Weekly round-up

>> Sudanese refugees, imaginary bosses,
nutty neo-Nazis and more

by MALCOLM FRASER,
MATTHEW HAYS,
JEFFREY MALECKI
and MARK SLUTSKY

God Grew Tired of Us

Co-directors Christopher Dillon Quinn and Tommy Walker have crafted a magnificent documentary, showing us the complex experiences of several African refugees. Aided by considerable star power (Brad Pitt exec produces while Nicole Kidman narrates), God Grew Tired of Us introduces us to a few endearing young Sudanese men who were displaced during that country’s vicious civil war. Along with thousands of others, they were dubbed the Lost Boys, as they were either orphaned in a genocide that took two million lives or were separated from their families.

REMARKABLE REFUGEES: God Grew Tired of Us

In order to alleviate the refugee crisis, the American government agreed to take in a few of the Lost Boys, and this provides the beginning of the story. We’re used to seeing copious shots of starving Africans on the nightly news; what’s fantastic about this film is the way in which it gives these remarkable young men dimension. None of them are looking for pity; instead, the film exposes the absurdities and inanities of American life, as the lads are introduced to such phenomena as potato chips, flush toilets, Christmas trees and the Western lifestyle—one the Sudanese find, tellingly, isolating and empty. In Sudan, they explain, people live in communities and actually talk to strangers.

God Grew Tired of Us is an intensely moving experience, illustrating the devastating human consequences of a burgeoning global refugee population. One of the best films of this year, it’s an obvious nominee for the Best Doc Oscar. (MH)

The Boss of It All

Lars von Trier introduces his new film with a voiceover promising that The Boss of It All won’t cost you “a moment’s reflection.” It’s the lovably eccentric Danish director’s way of telling you that The Boss of it All is a good deal lighter than Dogville, Manderlay or Dancer in the Dark.

DAFFY DANES: The Boss of It All

This movie’s a comedy, and a workplace comedy no less, set in an IT office in Denmark. Peter Gantzler plays Ravn, the company’s owner, who for years has been too insecure to admit that fact to his employees; instead, he refers them to the overseas “boss of it all,” who of course doesn’t actually exist. When a big deal hinges on the president of another company meeting the mysterious honcho, though, he hires an actor friend (Jens Albinus) to play the part. Things quickly spiral out of control as the deal is held up and Albinus meets and must deal with the daffy and somewhat rebellious employees of “his” company.

This is a pretty funny movie, though far from the best example of the office comedy genre (that would be The Office, of course). Von Trier manages to contrive some good gags, though the movie doesn’t elicit that many big laughs. Still, it’s a pleasantly light confection, as promised, and filmed in something called “Automavision,” a von Trier invention that randomizes elements of the camerawork, which is kind of neat if not significant to your enjoyment of the film. (MS)

BRACING BLACK HUMOUR: Adam’s Apples

Adam’s Apples

Remember that rash of comedies in the ’80s revolving around the pretext that “mental institutions are hilarious”? The Couch Trip, Crazy People and The Dream Team threw a bunch of nuthouse inhabitants together and let the wacky good times roll. Danish comedy Adam’s Apples takes a similar approach to the halfway house, except that the results are much darker.

Adam (Ulrich Thomsen) is a neo-Nazi freshly paroled from a jailhouse stint for an unspecified crime. Sentenced to community service, he gets shipped out to a church in the countryside whose priest, Ivan (Mads Mikkelsen of After the Wedding and Casino Royale), has an absurdly upbeat world view that gets on Thomsen’s nerves. He encourages Thomsen to get involved by maintaining the church’s apple tree; the ex-con contemptuously neglects this task, and the tree symbolically falls into disarray as the film progresses.

Also doing time at the church are Gunnar (Nicolas Bro), an obese former tennis player and sexual deviant, and Khalid (Ali Kazim), a politically motivated gas station robber with a violent streak, who speaks comically mangled Danish. The film could easily have sunk into quirky hell in the wrong hands, but writer/director Anders Thomas Jensen (who also wrote After the Wedding) steers the story away from its innate wacky-cute potential with bracing doses of black humour, as Mikkelsen’s relentless positivity is subjected to increasingly brutal tests. Despite the cheerfully sadistic tone, though, it’s fundamentally a good-hearted moral tale, a minor but enjoyable feel-good film for the feel-bad crowd. (MF)

Introducing the Dwights

Although this Australian film has many of the slick trappings of a heart-warming, quirky and cute indie film distributed by a big studio, it’s still a charming and worthwhile film. This is primarily due to Brenda Blethyn’s engaging performance as Jean, a single mother, former star and now washed-up comedienne grappling with her stagnant and slowly unravelling middle age. Her oscillations between strength and uncertainty as both mother and performer offer a compelling rebuke to the myth of adult self-assurance. In one excellent scene, as she’s bombing an audition, the slight contortions on her face tell infinitely more than her vulgar jokes and the reviewers’ hostile reactions to them.

She lives with her two nearly-grown sons, one of whom is mentally disabled, and the story revolves around her relationship with the other son, Tim, extremely naïve and living under her immense shadow. Tim meets a girl, and their relationship, marked by tenderness, doubt and even jealousy, evolves convincingly throughout the film.

Although Introducing is set Down Under, there are few indications of this, and I wish there was more of a sense of Australia as a place. But no matter: by the time the movie arrives at its predictable ending—and a little too quickly, really, given the way the film nicely dances and forks about for the first three quarters—you’re willing to forgive it thanks to the strength of the performances and its complex relationship dynamics. (JM)

Scenes of a Sexual Nature

Be forewarned, this film has possibly the most misleadingly titillating title ever. The scenes therein periodically feature somewhat sexual dialogue, and a brief instance of a (mostly clothed) comely young body, but “of a sexual nature” is pushing it.

In truth, director Ed Blum’s feature debut is a loose ensemble piece about a variety of couples frequenting London’s Hampstead Heath Park on a summer day. A pair of seniors (Eileen Atkins and Benjamin Whitrow) meet up on a bench and slowly uncover a shared history. A recently divorced but strangely intimate couple (Adrian Lester and Catherine Tate) stroll with their young daughter. A loudmouthed lad (Tom Hardy) tries to pick up a just-broken-up woman (Sophie Okonedo). A gay couple (Douglas Hodge and the strangely slumming Ewan McGregor) discusses having kids. And so on.

There are so many things wrong with this film, it’s hard to know where to begin. The multiplicity of variations on coupledom (inter-racial, elderly, blind date, hook-up, family etc.) feel like a laundry list of lifestyle-magazine topics rather than a fleshed-out portrait of contemporary life. There are token attempts at overlapping some of the stories, but not to the point where they form a coherent narrative or theme. Only one of the segments, with Polly Walker and Mark Strong, has enough ambiguity and chemistry to create any interest. And there’s just too much going on; the film is mercifully short, but leaves most of the stories hanging, and viewers regretting the waste of an hour and a half of their lives. (MF)

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