The Unwinking Gaze (3 stars)
Produced and directed by Joshua Dugdale. With the Dalai Lama. (PG)
If there's a surprise in The Unwinking Gaze—at least, it was a surprise to me—it's that the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader and the head of its exile government, says he's not trying to gain independence for Tibet. Autonomy, yes—but still as a part of the greater nation of China. A Tibet free to practice and preserve its own religious and cultural heritage, he says, will still need China to help it survive. It's an interesting distinction, one that I now wonder if all of his supporters are aware of, or agree with.
The question of whether or not that's his true intent is at the heart of much of this film. China refuses to believe it, seeing in the Dalai Lama a wolf in sheep's clothing, a closet politician whose worldwide fame gives him an unprecedented platform to usher in change. In truth, they seem far more wary of his followers than the man himself, saying that though the monk is a "man of experience," the people surrounding him are the real obstacle to beginning negotiations about the future of Tibet.
One gets the feeling that the continuing bureaucratic runaround is a clock-eating ploy, and that China is trying to wait out the Dalai Lama, now in his eighth decade, in the hope that his legions of followers and supporters will disperse after his death. Meanwhile, the Dalai Lama presses on. His envoys travel to China, and though they return from each trip with the same news—it's never a good time for him to visit—he feels that each trip builds confidence in future relations. It's akin to slowly adding pebbles to a set of scales; though it may take time, the weight will shift.
As leader in exile, it appears the Dalai Lama spends an inordinate amount of time hop-scotching the globe, and The Unwinking Gaze follows him on the road as he travels to and from India, Canada and elsewhere. It's here that the filmmakers catch him in his most unguarded moments (unless you count a scene where they're asked to stop filming, but then record the microphone that the Dalai Lama has inadvertently left on—surely that's bad for one's karma?) As a portrait of a leader, it's refreshingly free of the stage-managed artifice we've come to expect. It turns out the Dalai Lama has a mighty giggle, and that his brother sometimes has a hard time wrapping his head around reincarnation. "To be honest, it's very hard to accept, isn't it?", he asks.
Those are the moments that make this slight film (it runs just a bit over an hour) joyous. Even if one doesn't leave the theater feeling that much will change in Tibet's near future, the steady resolve of the Dalai Lama, and his buoyant belief in the possibility of change—in people and, by extension, nations—leaves one with the strength of hope.
The Last Mistress (3 1/2 stars)
Directed by Catherine Breillat. Written by Catherine Breillat, adapted from the novel by Jules-Am?d?e Barbey d'Aurevilly. With Asia Argento, Fu'ad Ait Aattou, Roxane Mesquida, Claude Sarraute, and Yolande Moreau. (NR)
French writer and director Catherine Breillat is mostly known on American shores as one of two things: a provocative, fearless artist or a softcore pornographer. For those who take the first view, her work is an ongoing look at humanity's more animal instincts—how our carnal desires can overwhelm any polite sense of decorum society might institute. Those in the opposite camp see a filmmaker out to shock with tactics that include casting Italian porno star Rocco Siffredi, better known as the star of films like Intercourse With The Vampire, Buttman in Barcelona, and the admittedly more art-house sounding Erotic Dorian Gray.
Truth told, I've usually found myself in the latter camp—with some exceptions (Fat Girl), Breillat's work, while undeniably bracing, usually felt like it didn't have much under the sheets. With The Last Mistress, a rich period piece based on another writer's work, she gives some ammunition to her boosters.
The source material here is the 1851 novel by Jules-Am?d?e Barbey d'Aurevilly, and it's a story ready-made for Breillat. As the film opens, handsome Parisian Ryno de Marigny is due to be married to virginal beauty Hermangarde, but his long-standing affair with his mistress Vellini is the talk of Paris society. Before he can gain the blessing of his fianc?e's grandmother, de Marigny must convince her that his relationship with Vellini has come to an end. Et voila: a flashback.
When the young de Marigny first lays eyes on her, Vellini is a married woman, a matador's daughter from Spain who has made her way into the upper crust of Paris. After his advances get him called out, the ensuing duel becomes a perverse mating ritual whose climax comes when Vellini throws herself on a wounded de Marigny to lap up his blood.
Fu'ad Ait Aattou, as de Marigny, is alternately caddish and caring, and his open face and dusky eyes, paired with lips that look like they've been stuck into a beehive, make him easy to forgive for much of the film. But by the end, his unhealthy obsession with Vellini seems less like an undeniable attraction and more like a willing adultery.
As Vellini, Asia Argento throws herself into the role, but her performance is mixed—as a woman whose charms are meant to be so intoxicating, she's often less enigmatic than one would imagine. In place of a mysterious allure is a somewhat clich?d passion: the fiery Spaniard. Argento isn't known for her acting chops—she's mostly regarded as a sexpot who can sell DVDs—and her appearance here raises the Siffredi Question: was she cast as much for the publicity as her skill? And would the film be richer with someone else in the role?
Probably. But Argento does get in a few good shots, notably in a scene that takes place in the aftermath of a child's death. Drowning in grief, Vellini and de Marigny are trapped in a place where the sight of each other constantly opens old wounds, but with nobody else who can understand their loss, they have only each other to turn to. This is where Breillat is at her best, exploring the intersection of desire and reason, and how one can overwhelm the other.
Jellyfish (3 stars)
Directed by Etgar Keret and Shira Geffen. Written by Shira Geffen. With Sarah Adler, Nikol Leidman, Gera Sandler, Noa Knoller, Ma-nenita De Latorre, and Zaharira Harifai. (NR)
The title of Etgar Keret's and Shira Geffen's award-winning new film says a lot about the lives it depicts. Jellyfish, like its ocean-going namesake, is by turns bland and mesmerizing, seeming to drift along without much direction only to unleash a secret sting when it bumps up against you.
Yet another film featuring interlocking or overlapping narratives, this Cannes winner from Israel is perhaps most surprising in its subject, which has nothing to do with the country's political turmoil or religious schisms. Instead, the stories that unfold here deal with the universal: love lost, love found, and the place in between where so many of us come to rest.
Catering-company waitress Batya (Sarah Adler) is a young woman who can't seem to move under her own power. Buffeted by outside forces—her recent breakup with a boyfriend fed up with her listlessness, and the anger of her equally frustrated boss—she floats through a series of identical weddings, an invisible girl carrying a tray of hors-d'oeuvres. She's jolted out of her ennui by the arrival of a nameless girl—seemingly deaf and mute—who appears out of the sea during one of Batya's trips to the shore. And woe be the child who goes missing on the Sabbath—Keret's film would have us believe that work in Israel comes to such a standstill on Friday night that the police simply suggest Batya take the girl home herself. At the same time, hints are dropped that suggest there may be more to what we're seeing than we think.
Before we can get too deep into the puzzle, attention shifts to the marital melodrama of newlyweds Michael and Keren, the couple from Batya's last wedding job. Kept from their Caribbean honeymoon by the broken leg Keren suffered at their reception, they find themselves holed up in an Israeli hotel, sniping at each other in their disappointment. As Michael moves them from room to room in an attempt to placate his wife, he runs across a mysterious woman—possibly a famous writer—with some odd questions. Specifically, she needs to know how to spell "eternally in disgrace."
The last major thread in the film revolves around Joy, a Filipino caretaker we first glimpse at that opening wedding. Her newest job is working for Malka, the cantankerous mother of an actress daughter. Separated from her son, Joy longs for home but knows she can provide for a better life by working abroad. For us, he's only a disembodied voice, one half of an ongoing conversation frequently cut short by the vagaries of pay phones.
What ties the stories together is a sense of loss and longing, of people who need to reach out and connect with others even if their instincts tell them otherwise. Batya first finds a connection to her mystery child; Michael is reawakened through his chance encounter with a stranger; and Joy and Malka form a surprising bond after they attend Malka's postmodern production of Hamlet. Yet these first meetings are only catalysts for bigger changes yet to come.
The payoff is satisfying, and, especially in the section following the newlyweds, a welcome shock. Unfortunately, the story frequently fails in the telling. Infused with an overload of metaphor and riddled with unlikely but extremely timely coincidence, everything that should feel subtle—the unknowable workings of fate—is often telegraphed with such obvious markers that the film all but screams what's coming next. Batya's story in particular is painfully overdone, and a subplot about her estrangement from her fundraiser mother is little more than an excuse to pose her, emoting, in front of her mom's ubiquitous posters.
Still, Keret and Geffen refrain from wrapping things up too tidily, and in the end that's what keeps Jellyfish worth watching; it makes one leave the theater thinking of loved ones, and wanting to reconnect.
Jack Brown can be reached at cinemadope@gmail.com.
