HOW TO SURVIVE A PLAGUE

Review: How to Survive a Plague
4.5 stars (out of 5)
By R. Kurt Osenlund

How to Survive a Plague teems with poignant facts and stats, but the most telling detail about this from-the-front-lines AIDS-crisis doc is that camcorders just happened to hit the market right when the disease began to spread. With video equipment available to all, 1982 marked the dawn of insta-media, and with members of the activist group ACT UP able to film their every move, their revolution wouldn't just be televised, it would be fully documented too. Such is why journalist turned filmmaker David France's epic account of this pitch-dark time is so amazingly thorough, composed of a plethora of priceless footage from the very heart of the issue. Beyond offering an aesthetic that is the '80s and early '90s, his stunning film contains scene after scene that would oft-require recreation in narrative form, showing stalwart heroes caught up in drama no script could conceivably beat

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OMAR KILLED ME

Review: Omar Killed Me
3 stars (out of 5)
By R. Kurt Osenlund

In Omar Killed Me, a straightforward indictment of the French justice system by actor turned director Roschdy Zem, lead star Sami Bouajila has the look of an eternally sad Sacha Baron Cohen, a tall, dark-featured man who might have been jubilant once, but will likely never laugh again. Bouajila is Omar Raddad, a real-life Moroccan-born Frenchman who, while working as a gardener in Marseilles in the mid '90s, was accused of murdering his rich employer. No sooner were the fingers pointed than Omar was shuffled off to prison. A kindred film to so many that just battled it out for Oscar, Omar Killed Me is at best a very watchable performance showcase, cementing Bouajila as a formidable and highly affecting on-screen presence. His turn is an amalgam of dogged earnestness, pitiful heartbreak, and the visual wear of a personal fight against disadvantage.

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FOUND MEMORIES

Review: Found Memories
4 stars (out of 5)
By R. Kurt Osenlund

"If bread doesn't breathe, it gets stiff," says Madalena (Sônia Guedes), an elderly woman in the fictitious Brazilian village of Jotuombo, whose daily grind involves kneading dough and baking rolls before sunrise. She's talking to Rita (Lisa Fávero), a young photographer who happens upon the village, and indeed, before Rita's arrival, Madalena and her neighbors were living a rather airless and rigid existence. The first narrative feature from native Brazilian Julia Murat, Found Memories has all the makings of a turn-this-town-upside-down banality, its plucky drifter softening the crusty locals with her fresh breath of vitality. But Murat holds the reins on blatant convention about as tightly as she does the gaze of her static camera, which, like Rita, is most often a curious visitor of a sleepy haven forgotten by time. In this film of patient, carefully placed compositions, whose subjects leave and return instead of being followed, common metaphors are at once clearly framed and left unforced, resulting in a shrewd dance that continually tiptoes past built-in clichés.

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