FILM REVIEWS:
DELEGATION (Israel/Germany/Poland 2023) **
Directed by Asaf Saban
A delegation is defined as a set of people chosen or elected to represent a larger group. The delegation in the film DELEGATION refers to a class group visiting holocaust sites in Poland. Three Israeli high school friends take part in a class trip visiting Holocaust sites in Poland – the last time together before two of the boys enter the army. During the trip, shy boy Frisch, aspiring artist Nitzan and class heartthrob Ido deal with issues of love, friendship, and politics against the backdrop of concentration camps and memorial sites. This journey is supposed to change them forever.
The Holocaust, known in Hebrew as the Shoa, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe, around two-thirds of Europe's Jewish population. The murders were committed primarily through mass shootings across Eastern Europe and poison gas chambers in extermination camps, chiefly Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka, Belzec, Sobibor, and Chełmno in occupied Poland. The film claims to be a coming-of-age tour about boys discovering their past.
The film is, however, despite good intentions, boring, tedious, while not offering any new insight into the holocaust cause. Audiences around the world already sympathize with the cause and need not watch the shock boys goof around and flirt with the opposite sex and then sit down to discuss their Jewish past. Audiences are forced to endure the teens’ romantic flings and then have to listen to them talk about how they felt about the holocaust. The delegation also includes an older survivor of the holocaust who talks about his experiences in the camp.
Instead of a thoughtful and compelling film, DELEGATION fans to avoid all the cliches while forcing the audience to sit through a very tiresome road trip. The film emphasizes the fact that teenagers can be terribly annoying and full of themselves.
DELEGATION opens on digital August 1st.
Trailer:
HARLEY FLANAGAN WIRED FOR CHAOS (USA 2024) ***
Directed by Rex Miller
The film begins with a man jogging close to the woods with a guitar strung around his back. He says that he has been angry for the past 50 years, and he says that that is not the man he wants to be. He is next shown exercising - the guy is quite fit despite his stocky build. He goes on to say that only death is certain and everything else, optional.
Who is this man? He is Harley Flanagan. I have not heard of the man, not being in the funk rock scene.
Harley Francis Flanagan (born March 8, 1967) is an American musician. Harley Flanagan founded the hardcore punk band the Cro-Mags. He is currently the bassist, vocalist, and sole remaining founding member of the band. Flanagan began his musical career at age 11 in 1978, drumming for the New York punk band the Stimulators alongside his aunt Denise Mercedes. By the early 1980s, he was a prominent figure in the developing New York hardcore, helping to found the Cro-Mags in 1981 and Murphy's Law in 1982.
Founder of the pioneering band Cro-Mags, Harley Flanagan is a punk rock/hardcore legend who’s defied the odds – along with neglect, sexual abuse, drugs, violence, and PTSD -- and lived to tell the tale. The feature-length documentary, HARLEY FLANAGAN: WIRED FOR CHAOS, dives headfirst into the wild life and times of this larger-than-life icon and is a no-holds-barred ride that isn’t just about the music; it’s about a man forged in fire who’s lived to tell the tale.
Raised by a Warhol Factory “it” girl, Harley was thrown into the Lower East Side’s underground scene in the ’70s. Left to fend for himself, by his teens, he was squatting in Alphabet City, stealing food, dodging gangs, and living in a world that he describes as “some serious Lord of the Flies shit.” But, as his life descended into a hellish day-to-day, he was simultaneously becoming a punk rock legend: at the age of 11, he was drumming at CBGBs and Max’s Kansas City with his aunt’s band, the Stimulators. Sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll weren’t a choice – they were survival. But Harley was a fighter. Whether on stage, in the streets, or the Jiu-Jitsu gym with Renzo Gracie, he never backed down. As the ferocious frontman of the Cro-Mags, he pushed NYC Hardcore into uncharted territory. But violence, addiction and a traumatic past left deep scars. The streets made him, but they also nearly destroyed him.
The film also includes interviews with: Flea (Red Hot Chili Peppers), Henry Rollins ( Black Flag, Henry Rollins Band), Ice T, Ian Mackaye (Minor Threat, Fugazi, Dischord Records), Keith Morris (Black Flag, Circle Jerks, OFF), Michael Imperioli, Lucy Sante (Author), Anthony Bourdain, Matt Serra (MMA, BJJ, UFC World Champion), Renzo Gracie ( BJJ World Champion) among others.
Harley Flanagan has had a tough and intriguing life, creating lots of trouble as well as ink hits. A doc is often as interesting as its subject, and the saying is true here. The doc bears Flanagan's life, warts and all, together with his philosophy of life, distorted, and whether one wants to accept it at all.
Harley Flanagan: Wired for Chaos is a 2024 American documentary film that follows the story of Harley Flanagan, directed and produced by Rex Miller. The film premiered at the Doc NYC on November 14, 2024, and will be available online for a One-Week Run Beginning August 8th.
Trailer:
