Keep the Lights On ***½

Director: Ira Sachs

Cast: Thure Lindhart,  Zachary Booth

Paprika Steen,Julianne Nicholson, Souleymane Sy Savane

Writer/director Ira Sachs has expressed how his newest movie Keep the Lights On is a completely autobiographical take of his relationship with literary agent Bill Clegg; yet even without knowing about the real life details, the movie’s lived in specificity would’ve still made viewers think they were witnessing an unadulterated form of artistic confession.

Shot in yellowish hues by Thimios Bakatakis, the film opens during a late New York City night that seems extracted from a 1970’s dream. It’s 1997 and we see Erik Rothman (Lindhart) trying to hook up over an anonymous telephone hotline; he describes himself, his tastes and reveals his location in hopes of someone who will be able to host. After several attempts he finally finds someone who isn’t flaky. He reaches Paul’s (Booth) apartment where after a mere glance they proceed to engage in passionate intercourse. Before Erik leaves, Paul tells him not to get his hopes up, he has a girlfriend.

In almost any other kind of movie, this would’ve been the first turn of the screw: will the charming Erik be able to conquer young Paul’s heart despite his not being out of the closet? In this film however, we are presented with something much more fascinating as it shatters our need for a traditional structure. The next time we see Paul and Erik they are together. We don’t know what happened to the girlfriend, we don’t know if/how Pault dealt with his situation, all we know is that they’re a couple and that Paul likes doing crystal meth when they have sex.

Keep the Lights On isn’t a “story” as much as it is a mosaic of a relationship. We follow these two characters for over a decade and we see them struggle with work, interpersonal issues and addiction. Sachs doesn’t linger much on specific problems as he does on more general arcs, the most prominent of all perhaps being Paul’s drug addiction. However to mention the film as a movie about drugs would be to disregard Sach’s artistry and his ability to study and develop characters without reducing them or us to easily digestible stereotypes.

We are not supposed to know everything that happens to these people, after all in real life how often can we say we get to know every little thing about someone else? And perhaps this is the movie’s point. In the end Sachs isn’t as interested in sharing his story with the world as he is in dissecting the essence of a love affair. What are the things we keep once they’re over? How do these events play in our heads when we revisit them?

Sach’s cleverly makes Erik a foreign documentary filmmaker. Cleverly, because in his relationship, Erik is an adventurer trying to conquer uncharted territory but refusing to drop his expedition. Throughout the film Erik is working on a movie about gay artist Avery Woods (who you have a desire to Google from the instant he’s mentioned) and we see how Sachs tries to use art both as a demon and an exorcist. It’s hinted on many occasions that Erik’s work often pushes him away from Paul, yet the director asks us: how would I be able to deal with this if it weren’t with my art?

It helps that Erik is played with such sense of wonder by the extraordinary Lindhart, who combines a stunning physical presence with a surprising childlike behavior. He breaks our hearts as we realize that his love for Paul is perhaps just as dangerous an addiction, yet he remains so human throughout, that when one of his friends confronts him, we can’t help but relish in his weakness. Erik, more than Paul even, is a character we want to know in real life and Lindhart’s beautiful performance makes us believe we just might after leaving the theater.

Flame & Citron ***

Director: Ole Christian Madsen
Cast: Mads Mikkelsen, Thure Lindhardt
Stine Stengade, Christian Berkel, Peter Mygind

"We will need heroes" says someone to Flame (Lindhart) and Citron (Mikkelsen), almost asking them to fill the void.
They are the most representative figures in the Danish Resistance against Nazi invaders; their mission is to eliminate Nazi officers as well as Danes who are betraying their country.
Their targets include high rank Nazi officers, double agents and even women! Their dilemma lies in identifying the cause for their actions.
A German officer (Hanns Zischler) tells Flame that there are only three reasons why people go to war:career opportunity, ideology and hatred for their enemy.
The film mostly tries to fit them into one of those to make their legend more understandable (after all the movie is based on true events) and the unlikely heroes find themselves killing people while trying to lead normal lives and even find romance.
Unlike American WWII films which take themselves so seriously, "Flame & Citron" plays out like a historical thriller with film noir strokes.
Both lead characters narrate the film at one point or another, their contributions filling in facts that remain unknown to the other.
Lindhart gives a brilliant performance as the baby faced Flame, despite his young age; he's 23 as the object of his affection, femme fatale, Ketty Selmer (Stengade) points out disturbed.
Despite this Lindhart evokes a sense of timeless valor and to some degree even animalistic violence.
Citron, as played by Mikkelsen, comes off as a nervous-he's always sweaty-figure who makes obvious that it's his compromise with the cause that made him leave behind a completely different life.
In one pivotal scene he "robs" a grocery but refuses to take the money, only taking goods for his estranged wife and daughter. And after his woman confesses she has fallen for someone else she exclaims "if I tell you [who he is] you'll kill him!", ignorant to the fact that her husband is in fact yet to commit his first homicide.
In this way the film also plays with our conceptions of public figures and the way they see themselves. This notion also plays out like a flaw in a way, because even when German officers seem to know the identity of the rebels-Flame's bright red hair being one of the details they hunt-they still roam largely in places crowded by Nazis.
The screenplay has a slight problem establishing differences between what we know and what the rest of the characters know; therefore, when the movie reaches its "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid"-like finale we aren't really surprised, just mystified that it took so long for it to come.

Angels & Demons **1/2

Director: Ron Howard
Cast: Tom Hanks, Ewan McGregor, Ayelet Zurer
Stellan Skarsgård, Nikolaj Lie Kaas, Armin Mueller-Stahl,
Pierfrancesco Favino, Thure Lindhart, David Pasquesi

"Angels & Demons" is like being served a historical conspiracy with your Big Mac.
It knows it doesn't have the background and facts to sustain the implications of the things it has to say about the Catholic church and science.
But it also knows that its real purpose was exclusively to be entertaining. And how it succeeds in that.
Unlike its 2006 predecessor, "The DaVinci Code", this adaptation of Dan Brown's eponymous novel doesn't take itself so seriously. Instead it squeezes every drop out of Brown's pseudo-erudite theories, the Indiana Jones qualities of its hero and the exquisite production values at the director's hands. Call it Catho-exploitation if you like.
Hanks repirses his role as Professor Robert Langdon, Harvard's expert in symbology, who is asked by the Vatican to assist them after four cardinals are kidnapped in the middle of a papal conclave.
The kidnappers have identified themselves as members of the Illuminati, a secret society once persecuted by the church, who have come back to take revenge for crimes committed against their group by the Vatican.
They announce they will kill one cardinal every hour up until midnight in one of the altars of science spread through Rome.
Added to this, the Illuminati have also stolen a vial of antimatter which they plan to use as an explosive device to eradicate the entire Vatican city.
Langdon teams up with sexy scientist Vittoria Vetra (Zurer) to stop them before it's too late. Why the Illuminati don't just nuke the thing to begin with is never fully explained, nor questioned, because it would leave us without any dramatic situations, and no popcorn movie, to begin with.
This is one of the many things you will have to forgive "Angels & Demons" for in advance, otherwise you won't be able to delight in its excesses.
Those not willing to leave their "brains" at the door will see this as an insufferable attempt to feed previously digested intellectual material to the masses.
However, those who fully comprehend the grasp of Ron Howard's successes at achieving any sort of intellectual stimulation in the past, will know that this time obviously won't be any different and are propense to enjoy it while munching on their snacks.
They will however be surprised to see that Howard doesn't completely screw up this time. He obviously has a talent for creating suspenseful situations (even if he reccurs too much to quick cuts and flashy editing as if to hide any possible errors) and there isn't a single sequence in the film that doesn't at least get your heart pulse racing.
Sadly the film works mostly as a series of thrilling individual sequences that never come together as a whole. It feels as if every scene was directed by a different person, but you'll be immersed into the plot before you even begin to notice this.
If there is something Howard still fails to achieve is subtlety and the first half hour of the film represents this perfectly. Langdon is often made to state the obvious ("Illuminati" means enlightened, "sede vacante" means empty seat, which paired with the image of an empty chair feels just plain insulting) and his character sometimes becomes obnoxious in his need to teach.
It doesn't help that he's played by Hanks with a disturbing smugness he tries to pass off as charming cockiness.
But despite Langdon's didactism, Howard actually puts less of himself into this film than he did in "The DaVinci Code" (which arguably had one of the worst finales in memory as it tried to please everyone), therefore we have one of his only films where the ending doesn't suck!
It certainly helps that his ensemble is grounded by some fantastic actors including McGregor who plays the late Pope's Camerlengo and who somehow makes his preachy discourses work.
Skarsgård who is always a joy to watch, here playing the Swiss Guard's commander and does some satisfying job playing someone whose faith is committed to his job.
Mueller-Stahl brings gravitas to his role as an elderly Cardinal who we immediately suspect as a villain (those who haven't read the book will have a fine time trying to solve the mystery) if only because of his strict dedication.
And it's pleasing to see that the film belongs to several less famous actors who make every scene worthy, including Lindhart as a reluctant Vatican officer, Favino as a police detective and the fantastic Kaas who creates a Hassassin you can't take your eyes away from. It would have been interesting to see him portrayed as the sexual beast of the book, but the screenplay completely removes that element, as if Howard was trying to keep away from more controversy. The actor however brings this lust to life with his movements and eyes.
As usual, any sort of controversy spiked by the film is merely an exaggeration. One that should be expected from anything that brings religion and science face to face.
Howard tries his best to balance the two of them and avoid trouble and it's true that audience members will decide on their own on which "team" they belong. This is highlighted splendidly in the very last scene of the film that sends everyone with a smile on their face.
Howard however forgot that film being above all a visual medium, plot machinations sometimes come to mean less than what we see and most definitely the story sometimes becomes obsolete under the weight of images.
Therefore "Angels & Demons" might have chosen a position without even trying to as it features some breathtaking work in order to recreate the Vatican (Howard was denied permission to shoot there for obvious reasons).
The art direction is stunning, but what results more haunting is the work of CGI which sometimes makes your jaw drop in terms of its precision, realness and beauty.
If computers can easily reproduce spiritual temples who needs to actually go to the Vatican? And what does this say about religion in the face of technology? Without meaning to, Howard's film gives a nod to the power of evolution and technological advancement, which pardon the pun, are nothing short of miraculous.