Soul Kitchen

Before the Monday night screening of German director Fatih Akin’s Soul Kitchen, head of programming Rachel Rosen asked the audience not to “put Fatih in a box.” Rosen wished to temper expectations of those in the audience who were already familiar with Akin’s recent festival successes Head On (2004) and The Edge of Heaven (2007), which were heady dramas. Soul Kitchen has drama, but it is very much within the framework of an independent comedy. Adam Bousdoukos plays Zinos, the owner of a run-down little restaurant in the outskirts of Hamburg who must deal with ill-natured employees, an childhood friend who wants to buy the place and his convict brother who needs a job at the restaurant as part of his parole. Juggling all those plots, Akin manages a great cast and a believable story that isn’t so far removed from his trademark dramatic style, but also invites a playfulness that’s more than welcome.

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Wake in Fright (1971)

If there isn’t a mondo-style documentary about life in the Australian outback, I imagine Wake in Fright is the closest we’ll ever get. Traveling through a desolate outback town named Bundanyabba, a schoolteacher (Gary Bond) finds his Christmas vacation plans waylaid when he loses all his money in a nearby gambling house. As he quickly discovers, the locals are more than hospitable (“Discontent is a luxury of the well-off. We gotta live here, so we may as well like it.”) and the teacher finds himself taken in, well-fed and more than well-drunk in a town that prides itself on its alcoholism, sexual liberation and penchant for violence. Wake in Fright recalls a time in moviemaking when more could be said with an actor’s look or glance than his words, and Gary Bond says so much with his eyes. Thanks to the bizarre nature of the film, Wake in Fright is likely to remain somewhat marginalized, but it is undoubtedly a one-of-a-kind experience and a movie that deserves the second wind it’s been given with this re-master.

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The Violent Kind

At a desolate cabin in the Northern California countryside, a motorcycle club party turns into a bloodbath when one of its attendees turns up covered in the red stuff and babbling incoherently. The third feature by the duo known as The Butcher Brothers, Mitch Altieri and Phil Flores, The Violent Kind is well-made and well-acted horror film, especially compared with the majority of independent horror cinema. Unfortunately, the film ultimately relies on a messy third act that might work on the level of spectacle but implies that the Brothers were simply trying to amuse themselves rather than create a cohesive or satisfying ending. The Violent Kind is enjoyable in the moments where it remains a violent biker drama, especially because my familiarity with bike culture begins and ends with FX’s Sons of Anarchy, but when the plot starts to shake out time-traveling greasers and aliens, you’re looking at everything and the kitchen sink.

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I’ll have mini-reviews of Winter’s Bone and Splice, and lengthier pieces on The Loved Ones (2009) and Roger Ebert and Friends next week!