Sundance Winner ‘Teeth’ Bites Right to Point of Men’s Greatest Sexual Fear

HollywoodChicago.com — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 00:35:34 -0700

CHICAGO – In one of the great light bulb ideas that could only happen in association with making movies, along comes “Teeth” to bite us in the – well, to bite us hard. Writer and director Mitchell Lichtenstein has fashioned a one-of-a-kind horror epic (based, of course, on a Japanese film) that at the same time tangles with significant social and cultural issues.

Jess Weixler in “Teeth”.
Photo credit: IMDb

Jess Weixler is Dawn: a bright and exceptional high school senior whose main charitable pursuit is called “Promise”. It’s an organization that promotes sexual abstinence for teens until marriage (complete with a ruby-red ring that’s to be replaced by wedding gold).

Her own virginity is in trouble, however, when hunky fellow Promise member Tobey (Hale Appleman) starts putting the moves on her.

Dawn harbors a secret – a secret that even she knows nothing about. Her body possesses “vaginal dentata” (or a “toothed vagina”), which translates to having controllable biting teeth in her secret garden.

John Hensley in “Teeth”.
Photo credit: IMDb

Said another way, it’s the “unconscious belief that a woman may eat or castrate her partner during intercourse” and a “classic mythological symbol of men’s fear of sex”.

So when Tobey forces Dawn to go all the way by cornering her, he receives a guillotine-like comeuppance at the moment he puts his divining rod into a place where it clearly doesn’t belong. Let’s just say that every male in the theater will cross his legs in empathy.

The rest of the film deals with Dawn learning about and controlling her “power” while determining the best use for it. The best descriptive I can use for this film is “woah!”

Jess Weixler in “Teeth”.
Photo credit: IMDb

It’s one thing to describe the circumstances of the narrative and another to actually experience it. If you think the rhetorical illustration of the events defy logic, wait to actually sink your own teeth into it.

Surprisingly, “Teeth” never exploits or panders – what are a few severed appendages among friends? – despite its questionable subject matter.

There is an admirable balance of humor, social commentary and even gore to strike the appropriate dark note. All I could do was laugh at most of it even if the laugh was of the “ewww and giggle” variety.

Jess Weixler in “Teeth”.
Photo credit: IMDb

I also enjoyed the underlying exposition of sexual politics and the male’s clueless nature when it comes to the unknown of female anatomy. I relived my adolescence on the spot.

Contrary to what you’d expect, the filmmakers were fairly evenhanded in the portrayal of the abstinent society while never directly insulting the concept and allowing its impossibility to unfold. Tobey and Dawn’s first date, for example, is a hilarious laundry list of repressions.

While this could win “worst date movie ever,” if you take along a select group of like-minded sardonic pals this offers a unique roller-coaster ride of quality blood, female empowerment and laughs aplenty. Who could ask for anything more?

“Teeth” opens in Chicago on March 28, 2008 exclusively at the Music Box Theatre at 3733 N. Southport Ave. The film won a special jury prize for acting at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival.

Click here for our full “Teeth” image gallery!

By PATRICK McDONALD
Staff Writer
HollywoodChicago.com
pat@hollywoodchicago.com

Academy Award-Nominated ‘Beaufort’ Ponders Question of Why We Fight

HollywoodChicago.com — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 21:35:48 -0700

CHICAGO – History eludes us. It’s what happens when we’re busy making other plans. In his new film “Beaufort,” director Joseph Cedar turns his lens toward the history and misery of a Mideastern soldier’s outpost eight years ago that was both defended and attacked while highlighting the human element that has to endure when protecting the territory of warfare.

“Beaufort”.
Photo credit: IMDb

Beaufort is an ancient castle area at the southern border of Lebanon. It has been an energy center for conflict and has been occupied by various armies for more than 1,000 years.

The film is set in the year 2000 when Beaufort is occupied by the Israeli Defense Force (IDF), which has held the position since the 1982 war in southern Lebanon.

Hezbollah – the Islamic, anti-Israeli paramilitary organization – is bearing down on the outpost heavily with mortar shelling and guerilla tactics in anticipation of a planned IDF withdrawal.

The film is essentially the story of the last Israeli soldiers assigned to the outpost with all the drudgery, bureaucracy and morality of their so-called “duty”.

Oshri Cohen (left) “Beaufort”.
Photo credit: IMDb

Cedar deftly uses the soldier’s characters as representations of the conflicted nature of war. The leader, Lizaz (Oshri Cohen), is all about duty despite the crumbling walls and constant barrage.

Bomb expert Ziv (Ohad Knoller) embodies the horror of the moment in his shocking appearance. Koris (Itay Tiran) is the morality who constantly frets and comments on the futility of the assignment.

The dream-like quality of the cinematography recalls Terrence Malick’s World War II film “The Thin Red Line” (1998). The claustrophobic barracks with their maze-like hallways bring to mind Wolfgang Petersen’s closed-quartered U-boat in “Das Boot” (1981).

Both characteristics add to the empathetic experience of the desperate last days of war and the hard-knock lives of its warriors.

Ohad Knoller in “Beaufort”.
Photo credit: IMDb

The heavily armored soldiers also have a “spaceman on an alien world” feeling as the barracks have a modular, futuristic look. The squawks of the radio recall the void of communication to distant planets.

This “stranger in a strange land” sense makes the participants less connected and further strips their human element.

The unseen enemy is the monster stalking the men at every turn while at the same time fighting the other unseen enemy: their own paranoia.

“Beaufort” is a psychological war film that’s trying to answer the question of why we fight. What does territory mean when it becomes a chess match with human beings used as the pawns? The soldiers of Beaufort attempt to answer these questions and live through it simultaneously.

How many deaths have to happen in war – psychological and mortal – until we know it’s too many?

“Beaufort” opens in Chicago on March 28, 2008 exclusively at the Music Box Theatre, which is located at 3733 N. Southport Ave. The Israeli film was nominated for an Oscar for best foreign language film of the year in 2008.

Click here for our full, high-resolution “Beaufort” image gallery!

By PATRICK McDONALD
Staff Writer
HollywoodChicago.com
pat@hollywoodchicago.com