“SURGE”

A Change of Behavior

Amos Lassen

Joseph (Ben Whishaw) is a British airport security officer who responds to his alienating environment by snapping and going on a crime spree. Director Aneil Karia, however, takes us away from the fantasy of white male grievance that it could have been.

Joseph’s snap is more of a crumbling as we see when Joseph has to pat down an older traveler who seems to recognize him. Joseph has never met him before, can’t remember him, or won’t acknowledge any past with him. The man complains that the metal-detector wand is burning his skin and tells Joseph to follow him in exactly 63 seconds before running, only for security to immediately subdue him. Even if the man doesn’t know Joseph, he suggests that they are comrades in psychosis, allowing Joseph to recognize some kind of aberration in himself, even though it might just be a product of his imagination.

Joseph’s reaction escalates by doing a favor for his co-worker, Lily (Jasmine Jobson), by fixing her television set. The job calls for a cheap cable, but when the ATM eats his bank card, he goes to the bank, but they won’t accept his bus pass as identification. He writes a note saying he has a gun, and the teller empties the register. The bank robbery, combined with that of the unanticipated sex he has with Lily begins a chain reaction of norm-shattering behavior.

Filmed with a handheld camera that remains close to Whishaw’s face is both nauseating and exhilarating as we see Joseph’s disorientation.  

Joseph revenges himself on objects and his spree is seen as inevitableand inevitably short-lived. Bythe end,  Joseph’s gun turns out to be a banana and the wounds he’s sustained to his face become joyful.

Whitshaw’s performance is incredible and burning. He provokes people into beating him up on the streets of London but by the end his whole experience is like being trapped in a broken-down subway car with a mental patient.

Joseph’s increasingly manic mood is so strange that it’s almost believable. The film continues with incident after incident, until it just stops giving us very little about Joseph except that he’s very unhappy.

Frantic, kinetic energy propels the film but it never seems entirely sure where it has been or where it is going.

“THE UNIVERSALITY OF IT ALL”

“We are all part of the same story…”

Amos Lassen

Shot in Paris, Berlin, London, New York, USA, Sarasota, Vancouver, San Jose, and Costa Rica, “The Universality of It All” is focuses human migration and inequality. The film is intimate and informative explaining the complexity of human migration through important data and information and shows that these affect the reality of two friends and their daily lives.

 Emad is a refugee from Yemen living in Vancouver who realizes the interconnectedness of all the major events of the 21st century. We are taken around the world, looking at different cases of migration from an economic and historical perspective and understanding the life, thoughts, and experiences of Emad. The juxtaposition between narratives allows us to see the similarities and correlations that are common to all migrations. 

We also look at climate change, colonialism, neoliberalism, globalization, identity politics, fertility rates, wealth gaps, trade wars, terrorism, and the media.

Interviewees include Catherine De Withol (Research Director at the French National Centre for Scientific Research), Radha S. Hedge (Professor in the Department of Media, Culture and Communication at New York University), Ives Charbit (Professor of Demography, University Paris Descartes), Carlos Sandoval (Columbia Journalism School) and Nicolas Boeglin (Professor of International Law at the Law Faculty, University of Costa Rica).

What we see is that“everything is connected”.

“WITKIN & WITKIN”

Twin Artist Brothers

Amos Lassen

“Witkin & Witkin” explores the artistic achievements of identical twin brothers Jerome and Joel-Peter  Witkin. Jerome is a painter, Joel-Peter a photographer and each is a noted figure in his field. They grew up in great physical and emotional proximity but now they speak and live a significant distance apart, the one in upstate New York, the other in New Mexico.

Recently, they have begun to exhibit together. The film follows each sibling on his own and also takes us to Mexico City for their first joint international show, where the Witkins are surprised to see, that they share certain themes in their work. Director Trisha Ziff tells the story of each brother’s journey from twin to individual, how and why they grew apart as we learn what their creative expression means to them and to the world.

Jerome is a mostly figurative artist who often tackles socio-political subjects in his paintings; Joel-Peter analyzes similar topics, but does through surrealist tableaux where models wear costumes while frozen in provocative poses. Their falling-out seems to be based, at least in part, on the fact that Jerome blossomed early as a painter and was seen as a genius right away, while Joel-Peter had to find his own way. Jerome is an introspective introvert while Joel-Peter is an extrovert. This perhaps explains their differences.

We learn about their lives. Both have suffered losses Jerome lost a son, Joel-Peter lost a wife  and now they are almost 80. Each twin is unorthodox and unique in his own way and their story is an intimate portrait of their relationship— a meditation on art and a vivid biographical look at the two men.