Movie Review: The Loneliest Planet

Friday, December 21, 2012

Movie Review: The Loneliest Planet

The Loneliest Planet
Directed by: Julia Loktev.
Written by: Julia Loktev based on the short story by Tom Bissell.
Starring: Hani Furstenberg (Nica), Gael García Bernal (Alex), Bidzina Gujabidze (Dato).

Nica and Alex are a couple who are going to be married in the coming months. Aside from that, and the fact that they are obviously experienced world travelers, we learn very little about them during the course of The Loneliest Planet. They are in Georgia (the Georgia of Eastern Europe, not the Southern USA) and hire Dato to guide them through the beautiful, but largely barren, mountains there. At first they seem carefree – they playfully talk with each other, make goo-goo eyes at each other, and seem pretty much carefree. Than something happens out on in the mountains, and in a split second, Alex makes a mistake, and then recovers. But how does that split second change their relationship? Pretty much completely, as in the second half of the movie, all that playfulness is gone – replaced by a stony silence, before they oh-so gradually start coming back to normalcy – at least what will be their new normal – after that.

I know some critics have loved The Loneliest Planet – with its beautiful cinematography in the mountains - shot in 1.66:1, a narrower aspect ratio than most films. That narrower aspect ratio is used to great effect by director Julia Loktev, especially in the film’s second half, as the vast open spaces of the first half are replaced by ominous mountains than seem to be closing in on the characters. Some critics have liked the performances by Hani Furstenberg and Gael Garcia Bernal as the central couple – said to be American, although neither sound American (probably because Furstenberg is Israeli and Garcia Bernal is Mexican). Loktev is clearly in their love with their faces, which she lovingly frames through the movie, trying to pick up on the smallest of movements. Personally, I think non-professional actor Bidzina Gujabidze is better than either of them as Dato – perhaps because he is non-professional, and is playing a version on himself, he seems more comfortable – more natural than either of the two pros.

But I must say, I was bored by The Loneliest Planet. Loktev gives us no real reason to care about Nica and Alex and their story. She broadly sketches their story at the beginning, and then repeats herself in the first half of the movie – has the inciting incident half way through (which is the film’s best moment) and then repeats herself in the second half. The movie was based on a short story by Tom Bissell, and perhaps it should have been made into a short movie. There just wasn’t enough material here to keep me interested for nearly two hours.

Loktev is a promising director. Her first film, Day Night Day Night, was much better – the story of a would-be suicide bomber going to Times Square in New York. That film also provided no backstory for its main character, but was fascinating and intense throughout. The Loneliest Planet, while beautiful, doesn’t hold the same interest. I see what she’s trying for here – to make the two characters we meet in the first act question everything they know about themselves and each other in the second half because of the incident, but Loktev slows this movie too much for it to have the impact she wants.

TV Movie Review: On Death Row

TV Movie Review: On Death Row

On Death Row
Directed by: Werner Herzog.

Werner Herzog wanted to make a documentary about the death penalty in America – and in 2011 he made Into the Abyss, a stunning film about crime, punishment, violence and poverty in America, that was for me, the best documentary of the year. But before Herzog settled on the story of Michael Perry and Jason Burkett for Into the Abyss, he considered four other cases – and even conducted interviews with the offenders. Not wanting to waste these interviews, Herzog decided to make four mini-documentaries, each 50 minutes long, about their stories. While none provide the depth of Into the Abyss, all four stories are well told by Herzog and simply add to his basic premise – that the death penalty is wrong, even for offenders who are guilty of the crimes they committed. As he says at the start of each of these mini-docs >As a German, coming from a different historical background, and a visitor to the United States, I respectfully disagree with the practice of the death penalty`.

Herzog tells each of the five inmates her interviews over these four films that just because he`s here, it doesn’t mean he likes them – or that he has any interest in trying to prove their innocence – which two of them proclaim. He wants to examine their cases and what led them to do what they do, and what the experience of being on death row is like. He is not really making an advocacy documentary.

The first doc concentrates on James Barnes, one of the only people who will fully admit to his guilt. He was convicted of murdering his ex-wife in Florida, and while serving out his life sentence, he confesses to the rape and murder of a nurse way back in 1988 – for which he receives the death penalty. While talking to Herzog, he even admits to committing at least one other murder. He is a serial offender, who has no hope for rehabilitation. He led a troubled life as a youngster; in and out of trouble from the time he is a teenager – who may have molested his twin sister. Yet, he seems to value family – he wants some sort of approval, or at least acknowledgment for his family. He tries to manipulate Herzog, but he sees through him. This is the most disturbing of the docs, but Barnes is so clearly guilty, so clearly evil – and even rather unrepentant – even blaming the nurse for her own murder, although not wanting to disparage the dead, he refuses to explain why it was her fault.

The second doc is the only one that concentrates on a woman – Linda Carty. This is the strangest, most incomplete of the docs, mainly because I do not think that Carty ever really levels with Herzog. She remains evasive throughout, trying hard to milk sympathy out of the audience. Her case is disturbing, because it involves Carty apparently hiring three drug dealers to break into the apartment of neighbor, to steal her newborn child. She tells the drug dealers that there is nearly a ton of pot in the apartment – which simply is not true. Eventually, the young mother is found dead in the trunk of a car, and her baby found barely clinging to life in a car right next to it. Carty proclaims her innocence, and she does have serious, legitimate concerns about her representation at her trial. But based on what I saw in this documentary, I think she probably is guilty. But because she is so evasive, and the case itself so complex, I do not think Herzog ever really nails this segment down. It does have one of the best single moments in the series though, when a prosecutor says it is easy to concentrate on the criminal, and forget the victim, in these cases. That it is very easy for Herzog to "humanize Carty", to which Herzog very bluntly replies “I do not make an attempt to humanize her. She is simply a human being, period”, which is one of the underlying points to this series by Herzog – the people who commit these crimes may have done evil things – but they are all still human.

Next up is two of the infamous Texas Seven, inmates serving out life sentences in a Texas penitentiary, who inexplicably were able to escape from prison. They didn’t kill anyone getting out of the prison, and survived for weeks on end on the run. One night, while robbing a sporting goods store, they do kill a police officer – for which all are sentenced to death when they are caught. The segment starts with Joseph Garcia, sentenced to 30 years for a murder, which he claims self-defense, who had no part in the murder of the police officer – he was shot outside, while he was still inside the store, but because his co-conspirators committed the crime, by Texas law, he is just as guilty as the one who pulled the trigger. Next, Herzog interviews George Rivas, the mastermind of the escape, and the man who pulled the trigger to kill the police officer. This is stronger than the Linda Carty segment, but not as strong as the other two – Herzog, by necessity, has to spend so much time going over how they escaped, that the crimes for which they found themselves in prison in the first place, and their life on death row, and doesn’t get quite as much attention.

Finally, there is the case of Hank Skinner, in what is probably the strongest of these mini-docs. Skinner was convicted of a triple homicide back in 1993, and vehemently claims his innocence (but does seem to hedge at points, coming up with excuses as to why his DNA may well be on the murder weapon when he eventually gets them tested). Skinner speaks most eloquently on his life on death row – on the Pollunsky unit, and how it felt when he came very close to being executed – only receiving a last minute stay of execution. Skinner gives the clearest picture of what day to day life on death row is like – how dehumanizing it is, and how difficult it is to maintain your sanity.

I think these four documentaries are better taken as a whole than any one segment is. Along with Into the Abyss, it makes for one large film about capital punishment in America. Yes, Into the Abyss is a masterpiece in itself, because Herzog takes the time to flesh out the crime, the victims and their families, the perpetrators and their families, and the people who are tasked with the impossible job of executing these criminals. Herzog does not have the time to do that with any of these cases. And yet, taken together, the movies make a devastating portrait of crime and punishment in America. You can be for capital punishment or against it, and these films will still make you question what you think. That is what great documentaries do – not simply confirm or congratulate you for believing what the filmmaker does, but makes you re-examine why you think it.

Movie Review: Attenberg

Movie Review: Attenberg

Attenberg
Directed by: Athina Rachel Tsangari.
Written by: Athina Rachel Tsangari.
Starring: Ariane Labed (Marina), Giorgos Lanthimos (Engineer), Vangelis Mourikis (Spyros), Evangelia Randou (Bella).

The Greek film Attenberg invites comparisons to another Greek film – Dogtooth – made the year before this one in two ways. It directly makes us think of the earlier film by casting Giorgos Lanthimos, the director of Dogtooth, in a key role in this film. And it indirectly reminds us of Dogtooth, because at the heart of each film is a strange, perhaps perverse, familial relationship. The family at the heart of Dogtooth – run by a megalomaniac father who refuses to let his kids off of their large estate, only to be undone when the outside world starts encroaching upon them – was screwed up. But the father-daughter relationship in Attenberg is also clearly dysfunctional in many ways.

Attenberg opens with Marina (Ariane Labed) and her best friend Bella (Evangelia Randou) is a strange scene, where Marina admits she has never “done that” – which in this case means kissing. Bella indulges her friend, and the two kiss – but people hoping for an erotic moment will be disappointed – yes, the two beautiful women kiss, but it purposefully lacks any real eroticism. Marina has no idea what to do, and it shows.

You are right to wonder how a beautiful 23 year old woman like Marina has never kissed anyone before – but then we meet her father and things start to make more sense. The first thing we hear Marina ask her dad is “Do you ever think about me naked?” – and although he says of course not, he doesn’t strike the admonishing tone we would expect a father to answer that question to his grown daughter. Clearly these two have a close relationship – even far too close – but we don’t really know how far it goes. Marina talks about how she never thinks about sex – the thought disgusts her, some man pumping inside her like a piston. What 23 year old talks to her dad this way?

Whatever their relationship truly is, her father Spyros (Vangelis Mourikis) is now dying – and knows he needs to get his daughter out there in the real world. Although it is never mentioned in the film, I couldn’t help but think that Bella may have been hired by Spyros to be Marina’s friend. It is mentioned several times that Bella is a “loose” woman, and near the end, she thinks nothing of sleeping with Spyros at Marina’s request. Could she be a prostitute hired by Spyros to try and dissuade Marina’s attitudes about sex? Sometimes all Marina and Bella do is Monty Python style walks, which gives the film some strange, comedic moments.

The other major character is an Engineer, played by director Lanthimos. Encouraged by her father, and Bella, to try sex, Marina meets him, and the two slowly initiate sexual contact – slowly at first, and then getting more and more involved.

Throughout all of this, Marina is also dealing with the imminent death of her father – who has some strange (for Greeks) requests – like being cremated, which only recently became legal there, and is still a lengthy ordeal.

I was drawn in by Attenberg, without ever really loving it. Like Lanthimos’ follow-up to Dogtooth, Alps, Attenberg is a film that is fascinating in its weirdness, but is probably more interesting to talk about than it is to actually watch. But writer-director Athina Rachel Tsangari is certainly a talent to watch for in the coming year. Along with Lanthimos, she may be the beginning of a New Wave of Greek filmmakers.

Movie Review: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Movie Review: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Directed by: Peter Jackson.
Written by: Fran Walsh & Philippa Boyens & Peter Jackson & Guillermo del Toro based on the novel by J.R.R. Tolkien.
Starring: Ian McKellen (Gandalf), Martin Freeman (Bilbo), Richard Armitage (Thorin), Ken Stott (Balin), Graham McTavish (Dwalin), William Kircher (Bifur / Tom Troll), James Nesbitt (Bofur), Stephen Hunter (Bombur), Dean O'Gorman (Fili), Aidan Turner (Kili), John Callen (Oin), Peter Hambleton (Gloin / William Troll), Jed Brophy (Nori), Mark Hadlow (Dori / Bert Troll), Adam Brown (Ori), Ian Holm (Old Bilbo), Elijah Wood (Frodo), Hugo Weaving (Elrond), Cate Blanchett (Galadriel), Christopher Lee (Saruman), Andy Serkis (Gollum), Sylvester McCoy (Radagast).

When I first heard that Peter Jackson was planning on splitting The Hobbit into not just two, but three different films I assumed, like many, that it was purely a monetary move – more movies means more box office. But after seeing the first part, I don’t think that’s the case (at least not for Jackson – the studio on the other hand, I’m not sure of). Because the nearly three hours of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey plays like a film where the director is too in love with the material – he doesn’t want to sacrifice a moment of his film. That isn’t to say that it is a bad movie – it is in fact quite good, with wonderful battle sequences, special effects, production design, music and performances – but it sure does feel padded. Cut out an hour of the film, and Jackson may well have had a great film on his hands.

The Hobbit is the story of Bilbo Baggins, a humble hobbit who lives a quiet life in the Shire, and that’s just the way he likes it. Than one day, Gandalf the Grey shows up at his door and invites him to go along on an adventure. Before Bilbo knows it, his hobbit hole is filled with Dwarves, who plan on storming their old home, beneath a mountain, that they were forced out of by a dragon decades before. Gandalf is going along on their quest, and feels they need to add the skills of Bilbo Baggins. What those skills are no one, not even Bilbo, seems to know.

The film was made by pretty much the same team that made The Lord of the Rings films – and it shows. Jackson strikes the same tone in this film as he did in that trilogy, and cast the same actors. Even nine years after the final Lord of the Rings films, it didn’t take long to sink back into the Middle Earth that Jackson and his team have created. The key addition to the cast is obviously Martin Freeman as Bilbo, and he is quite good. His plays the role more quiet and subtle than I expected him to – but this is actually effective, making Bilbo a more believable character. Ian McKellan sinks right back into the role of Gandalf like he never left it. Richard Armitage is excellent as Thorin, the leader of the Dwarves, strong, tough, brave, but also stubborn. The best performance in the film belongs, once again, to Andy Serkis as a slightly younger, but still crazy Gollum. The riddle scene between him and Bilbo is easily the best of the movie.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is a fine movie – not great like The Lord of the Rings films were, but entertaining nonetheless. While I certainly think the film is far too padded – and takes far too long in pretty much every scene – I cannot say I was ever bored by the film. Perhaps it’s just that Jackson has unrealistic expectations to try and meet with The Hobbit – that he already dazzled us with The Lord of the Rings, and now he’s got to return to that world and try to do it again (which is probably why initially, he wasn’t going to direct these movies). And The Hobbit, as good as it is, just isn’t as good as The Lord of the Rings. I have a hard time believing that Tolkien fans won’t enjoy the movie – hell, for perhaps the first time ever, fans of the book cannot complain that things were cut out of the movie version. The Hobbit could have using more editing, but that doesn’t mean it’s a bad film by any means.

Movie Review: Hyde Park on the Hudson

Movie Review: Hyde Park on the Hudson

Hyde Park on the Hudson
Directed by:  Roger Michell.
Written by: Richard Nelson.
Starring: Bill Murray (FDR), Laura Linney (Daisy), Samuel West (Bertie), Olivia Colman (Elizabeth), Elizabeth Marvel (Missy), Olivia Williams (Eleanor), Elizabeth Wilson (Mrs. Roosevelt), Martin McDougall (Tommy), Andrew Havill (Cameron), Eleanor Bron (Daisy's Aunt), Nancy Baldwin (Mrs. Astor).

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a great President, and he deserves a great movie to be made about him. Hyde Park on the Hudson is not that movie – in fact, it’s one of the worst films of the year. The whole movie seems so silly and inconsequential, even when it tries to get serious about the issues it addresses. Like The Iron Lady last year, about Margaret Thatcher, I couldn’t help but think as I was watching Hyde Park on the Hudson that at the heart of the movie is one of the most powerful, most fascinating political figures of the 20^th Century, and this is the story you want to tell about him?

The movie stars Bill Murray as FDR – and if that sounds like bad casting, let me assure you, it’s the least of the films problems. In fact, Murray is actually quite good as FDR. He least seems to be having fun, and tries his best to enliven the stillborn proceedings of the movie, ultimately to no avail. Anyway, Europe is on the brink of war, and King Geroge (Samuel West) and Queen Elizabeth (Olivia Colman) are coming to visit America, in the hopes of convincing them to back them against the Nazis. The Cabinet doesn’t want FDR to meet with them, but he insists, but compromises on the location – instead of receiving them at the White House, he’ll do so at his mother’s home in upstate New York. The movie takes place over the course of a weekend, where it looks like the two sides will never come together, but ultimately, of course, do.

This probably sounds like a fascinating story – and it should be. But curiously, writer Richard Nelson and director Roger Michell decide to devote much of the story to Daisy (Laura Linney), a distant cousin of FDR, who in the months preceding the Royal Visit, also becomes his mistress. Daisy is quiet and fades to the background when around a large group of people, but comes alive when it’s just she and FDR. He had many mistresses, and his wife Eleanor (Olivia Williams) knows and doesn’t care (the movie implies, as many have, that Eleanor was a lesbian).

I will never understand people’s fascinating with famous people’s sex lives. Really, is the most interesting thing you can say about FDR is that he was a womanizer? When you have a movie about the Royals visiting him on the eve of WWII, do we really need to add in the sad little story of one of his many dalliances? And if you want to include that, shouldn’t you at least do something to make that woman interesting? Daisy is a dull, lifeless character. I know the normally great Laura Linney was trying to make her into a shy wallflower, but there is a difference between quiet and boring – and she doesn’t find it. And do we need endless scenes of FDR seducing her, including a rather tasteless one in the car, and their intimate moments together, that revolve mainly around stamps? Or how about the endless scenes of preparing for the royal visit? The story that should be front and center of Hyde Park on the Hudson is shunted to the background – and barely registers, so we can get the endless crap the movie delivers.

Perhaps Hyde Park on the Hudson would have played better had it not been for two superior recent movies. The first is 2010 Oscar Winner The King’s Speech – in which Colin Firth won an Oscar for playing the stammering King, that poor Samuel West is stuck trying to play here. West is okay I suppose, although his stuttering doesn’t seem natural, but he cannot hold a candle to Firth, and I spent the whole movie comparing his performance to Firth’s (it should be said that Olivia Colman does better with Elizabeth than West does). And the other movie is Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln, which managed the difficult trick of making Abraham Lincoln into a towering political figure and a touchingly fragile human being, while still telling an important historical story. Because Spielberg handles that so masterfully, and Roger Michell handles this so clumsily, the film looks probably worse than it really is by comparison.

Still, perhaps that’s just me trying to come up with something nice to say about one the most dull, lifeless films of the year. How you can cast Bill Murray as FDR and still almost put me to sleep, I’ll never know – but Hyde Park on the Hudson accomplishes just that.

Movie Review: Searching for Sugar Man

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Movie Review: Searching for Sugar Man

Searching for Sugar Man
Directed by: Malik Bendjelloul.

Rordriguez was a very gifted singer/songwriter who released two albums in the early 1970s, and was never heard from again. Or more accurately, even when he released those albums, he wasn’t heard from. He got some good reviews, but his albums didn’t sell, and so he was dropped from his label, and forgotten, even by the people who liked his music. Everyone who worked with him remembered him though – and loved him. They have nothing but kind words to say about him, and they all rank him among the most talented musicians they ever worked with.

But a strange thing happens – somehow, Rodriguez became huge in South Africa. How his album even got there is not known – an old story says that an American girl came to visit her South African boyfriend with a copy of the album, and everyone loved it, and starting bootlegging in. All through the 1970s and 1980s, under Apartheid, Rodriguez’s two albums were in constant circulation – and inspired anti-Apartheid musicians across the country. His albums were censored by the government, who quite literally scratched the vinyl albums, so the tracks they didn’t want played on the radio could not be played. Rodriguez became a legend in South Africa – bigger than Elvis. He sold hundreds of thousands of records. Part of the reason he became so big is because no one knew anything about him. There were no real linear notes on the album, and strangely the vinyl record lists three different names – the cover identifies him only as Rodriguez, the record itself identifies him as Sixto Rodriguez, and the songwriting credits list him as Jesus Rodriguez. Somehow a story circulates that the reason he never made a third album is because he set himself on fire on stage, killing himself. Or he shot himself on stage. No one knows for sure, but they can all agree is this: Rodriguez is dead.

In the late 1990s, two South Africans set about trying to figure out how Rodriguez really is. They go to his South African record companies. Surely they’ll know – after all, they have to be sending royalties somewhere. And they did, although that trail turns out to be a dead end because the person they are paying royalties to isn’t Rodriguez, but his old record company – and they sure aren’t passing them along anywhere. So then they do a strange thing – they start trying to figure out where Rodriguez is from by looking at the lyrics to the songs themselves. San Francisco, New York, Amsterdam – all dead ends. Then they notice he mentions a place called Dearborn, and the path becomes clearer. What they find will astonish everyone.

I won’t reveal what happens next, because if you are lucky enough not to know this story already, then you deserve to find out for yourself when you watch this remarkable documentary. And remarkable it certainly is. If a screenwriter came up with this story, it would never get made, because no one would believe it. It is the type of story that is made for documentary, because if you didn’t hear it from the people who lived it, you would think it had to be made up. Another documentary this year was like that – The Imposter – but that was a much darker story, that ends as it begins with an enigma. I prefer Searching for Sugar Man which is one of the most inspirational films of the year. I often roll my eyes when I see movies that try to inspire me – I’m a cynic at heart. But I cannot help being won over by a story like the one Searching for Sugar Man tells. We can all learn a lot from Searching for Sugar Man – and the mystery man at its core.

Note: The only real complaint I have about Searching for Sugar Man is the same complaint I have about many movies about musicians – we never get to hear a song from beginning to end during the movie. We hear parts of a lot of Rodriguez’s songs – and what I heard makes me want to hear more, as it is my type of music, but I wonder why documentary filmmakers can never settle down long enough to let a whole song play beginning to end. Oh well, I seem to be the only one bothered by this, but it’s a pet peeve of mine. I want to hear the songs!

Movie Review: This is Not a Film

Movie Review: This is Not a Film

This is Not a Film
Directed by: Jafar Panahi & Mojtaba Mirtahmasb.

Jafar Panahi is currently serving a six year prison sentence in Iran – just because in the Iranian elections of 2009, he supported the “wrong” party.  He was convicted in late 2010 of "assembly and colluding with the intention to commit crimes against the country’s national security and propaganda against the Islamic Republic", given his six year jail sentence, and banned from making any films for 20 years. While appealing his sentence, he made This is Not a Film, over a 10 day span in March 2011, using a digital camcorder and an iPhone. The film was smuggled out of Iran in a cake, and played at Cannes in May 2011, before receiving a theatrical release in North America earlier this year. It may just be the best film Panahi has ever made.

Don’t get me wrong, I like much of Panahi’s other work – at least what I have seen. But I do not think that The Circle (2000), Crimson Gold (2003) or Offside (2006) (the three other films of his I have seen) are great films. They are all very good, but they are also a little on the simplistic side to me. In these films, Panahi never outwardly insults Iran, or its government, but their implications speak for themselves. He makes films about outsiders – often women – who are marginalized in Iranian society, and while all the films are well made, well-acted (by amateurs) and quite good, none of them rise to the level of the best work of some of his country – like Abbas Kiarostami or Asghar Farhadi. His imprisonment and ban from filmmaking however are an affront to anyone who values freedom of expression.

I mention all of this at the top of my review of This is Not a Film, because without knowing the background, you probably won’t know what to make of the film. It is a very strange film – one where boredom plays a crucial role, and overall, there is a sense of futility and resignation to the film. During the running time of the movie – a scant 75 minutes – Panahi sits in his kitchen, talks on the phone to his lawyers about his court case. He tries to read aloud from the screenplay he wanted to direct – even going as far as to map out the house he sees in his head on the floor in tape – before giving up (saying “If you can tell a movie, why would anyone make a movie?”). He feeds his lizard, and briefly watches a neighbor’s dog, until it becomes clear the lizard and the dog cannot co-exist. He re-visits his old films, telling stories of the great things in them that he did not plan. He interacts with co-director Mojtaba Mirtahmasb, arguing with him with Panahi tells him to “Cut”, and Mirtahmasb refuses, saying that Panahi cannot direct, because that would be violating his sentence, so he holds the shot longer to show that it is him directing, not Panahi. The film ends with a very strange sequence where a building manager comes to Panahi’s apartment to collect his garbage, and then Panahi follows him into the elevator, and accompanies him down, one floor at a time, where he collects garbage from the other tenants, before reaching the street – at which point the young man walks away and Panahi records the fireworks being set off around the city, even though they have been banned by the government (apparently because they have nothing to do with Islam).

This is Not a Film is an appropriate title for the movie. It really isn’t a film – at least not in terms of what we think of as a film. Panahi is careful not to directly violate his ban – he doesn’t write a screenplay, which he is banned from doing, and he doesn’t act, also banned, but he simply reads aloud from his screenplay. He doesn’t give an interview, which is banned, but simply films himself talking – to himself and others. He doesn’t “direct”, he just shoots video. Yet, it takes extraordinary courage for Panahi to even do these things. Who else when hoping to get his prison sentence and ban on movie making would do this? Once again, Panahi never directly criticizes the Iranian government or their legal system for doing to him what they have done. He doesn’t have to. This is Not a Film speaks for itself. Whatever the hell This is Not a Film is, it is one of a kind.