SEED: THE UNTOLD STORY -- Jon Betz and Taggart Siegel's food and farming doc opens

When we think about our food and where it comes from, the last thing on many of our minds is the humble little seed. Those of us who follow the ever-rising control of big corporations worldwide, however, may think first of seeds, and then of power-hungry behemoths such as Montsanto, soon, it would seem, to be merged into Bayer, an even bigger power-hungry behemoth: (You can register your disapproval of that merger by clicking here).

SEED: THE UNTOLD STORY, a new documentary from Jon Betz and Taggart Siegel, very smartly begins with a kind of history of seeds, introducing us to an ex-hippie farmer, shown below, who has now collected literally thousands of varieties of seeds, and who tells us that, sadly, we've lost 94 percent of our seed diversity during the 20th Century.

It was wise of the filmmakers to provide us this seed history and importance before showing us what the reign of Capitalism and "hybrid seeds," along with corporations and their venal and ridiculous idea of "patenting" nature are doing, with the help of slime balls like Clarence Thomas, surely the sleaziest member of our current Supreme Court. Next we move to Mexico and the fascinating story/history of corn. "We are seeds," explains one of several of the Indians who guide us through all this, as we are made to see and understand the kind of love that goes into caring for seeds. (Seed farming and seed banks, we learn, are now internationally connected.)

We visit Hawaii and watch as neighbors and whole communities protest the poisoning of their land and their children via toxic pesticides. We learn that NAFTA, by selling subsidized corn in Mexico, has forced two million farmers off their land. We see something similar in India, thanks to -- yes, again -- Montsanto. We view "Seed schools" in action via the Rocky Mountain Seed Alliance, an organization devoted to increasing, rather than further depleting, seed diversity.

Seed: The Untold Story is a vitally important documentary, subject-wise, at least. But, as you may have gathered from the above paragraphs, its approach to its subject is scattershot and all over the place. Also, for anyone who has followed the subject of food and farming via the number of good documentaries that have appeared over the past decade or two, the movie cannot help but seem repetitive. A figure such as Vandana Shiva, above, has already made some 78 appearances on film and TV, including the documentaries Dirt! The Movie and Solutions locales pour un désordre global. (Click the preceding link and then scroll way down for my review of that latter film.)

Filmmakers Betz and Siegel (shown above, with Betz on the left) are to be thanked for their efforts, even if the end result does not rise artistically to the level of importance of the subject itself. There are still plenty of things to be learned and gained from viewing this movie.

Seed:The Untold Story -- from Collective Eye Films and running 94 minutes -- opens this Friday, September 23, in New York City at the Cinema Village and the following Friday, September 30, in Los Angeles at Laemmle's Monica Film Center.

Will the film be shown elsewhere? I have no idea, and since it does not yet even appear on the Collective Eye web site, don't expect any help there, either.

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American documentaries, Bayer, farming, food movies, Jon Betz, Montsanto, SEED: THE UNTOLD STORY, seeds, Taggart Siegel,

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Heartbreaking/groundbreaking nostalgia in Catherine Corsini's best so far: SUMMERTIME

Taking place in France in the 1970s, among a group of early feminists pushing the boundaries of the French in ways -- women's rights, gay rights, abortion -- for which the French were unprepared, Catherine Corsini's newest film is up there with her best, which would include for my taste The New Eve (1999), La répétition (2001), Leaving (2009) and Three Worlds (2012). In fact, I think SUMMERTIME (La belle saison) is her best yet. It takes us back to a period that the older of us will remember well (even if we weren't in France at the time, what occurred there was simultaneously going on throughout much of the western world), and Ms Corsini captures both events and characters with a hand as deft as it is subtle & cinematic.

The filmmaker, shown at left, casts her films especially well, too -- sometime surprising us with her choice of stars. Emmanuelle Béart made a fine impression in La Repetition, and more than any other of Karin Viard's films, The New Eve helped place this supporting actress on the map to stardom. Kristin Scott Thomas is always fine, but Leaving gave her one of her strongest roles, while Three Worlds offered Clotilde Hesme and Raphaël Personnaz characters that brought out new richness and depth in both performers.

Corsini tends to tackle themes involving both class issues and "the other," with the latter sometimes hinging on one's sexual orientation. So it is again with Summertime, in which a beautiful young farm girl, Delphine (a glowing performance from Izïa Higelin, below), after enduring her parents' constant pushing her into marriage with some local boy and when a secret lesbian affair goes south, takes off for the big city in an attempt to discover another life. Which she manages -- in spades.

In Paris, Delphine falls into an activist women's group, where she meets Carole (another knockout performance from César-winning actress Cécile De France, shown below),  and a relationship blooms.

How this happens is presented believably on both an emotional and societal level, with genuine feeling and attention given to Carole's male partner (beautifully nuanced by Benjamin Bellecour) whom she must give up for Delphine. The same feeling and caring is provided the young man in Delphine's farm community who has been in love with her since childhood (a wonderful, heartbreaking performance from Kévin Azaïs. below, right).

The only other major character is played by that fine French actress, Noémie Lvovsky, below, who brings enormous strength and anger to her role of Delphine's mother, who cannot begin to accept anything but the standard straight-and-narrow sexual relationship for her daughter. Ms Lvovsky has one of the film's strongest and most difficult scenes, and she wipes the floor with it.

But Corsini's movie rightly belongs to her two lead actresses, who play with and off each other quite beautifully throughout. Ms De France's versatility is by now well known. Here we view more of her physically than we ever have, and she proves something to see. As does Ms Higelin (this film should ramp her career into high gear), who has such a buoyant and contagious liveliness than viewers of any gender or preference should easily fall for her -- either/both sexually and/or aesthetically. She is something special.

Corsini's strength here is in bringing us equally close emotionally to the highs and lows of the relationship, as well as making us understand and feel the social/societal difficulties implicit in such a bonding back in the distant 1970s. Both these strands come together to deliver a richly textured, marvelously empathetic movie. Don't miss it.

Summertime -- from Strand Releasing (this independent/foreign film distributor is on one hell of a roll lately!) and running 105 minutes -- opens this Friday, July 22, in New York City (at the IFC Center and Film Society of Lincoln Center) amd in Los Angeles (at Laemmle's Royal, Playhouse 7 and Claremont 5), and then in another half dozen or more cities in the weeks to come. Click here, then click on Screenings on the tool bar halfway down the screen to see all currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters.

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Catherine Corsini, farming, feminism on film, France in the 1970s, French cinema, GLBT films, love stories, SUMMERTIME,

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Nanouk Leopold's IT'S ALL SO QUIET: small, truthful Dutch "family film" opens at AFA

What a tiny treasure is this film about father and son farmers in an isolated area of The Netherlands. The father, very old and very infirm, is cared for -- grudgingly but decently -- by his middle-aged son. The son, however, is cared for by no one and apparently never has been. (The little we learn of his growing up indicates that his father was unduly harsh with him.) This is the heart of the sad, engrossing movie, IT'S ALL SO QUIET (Boven is het stil) that is full of small details -- of caring for the elderly as well as for farm animals -- that builds into a quietly moving study of loneliness and the inability of some of us to ever be able to reach out to anyone else.

As adapted (from the novel by Gerbrand Bakker) and directed by Nanouk Leopold (shown at left), the movie may be slow-moving but it is never uninteresting due to its expert detailing and how simple and subtle it consistently is. Ms Leopold keeps her camera ever watchful regarding the connection between father and son and between son and farm and the few other people who attempt to bridge what seems an incredible distance between them and this sad and unresponsive farmer.

As played by the late Jeroen Willems (above, left), whose untimely death occurred soon after the film was completed, the son, Helmer, is a figure of enormous empathy by us viewers, even though the character himself barely seems able to empathize with others or understand himself and his own needs.

The scenes of Helmer caring for his father (played by Henri Garcin, above, left) offers a look at the day-to-day drudgery -- cleaning up the shit, showering the old man, and the increasingly difficult chore of simply carrying him up the stairs -- that goes into the care of the very elderly.

We also slowly get a sense of the kind of upbringing Helmer must have had, in which showing affection of any kind was frowned upon. Now, this man is so socially insecure and untutored in anything approaching the social graces that he simply cannot respond in any normal way to other people's overtures. (The milk delivery man, above, clearly would like to pursue a relationship with Helmer, but can draw no response except embarrassment from our man.)

When more help is finally needed -- with the farming and the caregiving -- a young hired hand named Henk is brought aboard (Martijn Lakemeier, above, right), and it seems that a kind of break-through may come for Helmer. Things do happen and change does occur, but in the barest of increments. Possibilities lie unseen and unused, and the movie remains sad but ever-so-slightly hopeful.

The film begins and ends with some lovely shots of nature, and the natural world breaks into the narrative now and then. But what you'll remember most, I think, are the shots of the faces here, especially that of Willems, who gives a remarkable performance, all the deeper and more resonant due to his character's inability to connect.

Its All So Quiet -- from Jonathan Howell's Big World Pictures and running 91 minutes, in Dutch with English subtitles) -- begins a one-week run this Friday, January 9, at Anthology Film Archives in New York City. Click here for tickets and here for directions. Elsewhere? I'm not certain. But, being from Big World, there will most likely be a DVD on offer eventually and/or some digital streaming.

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"family" movies, Anthology Film Archives, Dutch film, farming, father & son films, IT'S ALL SO QUIET, Nanouk Leopold,

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