BALLET 422

Being plucked from the lowly ranks of the Corps de Ballet to be thrust into the forefront and ask to choreograph a new ballet for the prestigious New York City Ballet is the stuff that dreams are made of. For 25 year old dancer Tyler Peck this dream actually became a reality, and filmmaker Jody Lee Lipes was there every step of the way to create an enthralling and intimate record of how the Ballet Company's 422'nd new ballet came into being.

As well as dancing in the back row, Peck had also been attending the Company's Choreography Institute and so impressed the powers-that-be that he became the only current dancer to be asked to stage a new work for the Company. This piece commissioned for the 2013 Season would in fact be his third piece, and this time he chose to feature three of the Company's Principal Dancers and set the ballet to a musical composition from 1935. He had exactly two months to turn his dream into a staged piece.

Lipes filmed the whole process without narration or explanation which greatly adds to the build up to the all important premiere. Peck is disarmingly calm throughout and although he is clear and quite forceful about what he wants to achieve, he is not adverse to seeking advice, and is positively polite when it is offered to him unsolicited as times.  For one so much younger than most of all the other people involved, from the dancers to the stage managers and even the orchestra, he is both courteous and self-assured in a way that makes everyone really want him to succeed.

We first see Peck experimenting on his own as he works out moves which he then abstractly plots out on paper.  His soloists listen respectfully and quite intently as he describes in minute detail as the ballet is shaped, but he is more than happy to take on board when they suggest alternative ways of doing certain moves. Even ballet master Albert Evans who is always on hand as a second pair of eyes, chips in occasionally with details he feels that the young choreographer may have missed, but like everyone else, he is also happy to defer to Peck in the end.

Lipp never shows us the finished Ballet even at the Premiere but his camera trails Peck everywhere and giving us vignettes of the rehearsal process and the behind the scenes maneuvering of getting the staging and costumes.  As the big night looms close and the ballet gets its fine tuning, Lipp's camera captures all the fine detail of the creative process that ensures even if the remarkably calm Peck doesn't outwardly seem that invested in his own success, we certainly are.

Come Opening Night and its a full house at the Lincoln Center, and Peck is sitting in the audience to watch his 'Paz de la Jolla' get a standing ovation from the crowd. After he joins the dancers on stage to take a bow, he hurries off to his dressing room. He has to change for the last Ballet in tonight's program, in which he is back dancing with the Corps De Ballet. This particular dream for this exceptionally talented young man is over.

This enthralling and engrossing documentary is so beautifully crafted that it will appeal to more than just ballet aficionados. Watching such a young talent at work in front of your eyes like this is a real treat to behold, especially when he is  someone that I'm sure that even Mr. Balanchine himself would approve of.

P.S. Since then Justin Peck has been promoted to Soloist.

★★★★★★★★

A MOST VIOLENT YEAR

Abel Morales wants to pursue the 'American dream' the right way. However his pushy wife Anna thinks otherwise. She is the daughter of the Brooklyn mobster who sold his small Heating Oil business to Morales in the first place, and Anna is well aware that if they are to be successful they will first have to effectively deal with thugs who run competitive businesses by far means and foul. Mainly the latter.

Its obvious from the start of the movie when yet another of Morales's tankers are hijacked and the driver is badly beaten that whoever is behind these incidents means to put the Morales out of business. As Anna keeps nagging to remind him, they are effectively at war. The trouble is they are not quite sure who with.

It's the 1980's and in a crime ridden New York City it is tough for a business like Morales not to have to resort to play dirty tricks to survive.  He has signed the biggest deal of his career to date when he agrees to buy an Oil Terminal from a group of savvy Hassidic Jews, and if fails to complete the purchase on time he stands to lose everything, including the oversized 'macmansion' he has just bought in the suburbs. When news of the deal goes public, then the campaign of terror against him is stepped up to try and ensure that he will not have enough funds to close the deal.

If that is not enough trouble, the Assistant D.A. is out to make a name for himself and be seen to be cleaning up the 'dirty' oil industry and is looking to charge Morales with multiple offences. This includes fraud and cooking the books, the latter being one of Anna's more accomplished talents.

This taut multi-layered tale of corruption and treachery is the third feature from writer/director J.C. Chandor who made such a splash with his debut movie 'Margin Call' in 2010 which became a sleeper hit. Chandor keeps the tension packed until the final credits roll when Morales, determined to keep to the moral ground, realises he has to be tougher than both the thugs out to ruin him but also his wife who has no problem at all resorting to whatever it takes to keep her family together and the business in tact.

With a really compelling performance from Oscar Isaac looking more like a new George Clooney matinee idol in every movie he stars in, who with his heavy Brooklyn accent is perfectly cast as Morales. He has such a commanding presence and its clear to see how he has jumped up into leading man status since his breakthrough performance in 'Inside Llewyn Davies'. Plus Jessica Chastain forsaking her copper tresses and going bossy blond, is splendid as the matter-of-fact tough cookie Anna. 

The cast also includes David Oyelowo (Martin Luther King in 'Selma'), and also funny man Albert Brooks playing it totally straight for a change as Morales's lawyer.

The cinematography by Bradford Young is helped by the New York setting in the heart of a very snowy winter, and his grey tones really capture the vintage feel of this period piece.  Credit too for something I rarely mention, but Armani really deserves singling out for the costumes, as I simply could not take my eyes of the long pale blue cashmere coat that Miss Chastain seemed to live in.

A Most Violent Year is an enthralling action packed ride from writer/director J.C.Chandor and one with an unusual 'message'. Playing it straight can work. Sometimes.

★★★★★★★★

CAKE

When Claire Bennett is asked to follow the other members of her touchy-feely support group as they express shock and sadness over the loss of Nina one of their members who jumped to her death, she ruthlessly responds with sarcasm, finishing with 'Way to go, Nina!' The annoyingly patronizing Social Worker leading the session is horrified, but it actually gets the audience in Claire's corner from the off.

Claire is in constant chronic pain as the result of a very nasty accident and its very clear that the scars she sports on her face and body are not the only ones she has.  Between swallowing handfuls of any pain killers she can blag off any of her doctors, or get illegally from Mexico, she spends her days and nights ensuring that her deep depression manifests in hating herself and making everyone around her miserable too. Besides the Support Group leader, she has also pushed away her husband and her physical therapist simply because they wanted to help her. 

Silvana her middle-aged Mexican housekeeper who waits on her hand and foot in her very comfortable LA house, is the only person that Claire can tolerate. Despite the abuse she heaps on Silvana, the Housekeeper treats her precious Mrs Bennett with genuine affection and constantly goes way beyond the call of duty. 

As the story unfolds and Claire becomes obsessed with Nina's death she starts gets visitations from the dead girl's ghost who seems set on pushing Claire into making the decision that is obviously consuming her about her own life.  The one bright spot in her life now (and in the film) is her playful encounter with Nina's husband Roy when, in a thinly veiled excuse, she inveigles an invitation into his house and then subsequently into his life too. Suddenly we see that underneath Claire's sad state of affairs there is a spirited and wicked sense of humor which shows that she has not always been the 'raving bitch' that she labels herself as now.

The back story to what caused her plight is not hard to fathom out but it comes a little late for us to still be routing for Claire as we started out in the beginning.  She was just a tad too angrily self-absorbed all the way through for us to really accept her now as a warm and tenderhearted person.

The story by Patrick Tobin (his 2nd screenplay) is really too thin for director Daniel Barnz to have made a more substantial and credible movie. It simply relies on just too many cliched plot strands which makes it tough for us to totally empathise with Claire's predicament, especially when he leaves it to the last minute to try to redeem her character. 

Jennifer Aniston gives a powerful performance that she has obviously poured her whole heart and soul into.  It's not easy to accept that this beautiful actress with her beguiling smile can play dull and depressed, but she can and she does, and her performance is equal to other actors who pipped her to the post for the Oscar nomination that she so craved.

The wonderful Adriana Barraza (Oscar nominated for 'Babel') playing Silvana took advantage of the fact that her hysterical rant when she finally turned on Claire, was one of the best scenes in the movie. Also in the cast were Mamie Gummer as the Physical Therapist, handsome Aussie Sam Worthington as Roy, and Felicity Huffman as the Social Worker.  Ms Huffman's hubby William H. Macy also popped up in a small pivotal role.

It's a small indie movie about depression that could leave you depressed if you expect it to be better than average.

★★★★★★

WINTER SLEEP

Turkish auteur filmmaker Nuri Bilge Ceylan's latest masterful epic is set in the steppes of Cappadocia on the desolate plains of Anatolia, which are heart-stoppingly beautiful. Some of the ancient caves carved into the side of this mountainous terrain have been converted into a Hotel by Aydin, a local landowner retired from acting. It's the middle of a rough winter so the only inhabitants are Aydin's much younger wife, and his sister, and a couple of guests.

The story starts when Aydin is being driven through the village by Hidayet his loyal second-in-command when a rock thrown by a local schoolboy shatters their jeep's window.  Hidayet stops and catches the boy and they drive him home to raise the matter with his father. The meeting doesn't go well, as it turns out that Ismail the boy's angry father has just been released from jail and his family are about to be evicted for not paying the rent.  Their Landlord just happens to be Aydin, who likes to keep a good distance between himself and his tenants, and the rest of the world too.

Back in the hotel he secretes himself away penning opinion pieces for a local newspaper and threatening to start a book on Turkish Theater which he never seems to get around too.  He is both selfish and arrogant and doesn't take too well to dissent or criticism so when his sister, who has just moved back home after a recent nasty divorce, starts to discuss some of his recent articles, it quickly turns into an unpleasant argument as he bitterly vents his anger on her.

Nihal his young wife lives in her own separate quarters and spends her time and his money helping the poor local community in anyway she can, but when Aydin discovers this he just butts and tries to bully her into stopping.  It's an unbalanced fight as her naivete is really no match for his cynicism and his determination to complete control everything and just use the power of his money to get his own way.

This is all quite a reversal of style for Ceylan from his last movie the mesmerising 'Once Upon a Time in Anatolia' which had scant dialogue, as he now drives this story up with several very lengthy set-pieces arguments. First with the two siblings, and now we witness the last tenuous strands holding this rather unbalanced marriage together, being shattered as Aydin and his wife battle it out verbally.

There are others in the saga that add some touches of humor into this otherwise bleak tale such as the local teacher who is quite a funny drunk when Aydin holes up at his friends remote Farm when he cannot escape to Istanbul as he threatens Nihal he will. Also the consequences of the decisions that they both make when they are apart are humorous on one level, but mainly wrenching especially when Nihal takes it upon herself to offer to rescue Ismail and his family.

It is not the visual treat of the exquisite rugged snow-covered landscape courtesy of cinematographer Gokhan Tiryaki that makes this epic 196 minute movie so compelling but it does play a major factor in ensurung that this magnum opus is the unforgettable enthralling movie that it is.  On paper it seems like a rather thin scenario but in reality Ceylan fills both the screen and the story to the brim, and its clear to see why this time he finally captured the big prize at The Cannes Film Festival.

★★★★★★★★★★

SCHULTZE GETS THE BLUES

Schultze is a recently retired German miner facing impending death and leading a god-awful supremely sad and boring life.  His only outlet is playing polkas on his accordion which he does with a fatalistic reluctance until one day he accidental tunes his radio to a station that is playing zydeco music which combines blues with R & B’, and he becomes totally hooked with this ‘exotic’ sounding music.  He become obsessed with his discovery and insists on playing only that from now on lie a man possessed, so much so that his local music club votes to send him to a music festival in Texas almost as a way to get him out of town.  

When the trip to Texas turns out to be a major disappointment, Shultze does the right thing and buys a boat and heads across the Gulf to Louisiana to search out his new love. Barely speaking more than a few words of English. There is a bittersweet touch to Schultze’s visit to the American South when he realizes that essentially that his own life is so boring because he never thought about planning for how to spend his free time.  There are times when viewing this very deadpan comedy unfold at such a slow pace that it makes watching paint drying seem quite heady. However this debut feature that won several awards for writer/director Michael Schorr is one of those movies that remains in your conscience a long time afterwards and makes you appreciate what a wonderful soliloquy it was to the inevitability of growing old.

With a perfect performance by veteran actor Horst Krause, this 2003 box office smash from Germany , is a sheer joy.

★★★★★★★★

INHERENT VICE

The reclusive writer Thomas Pynchon is known for his dense and complex novels which he has never allowed to be adapted into movies, until now that is. When 'Inherent Vice' his seventh novel was published in 2009 the dust jacket proclaimed that it was 'part-noir, part-psychedelic romp'. In the hands of auteur filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson whose raison d'etre are flawed and desperate characters and dysfunctional familial relationships, Pynchon's bizarre tale becomes a visual treat and quite the joyous romp, but totally incomprehensible to anyone who has not worked their way through the novel beforehand.

The piece is set in 1970 and unkempt Doc Spotello a Private Eye sporting big mutton chops and as usual in a dope-fuelled haze, is in his Gordetta Beach hangout when Shasta Fay Hepworth one of his ex-squeezes turns up unexpectedly to ask for his help.  She wants him to track down her secret lover, big-shot land developer Mickey Wolfmann, who's vanished.  Shasta is worried that Mrs Wolfmann who has her own lover, wants to commit her husband to a loony bin but before Doc can even start investigating, Shasta disappears too.

When Doc gets on the case he heads out to Channel View Estates, Wolfmann's latest cheesy housing development, and en route pops into a sex parlor there looking for one of the owner's bodyguards who he thinks will be able to help him. As he gets ready to leave Doc is knocked out, only to wake up much later next to the body of the dead bodyguard, a burly Nazi-loving biker, and he is instantly accused of murder by the cops.

Doc gets out of this particular mess as his old nemesis Det. 'Bigfoot' Bjornsen knows he is innocent but nevertheless he and the FBI press him into helping them locate Wolfmann and a missing musician Coy Harlington who they all want to talk to as well. And looming over everything is the 'Golden Fang' that Doc has been warned to avoid. What this is he is never quite sure, and neither are we.  At first it appears it is maybe a blacklisted movie star’s personal sailing vessel, or one that belongs to an Indo-Chinese drug cartel. Or it may even be the name of a syndicate of tax-dodging dentists fronted by a coke-snorting Dr. Feelgood.

Both Wolfmann and Hartigan are found but by this time the plot is so convoluted that we have no chance of making head of tale of it unless we are as perpetually stoned as Doc is. What makes this 'haze' so enjoyable however is the inspired and zany delicious humor that is always a strength of Anderson's films, plus some rather wonderful performances from a fine cast led by Joaquin Phoenix as Doc.  Phoenix brings his hallmark manic manner to the role and is excruciatingly wonderful as he totally lives a part that is so tailor-made for him. 

Fine turns too from Josh Brolin as Bigfoot, a barely recognisable Benicio Del Toro as a Lawyer, Owen Wilson  (who is always happy when he is stoned) as Coy, and delightfully over-the-top performance by Martin Short as Dr Feelgood.

If like me you were expecting this to follow on from Anderson's 1997 breakthrough movie the sensational 'Boogie Nights' set in this same period, you will be disappointing as its simply not in the same league. It is however still a joy to watch and appreciate his highly personal stylised approach to filmmaking as he revels in a period and culture that he has such empathy with. Just make sure you read the novel first, and maybe take a puff or two as well. 

★★★★★★

THE SEARCH FOR GENERAL TSO

This odd but entertaining documentary from writer/director Ian Cheney is an inquiry into how a ubiquitous dish of fried chicken became a staple item on every single Chinese restaurant in the USA even though nobody back in Mainland China has ever heard of it.  Cheney discovers there was an actual General Tso a military hero back in the 19th Century in China's Hunan Province but he failed to manage to find even a spurious link as to why these chicken nuggets were named after him.

Thanks to a rather bizarre and obsessive collector Harley Spiller who has amassed more than 10,000 Chinese Take Away Menus (!) we learn that there are at least 15 different spellings and numerous pronunciations of the General's name although the dish itself rarely changes from being sticky soy sauce drenched chicken.  Spiller is not the only eccentric interviewed here as another talking head is David Chan a pan-faced accountant  who claims to have eaten at more than 6000 Chinese restaurants.

The most interesting part of the investigation is when Cheney talks to some of the pioneering Chinese restaurateurs who first opened their eateries back in the days when the US Exclusion Act forced immigrants out of the labor market and into starting up small businesses.   These first restaurants catered to unsophisticated palates and so Chinese cuisine was modified to American tastes and ended up creating a passion for unlikely dishes such as 'chop suey.'  It wasn't until the 1960's and 1970's when the foodie renaissance finally brought high-end authentic Chinese food to some of the major cities in the US did things start to change.

Whilst Cheney spends considerable time discussing the popularity of this food with some famous chefs, food historians and writers, equally illuminating is when he journeys into small American towns when the isolated local Chinese restaurant is run by 'the only Chinese family in the village'.  Their stories of how they assimilated into an alien culture is the best part of this quirky wee film.  Much better than any dish of the General's chicken.

★★★★★★

SELMA

This extraordinary wonderful new film that finally brings Nobel Peace Laureate Dr. Martin Luther King centre stage in a Hollywood movie focuses on just one of the most crucial periods in his life. After the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act had made segregation illegal, most of the South simply ignored the new Law and still followed the old Jim Crow statutes of discrimination, and so towns like Selma in Alabama remained very dangerous places for it's vast black population.

One of the major stumbling blocks for any progress was voter-registration as the local authorities found a wide range of arcane laws to both deny and intimidate any African/Americans who tried to get on the voting roll. Without the right to vote the minority white community still wielded all the power that they could use to violent suppress and control anyone with a black skin.

The movie really starts after a year-long anti-segregation campaign by King and members of the Southern Christian Leadership Campaign (SCLC) in Albany, Georgia which had failed miserable as it had attracted very little media attention.  For once the local authorities had met King's non-violent protest uncharacteristically without the usual violent recriminations. After another aborted attempt to persuade President Lyndon Johnson to introduce new legislation to mandate voter registration, King was persuaded that the next venue for his campaign should be Selma.  He had one simple question to ask his organizers and it was about the nature of the local Sheriff Jim Clark.  Once he had established that the extremely racist Clark was an unashamed bully and thug who would literally stop at nothing to defeat them, then King decided that Selma was the perfect place. His plan was to march to Montgomery the state Capital to publicly confront the notorious right-wing Republican Governor George Wallace.

The movie shows the dissent behind the leadership's decision to stage the March and particularly vocal were the less confrontational local Student Committee who were opposed to King's plan but when both all final attempts to persuade Johnson failed, and some local fruitless mediation stalled, everyone came on board for the March.  

This time the events were being covered not just by the press but also live on national television so when the police and troopers charged and brutally assaulted the marchers as they crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge images of all the horrific violence inflicted in this peaceful crowd that included women and children were flashed across screens of the entire nation. This unforgettable ghastly conflict on March 7, 1965 would become known as 'Bloody Sunday'.

King had missed the March as he was at home trying to save his marriage after his wife Coretta had learnt of his latest affair, but as we had discovered earlier from the FBI who kept tight surveillance on the couple, she also had more than the occasional dalliance too.

Back in Selma, King used the public outcry about the violence as a national rallying cry to clergy across the country to come to Alabama to support his people, and they did just that in droves.  Now that the crowd was no longer full of just African/Americans no-one knew how the second attempt at the March would turn out, least of all King who surprised everyone by changing his mind enroute.

The movie ends with President Johnson conceding and finally introducing the Voter Registration legislation in Congress, and with the sight of King making his victorious speech on the steps of Montgomery's Capital after they had been eventually allowed to legally make the March.

The most remarkable thing about this magnificent flawless and totally inspirational movie is that it was directed by Ava DuVernary an ex film publicist with who has just directed two small indie movies too date.  Ms DuVernary who did such a stunning job in capturing this essential part of our country's history with such authenticity and compassion was also responsible for re-writing much of Brit Paul Webb's script.  She also made some great casting calls especially with her lead actor David Oyelowo who had also starred in her second movie the critically acclaimed 'Middle of Nowhere'.  Oyelowo, a Brit, has these wonderful piercing eyes which seem to speak as much as his words in this powerful mesmerizing performance that has you riveted to the screen. Coretta is played by another Brit, the beautiful Carmen Ejogo, known mainly for her television work including a made-for-TV movie called 'Boycott' in 2001 in which she also played Mrs King. Amongst the other Brits in the cast : superb Tom Wilkinson as a lanky and rather annoyed  President Johnson and a brilliant Tim Roth as the self-righteous George Wallace, there were also a fair sprinkling of illustrious American talent too. Including Oprah Winfrey (also a Producer) with a impressive dignified performance as hospice worker Annie Lee Cooper, Giovanni Ribisi as Johnson's Advisor, Alessandro Nivola as John Doar, André Holland as Andrew Young, Martin Sheen as Judge Johnson and an almost unrecognisable Cuba Gooding Jnr. playing it straight as lawyer Fred Gray.

Filmed on location in Selma, credit is due to some particularly memorable photography, especially of the violence that occurred during Bloody Sunday, from cinematographer Bradford Young, and also an impressive soundtrack that so beautifully sidestepped all the usual cliches protest songs.

DuVernary's brilliant movie deliberately means to disturb you from the shocking opening that sets the tone for the whole 127 minutes of this potent story. She tells it with such passion and dignity and as the actual archive newsreel blends in at the end, you are reminded that this is not fiction at all, but real life, and something that somehow fills us with both shame and pride at the same time.

Unmissable

★★★★★★★★★★

TOP FIVE

Chris Rock is a very funny man.  He is also an extremely talented actor as he proves in the role he wrote for himself in this, his third time behind the camera too.  Rock plays Andre Allen a comedian who donned an animal suit to play a gun-toting sidekick to an LA cop  as the star of   'Hammy The Bear'  a blockbuster movie franchise that has brought him both fame and fortune.  Now he wants to re-align his career and be recognized as a serious actor for a change. Unlike Michael Keaton's character in 'Birdman' he doesn't chose the Broadway Stage in his attempt to go 'legit' but instead he opts to direct/write/star in a movie called 'Uprize!' about the famous Haitian rebellion of 1791.  In this story thousands of white people are slaughtered unmercifully, and now the movie faces a similar fate by the Critics in their extremely scathing reviews.

'Top Five' starts with the opening weekend of 'Uprize' in movie theaters, and Allen's pushy agent who is desperate to counterbalance the negative rants insists that Allen spend the whole day doing press interviews to at least try and get some favorable coverage for the struggling movie.  He persuades Allen to allow a female reporter from the NY Times to trail him all day so that she write a profile piece of him.  Its not an easy sell as that paper's movie critic has written some very cutting and vitriolic opinions on Allen's work in the past,  but he warms to the idea when he meets the disarming Chelsea Brown who will be his shadow for the entire day.

They are also accompanied everywhere by a film crew as Allen is about to get married to a Bravo TV Reality Star in a wedding that is much more about ratings than about two people living happily ever after. Allen's pretty controlling fiance is the one that helped him recover and get him sober after years of being a drunk, and so now he just goes along regardless with anything she wants.  It turns out that when he and Chelsea actually start to bond during the day, its the one thing that they have in common as she has her 4 year chip too.  As the two of them compare notes we learn their rather bizarre but totally hilarious stories of their drink-fueled pasts in a series of flashbacks. 

One of the highlights of the day (and the movie) is when Allen pops in to see his ex-wife and several of his friends from his old pre-celeb days, and the banter is both warm and funny. This is also where the title of the movie stems from too as each of his cronies list their favorite top five hip-hop singers which subsequently everyone else feels the need to comment on and correct.  This reunion also starts to make Allen dwell on the days when he first started out a stand up comedian and when life was so much simpler, and he realizes that his biggest fear is that he doesn't think he is funny anymore now that he is sober.

Both Allen and Chelsea Brown have their own rough patches as the day unfolds and they discover not only do they have a lot in common, but there is a strong mutual attraction between them. However just before they get to act upon it, Allen learns that Miss Brown has a secret which changes everything between, almost for good.

The extremely likable Rock and the talented Rosario Dawson who plays Chelsea Brown had a pitch-perfect chemistry together and she is more than just a great foil to this very funny man.  As they spend the day mainly walking the streets of Manhattan their constant banter which starts off so guardedly, makes one think that Rock has named his character after the director he seems to have been influenced by with the whole look and feel of this movie.

Besides Ms Dawson, Rock has cast several of his friends in the many cameo rolls.  Cedric The Entertainer is particularly wonderful as a rather disgusting lascivious promoter, a pre-accident Tracey Morgan plays an old friend, The View's Sherri Shepard is Allen's ex-wife, and a barely recognisable Ben Vereen is his father.  He also has his ex SNL colleague Adam Sandler bantering with a very funny Jerry Sienfeld and Whoopi Goldberg all playing themselves in a comical scene at the end.

For Rock, after two mis-starts in the director's chair,it looks like its a case of third time lucky, and unlike his character, he should never ever worry about being funny.  He is one of the best.  

★★★★★★★★

THE MONK WITH A CAMERA

Life can be extraordinary privileged and full of exceptional opportunities when your grandmother is the fabled tastemaker and legendary fashion Editor Diana Vreeland.  So when young Nicholas expressed an interest in photography, his doting Grandmother was able to secure him an immediate apprenticeship under the distinguished  snapper Irving Penn and then later fixed him up with a job working for none other than Richard Avedon.

This was in the 1970's and this very successful aristocratic young man immaculately attired  in the most fashionable tailored clothes, was in the words of his half-brother Ptolemy Tomkins 'a very committed dandy.'  Quite the ladies man, Vreeland dated a whole stream of glamorous high-society women and with his dashing handsome looks and his family pedigree (his father was a US Ambassador), was considered quite 'the catch'. But by the end of the decade after breaking out to work on his own, he felt that 'something was missing'.  His first step to discover what this maybe was to start mediating which was soon followed by shocking his friends and family by shaving off all his long flowing locks.

After his apartment was burgled and several expensive cameras were taken his Insurance company paid out his claim but rather than re-invest that in more of the same, he used the money to bankroll several years of studying Buddhism.  When he eventually decided to become a monk The Dalai Lama himself sent him to a Tibetan refugee settlement just over the Indian border. Vreeland stayed there for several years dedicating himself to studying and also learning the Tibetan language.

Throughout this new documentary on his life, Vreeland has the most disarming casual way of name dropping that somehow lacks the usual conceit. When he casually mentions that he only got his hands on another camera again it was because his brother had given him it at the urging of the widow of Henri Cartier-Bresson. It seems at times that his family do not know a single person who isn't world famous.

After fourteen years away Vreeland started commuting between his Monastery and Manhattan where he ghosted some of the Dalai Lama's memoirs and also translated the works of his celebrated Buddhist Teacher Khyongla Rato Rinpoche who had retired to live in New Jersey.  He also accepted a commission from The Dala Lama to build a new Monastery and Temple in Rato which was all going swimmingly well until the financial crash dried up all the donations from Vreeland's wealthy philanthropist friends. Undaunted he started photographing again, and using his somewhat limitless list of influential contacts around the world to mount Exhibitions, he sold enough of his work to fund the rest of the building work.

Once the new Monastery was up and running the Dalai Lama announced that he wanted to make Vreeland its new Abbot : a position that no westerner has ever held before and it is obvious that Vreeland is genuinely humbled by the honor and quite speechless.  Almost.

This documentary is by Guido Santi and Tina Mascara who together made the rather wonderful movie 'Chris and Don: A Love Story' about the exceptional relationship between Christopher Isherwood and his partner Don Bachardy. Their very flattering take on Vreeland's rather worldly life reflects the genuine affection and respect that he is accorded by not just His Holiness but also his celebrity friends like Richard Gere who is a passionate support of Tibetan Buddhism. Some old habits however die hard and when we see Vreeland in his spacious Manhattan apartment dressing in his traditional robes he manages to make them look like a outfit designed by Comme Des Garcon's Rei Kawakubo rather than the simple attire that poor monks have worn in their spartan isolated lives in the mountainous regions of Tibet for years.

This throughly entertaining film doesn't attempt to de-mystify Buddhism itself but it does show the importance that The Dalai Lama places on linking it with a contemporary western secular world, and for that end he couldn't have chosen a better 'Ambassador' than the affable and extremely sincere Vreeland.

★★★★★★★★