mental disorders.The immersive feature, filmed by the documentarian Nicolas Philibert over several months, follows the patients of the facility as they create music and artwork that often reflect their personal stories. The festival’s top award is rarely given to a documentary, and in his acceptance speech, a clearly surprised Philibert asked the jury members if they were “crazy.”He said that he had made the film in part to reverse the “stigmatizing” views many have of people with mental health issues, and that his film aimed to erase the distinction between patients and caregivers. “What unites us is a feeling of common humanity,” he said.This year’s jury was led by the American actress Kristen Stewart and included the Spanish director Carla Simón, whose “Alcarràs” took the top award last year, and the Iranian actress Golshifteh Farahani.The runner-up prize went to “Afire” by the German director Christian Petzold, a fixture of the festival. The dry comedy centers on an acerbic novelist ensconced in a vacation home who is forced to reckon with his self-image amid an encroaching forest fire. A special jury prize was given to the Portuguese filmmaker João Canijo’s “Bad Living,” a drama about a group of women running a decaying hotel.The Projectionist Chronicles the Awards SeasonThe Oscars aren’t until March, but the campaigns have begun. Kyle Buchanan is covering the films, personalities and events along the way.The Tom Cruise Factor: Stars were starstruck when the “Top Gun: Maverick” headliner showed up at the Oscar nominees luncheon.An Andrea Riseborough FAQ: Confused about the brouhaha surrounding the best actress nominee? We explain why her nod was controversial.Sundance and the Oscars: Which films from the festival could follow “CODA” to the 2024 Academy Awards.A Supporting-Actress Underdog: In “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” don’t discount the pivotal presence of Stephanie Hsu.The best director award went to Philippe Garrel, a veteran French filmmaker, for “The Plough,” a drama about a family of puppeteers that stars three of his real-life children. The gender-neutral award for best performance was given to Sofía Otero, a first-time actor, who played an 8-year-old grappling with gender identity in “20,000 Species of Bees.” The tearful speech by Otero, the youngest to win the award, left many in the audience crying.The award for best screenplay was given to Angela Schanelec’s “Music,” an elliptical retelling of the myth of Oedipus, and the award for best supporting performance went to Thea Ehre, who played a transgender ex-convict working with a police investigator in Christoph Hochhäusler’s “Till the End of the Night.”Although the Berlinale has long been the most political of the major international festivals, this year’s edition was especially touched by world events. Two previous winners of the Golden Bear — the Iranian directors Jafar Panahi, whose film “Taxi Tehran” won in 2015, and Mohammad Rasoulof, whose film “There Is No Evil” won in 2020 — were imprisoned in recent months for opposing the Iranian government. (Both were eventually released.) During the festival’s glossy opening gala, Farahani, who is herself exiled from Iran, drew a lengthy standing ovation for a rousing speech in which she called for Europe to stand on the “right side of history” by supporting Iranian protesters.This year’s festival also featured several films about Ukraine, including “Iron Butterflies,” about the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in 2014, and “Superpower,” a documentary by the actor and director Sean Penn that includes an interview with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, filmed the night of the Russian invasion. Appearing at the opening gala via video link, Zelensky praised the Berlinale for its “principle of openness, equality and dialogue without borders.” Although Russian filmmakers were allowed at this year’s festival, films that had been financed by the Russian government were banned.After two years of pandemic disruptions and restrictions, this year’s festival — one of the largest in the world by audience numbers — was a return to sold-out theaters, industry parties and red-carpet glamour. The attendees included Anne Hathaway, whose absurdist comedy “She Came to Me” opened the festival, and Steven Spielberg, who was on hand to accept an honorary Golden Bear for lifetime achievement.This year’s competition lineup was heavy on German directors and notably broad in tone and scope. It included two animated features — “Suzume” from Japan and “Art College 1994” from China — as well as “BlackBerry,” a Canadian comedy about the inventors of the eponymous hand-held device, and “Manodrome,” a violent drama about one man’s crisis of masculinity starring Jesse Eisenberg.Some of the buzzier titles screened outside of competition, such as “Passages,” an erotic drama featuring the German actor Franz Rogowski, a Berlinale favorite. Sydney Sweeney, who stars in the American TV series “Euphoria,” also drew acclaim for her performance in “Reality,” a drama about Reality Winner, the intelligence contractor who leaked classified reports to the press in 2017.German critics have largely praised organizers this year for balancing a focus on global events with artistic ambition and glitz. Alongside screenings, the festival included several explicitly political events, including a protest on the red carpet on Friday to mark the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Several of the award winners also acknowledged the political context in their speeches, including Canijo, who ended his with a Ukrainian rallying cry, “Slava Ukraini,” or “Glory to Ukraine.” More

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      ‘A House Made of Splinters’ Review: Home Is Where the Hope Is

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      This film, an Oscar nominee this year for best documentary feature, has an aching sensitivity for the children in a Ukraine shelter.Filmed at a children’s shelter in eastern Ukraine, “A House Made of Splinters” is made with such aching sensitivity that it’s a marvel a camera was used and not some form of mind-meld. Simon Lereng Wilmont, the director and cinematographer, catches his young subjects in the fullness of their feelings — from joy to sorrow — as they wait for a new home.The children land here because of absent parents, typically casualties of alcoholism or war from previous Russian invasions and incursions (the documentary was filmed in 2019 and 2020). Unless another family member steps up, the young ones move into foster care or to an orphanage. Mercifully, the caregivers’ affectionate morning rounds immediately show that this is an institution rooted in love, hope and common sense.Instead of focusing on the staff, though, Wilmont sticks to the perspective of one child at a time, filming for a year and a half across multiple trips. Eva, for example, yearns for her grandmother to take her in and has no illusions that her mother will recover from her addiction to alcohol. Like the others, she has moments of looking weary beyond her years, but she also turns cartwheels to blow off steam.Wilmont hews closer to relationships than daily routines, and takes in the sky-high stakes of friendships, crushes and acting tough. He susses out life forces rather than spiraling despair; he is tender without being sentimental, cleareyed without being cool. A voice-over by one staff member lends gentle framing, and some welcome moral support, as you’re left a sniffling wreck from this compassionate portrait.A House Made of SplintersNot rated. In Ukrainian and Russian, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 27 minutes. In theaters and available to rent or buy on most major platforms. More

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      ‘Black Bear,’ ‘Sharp Stick’ and More Streaming Gems

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      Looking for something different to stream? We have options for you.This month’s suggestions for the hidden gems of your subscription streaming services cut a wide swath of genres and styles, including a piercing psychological thriller, a moody marital drama and a buck-wild sex comedy, with a handful of first-rate documentaries to keep you anchored in reality.‘Black Bear’ (2020)Stream it on Amazon Prime Video.When Aubrey Plaza arrived on the scene over a decade ago, her bone-dry wit, acerbic delivery and M.V.P. supporting turns in comic films and television suggested the second coming of Janeane Garofalo. But her electrifying dramatic work over the past few years — on “The White Lotus,” in “Emily the Criminal” and in this scorching portrait of psychosexual one-upmanship from the writer and director Lawrence Michael Levine — suggests something closer to Gena Rowlands. The wildly unpredictable psychological drama begins as a love triangle, with Plaza as an actor-turned-filmmaker on a remote retreat with a married couple (Christopher Abbott and Sarah Gadon, both excellent). Over the course of a long night, the trio flirt, hint and accuse, rearranging and regrouping their allegiances, until … well, then it goes somewhere else entirely, grippingly blurring the lines between life, art and their respective commentaries.‘Take This Waltz’ (2012)Stream it on HBO Max.The director Sarah Polley has been running the awards gauntlet for her latest film “Women Talking.” On Twitter, she took a moment to winkingly, winningly note the debt owed her by one of her competitors, requesting “that Steven Spielberg return my cast from ‘Take This Waltz.’” And “The Fabelmans” co-stars Michelle Williams and Seth Rogen are marvelous in Polley’s sophomore outing, as Margot and Lou, an easy-breezy couple whose comfortable marriage is drawn into doubt when Margot is suddenly thunderstruck by her attraction to a new neighbor (understandably, as he’s played by Luke Kirby). Polley masterfully takes what could have been a weepy melodrama or a scolding screed and turns it into a nuanced and probing meditation on what it truly means to be faithful.‘Sharp Stick’ (2022)Stream it on Hulu.Lena Dunham’s 2022 was a study in contrasts, with two night-and-day feature films to contemplate: her Amazon original “Catherine Called Birdy,” which seemed to challenge the very notion of who Dunham is and what she does, and the indie comedy-drama “Sharp Stick,” which took those notions into new and provocative territory. Her focus is Sarah Jo (Kristine Froseth), a 26-year-old nanny who, rather ill-advisedly, discards her virginity with the scuzzy burnout father (Jon Bernthal) who employs her. Dunham’s knack for writing amusingly self-destructive women and dopey men remains intact, and her own turn as the mother caught in the middle is as thorny and complicated as the movie surrounding it.‘Cosmopolis’ (2012)Stream it on Amazon Prime Video.The mixed reception that greeted Noah Baumbach’s recent film adaptation of Don DeLillo’s “White Noise” served as another reminder that there seems something uniquely tricky about turning the author’s thematically and historically dense works into quicksilver cinema. But in 2012 the director David Cronenberg was up to the challenge with “Cosmopolis,” turning DeLillo’s chronicle of a day in the life of a young billionaire into a snapshot of self-destruction in the Occupy era, while Robert Pattinson makes a particularly effective DeLillo protagonist, all cold surfaces and questionable motives.‘The Monster’ (2016)Stream it on HBO Max.Bryan Bertino’s tight, compact thriller finds a fiercely independent tween girl (Ella Ballentine) and her alcoholic mother (Zoe Kazan) on a long, tough drive through the lonely night — and then stranded in their car, wrecked while swerving to avoid a wolf on the road. But that wolf was trying to escape from another animal, and the women soon supplant the wolf as its prey. That sounds simple enough, but that’s also not all Bertino is up to; the picture’s intricate and ingenious flashback structure makes it increasingly clear that these two are perfectly capable of being just as monstrous to each other.‘The Pez Outlaw’ (2022)Stream it on Netflix.Amy Bandlien Storkel and Bryan Storkel’s documentary tells the story of Steve Glew, a collector, seller and smuggler of Pez candy dispensers — or, more accurately, Glew tells the story himself, not only narrating his tale with cheerful comic vigor, but starring in the documentary’s energetically stylized dramatizations of his various heists and high jinks. That irreverent approach is the right one for this low-stakes story, which takes the tools of the increasingly ubiquitous Netflix true crime documentary and exposes them as ridiculous. ‘Leave No Trace’ (2022)Stream it on Hulu.When the Boy Scouts filed for bankruptcy in February 2020, it was one of many national stories that quickly receded to the background in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. Thousands of claims of sexual abuse finally came to light, ultimately surpassing 82,000 accusers. Irene Taylor’s documentary details the history of the organization, and its pattern of protecting accused pedophiles in its midst (all the while ostracizing gay Scouts and Scoutmasters as dangers to children). Taylor assembles an anatomy of a conspiracy, detailing exactly how these secrets were kept so safe for so long, all while tracking down survivors from around the country to hear their stories. It’s a troubling, infuriating piece of work, assembled with a delicate mixture of righteous indignation and necessary sensitivity.‘Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, A Journey, A Song’ (2021)Stream it on Netflix.Daniel Geller and Dayna Goldfine’s documentary is not, it should be noted, a traditional biographical portrait of the singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen, and thank goodness, as there have been plenty of those. Instead, the filmmakers examine the long, strange, fascinating history of the title song — now easily his most recognizable composition, deployed in media of all kinds, covered by every artist worth their stripe, but initially a forgotten track on a poorly selling album. That odyssey, from ignored to iconic, is an inherently dramatic one, and Gellar and Goldfine bring it to life with panache, all while acknowledging that Cohen’s particular passion made its very inception something akin to musical magic. More

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      ‘The First Step’ Review: Van Jones Battles for Bipartisanship

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      This well-meaning documentary follows the liberal commentator as he works with both political parties to pass a criminal justice reform bill.On a panel at the Conservative Political Action Conference in 2019, Van Jones, a liberal CNN host, asserted that conservatives are the new vanguard of criminal justice reform. Scenes from that controversial appearance bookend “The First Step,” a tactful documentary that chronicles Jones’s efforts during the Trump administration to garner bipartisan support for a bill that would modify prison and sentencing laws. Directed by Brandon Kramer, the film presents Jones as an impassioned figure who kindled animosity on both sides for his readiness to reach across the aisle in pursuit of his goals.In many sequences, Kramer seeks to underscore his subject’s near-messianic zeal for progressive causes. Home video footage shows Jones as a Yale University law student praising books on revolution and flaunting a Malcolm X T-shirt at his graduation ceremony. But the film also makes space for critics of Jones’s methods, including the Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors, who says that Jones’s cooperation with the then president felt like a betrayal to many Black leftist movements.At once a story of legislative struggle and an admiring profile of a crusader, “The First Step” sometimes gets bogged down in bromides about community and common ground rather than unpacking the specifics of Jones’s approach and how it differs from his detractors’. Indeed, the most probing moments occur outside the political realm, as Jones and his twin sister recall his onetime struggle with speech impediments. The film’s analysis may be limited, but such personal moments lend it a compelling human quality.The First StepNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Last Night in New York’ Review: A Social Chronicler Explains Himself

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      A slew of well-off New Yorkers, many of them not very nice, sing the praises of their “Boswell,” David Patrick Columbia, in a new documentary.David Patrick Columbia writes a near-daily online column called “New York Social Diary,” which chronicles the galas, dinners and benefits frequented by high-income patrician folk. His is a world in which people still answer to “Muffie.” Directed by Matthew Miele, who often quizzes his subject in a tone of almost goofy awe, “Last Night in New York” invites Columbia to explain his life and work.Columbia, who appears to be in his 70s and looks like William Hurt preparing to play Samuel Beckett, speaks of his working class background and a family history that includes abuse and murder. He can be mildly moving, as when recalling his friendship with Debbie Reynolds. But with Columbia at its center — he insists he’s not overly impressed by the people who constitute his primary subject — the movie can’t help but function as an apologia for the ruling class. Early in the picture Columbia relates the high-society background of the music producer John Hammond (he was part Vanderbilt and raised in an Upper East Side mansion), perhaps hoping to make the point that rich people can be genuinely useful.
      One doesn’t expect to have one’s stomach churned by such a documentary, but then — wham! — Taki Theodoracopulos, the writer and sometime publisher whose work has been known to steer into race-baiting (to put it mildly), turns up. Like several of the other interviewees in the picture, his insights are affecting, but not in a good way. “He’s the only man who appreciates John O’Hara,” Theodoracopulos says of Columbia. This is, well, objectively not true.Musing on previous society chroniclers, Blair Sobel, a colleague of Columbia’s, says, “Dominick Dunne and Truman [Capote] were bitchy.” She continues, “David is a handsome man. Those guys were trolls.” Barbara Tober, a board chair of the New York Museum of Art and Design, chimes in, without a hint of irony or humor, “If you are in ‘New York Social Diary,’ you exist. If you’re not, you don’t.”Last Night in New YorkNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 38 minutes. Rent or buy on most major platforms. More

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      ‘Mixtape Trilogy’ Review: Powerful Music, but a Less Powerful Film

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      A scholar, an architect and an Indigo Girls superfan talk about the musical artists that inspire them in Kathleen Ermitage’s documentary.Early in the documentary “Mixtape Trilogy: Stories of the Power of Music,” directed by Kathleen Ermitage, the composer and pianist Vijay Iyer, striving to describe the power of music, says, “I don’t want to say ‘magical,’ but I do.” This film, relatively modest in scale but broad in ambition, offers three stories of music makers and devotees.It’s a mixed bag, alternating conventional homily with genuine, substantial analysis. Dylan Yellowlees’s adventures as an Indigo Girls superfan, which inspired not only her own coming out as gay, but led her to embrace activism, working for the National Center for Transgender Equality, are uplifting. Nevertheless, the section in which Amy Ray and Emily Sailers, of Indigo Girls, break down both the musical and verbal development of “Go,” Yellowlees’s favorite song of theirs, is meatier.Next, the essayist and academic Garnette Cadogan and Iyer compare notes on their experience of racism. Iyer’s musings on the condition of being an American of South Asian descent working in the Black art form of jazz develop into a fascinating mini-disquisition on Iyer’s fascination with Detroit-based techno. It’s a music he feels is explicitly shaped for dancing in the face of oppression.In these sequences, artist and admirer interact on camera; that’s not the case with the architect Michael Ford and the rapper Talib Kweli. But their discrete ideas about music building community are compassionate and, in Ford’s case, unique. His architectural designs are directly inspired by hip-hop lyrics, and he founded a children’s camp based on his ideas.The music from the artists featured here is fine indeed, but the actual movie’s underscore, credited to an entity called “Scorebuzz,” is unmitigated treacle. As De Niro’s Jake LaMotta said in “Raging Bull,” “it defeats its own purpose.”Mixtape Trilogy: Stories of the Power of MusicNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 33 minutes. Rent or buy on most major platforms. More