Beyond the Multiplex

Fast forward: Cast a warm eye on life, on death, in "Forever"; Charles Burnett's long-lost "My Brother's Wedding" surfaces at last
Heddy Honigmann isn't a household name anywhere in the world, unless the members of your household frequent European film festivals. But she belongs on the short, short list of documentary filmmakers whose work has the richness and ambiguity of the best narrative films. (I'm really no expert, but I'd begin that list with Werner Herzog and the amazing Finnish director Pirjo Honkasalo, whose work may be even more obscure than Honigmann's.) In her new film "Forever," the Peruvian-born and Italian-educated Honigmann -- who now lives and works in Holland -- literally ventures onto sacred ground, the fabled Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris.

Yes, Jim Morrison is buried there, but Honigmann never visits his grave. (She does show us the chalk-scrawled arrows and "JIM" signs that mark the pilgrims' path.) She's haunting Père Lachaise in search of other artists' graves, both the transcendentally famous and the virtually forgotten, and to speak to the people who tend this meeting space between the living and the dead. Proust gets a lot of visitors, even if they haven't necessarily read "In Search of Lost Time." (I mean, have you?) An embalmer visits Modigliani's tomb, to find inspiration for his own work with faces. A Japanese pianist visits Chopin, and weeps for her own father. (Later we hear her play Chopin, and beautifully too.) Movie fans visit Simone Signoret; opera buffs Maria Callas.

Out of this apparently simple and even trite subject -- the evanescence of human life; the supposed permanence of art -- Honigmann develops, with deceptive casualness, a few unforgettable character studies and one of the purest, most moving motion pictures of the year. I'm not sure whether my favorite character is the cab driver cum chanteur who is visiting Iranian poet Sadegh Hedayat, or the radiantly beautiful middle-aged woman whose father was a haute-couture shoemaker, or the woman mourning her much younger husband (who died from a bee sting while on vacation). "Forever" is a poetic meditation on death, yeah, but it's also a joyful experience. It makes you feel profoundly grateful to be alive, and may convince you to finish reading Proust after all. (Now playing at Film Forum in New York; other engagements may follow.)

A few years after breaking new cinematic ground with the astonishing black-and-white drama "Killer of Sheep," shot on the streets of Los Angeles in 1976, African-American director Charles Burnett scrounged up a somewhat larger budget to make a second feature in color. That movie, "My Brother's Wedding," has been an object of controversy, and virtually MIA, ever since. (It was poorly reviewed at festivals, in a rough-cut version, and then shelved by its producers.)

Milestone Films, which rereleased a lovingly restored version of "Killer of Sheep" earlier this year, has given Burnett a chance to complete this long-lost project and provide it both a theatrical and DVD release. There's every reason to be grateful for this; I only wish I could tell you the film was a masterpiece. "Killer of Sheep" has some awkward dialogue and choppy editing too, but they're of a piece with its poor-cinema aesthetic, and anyway the heart of that picture lies in Burnett's memorable images, especially the breathtaking long takes and almost wordless scenes of ordinary life inspired by postwar Italian realism. He's to be commended for trying something different, and "My Brother's Wedding" aspires to seriocomic drama, following Pierce (Everette Silas), a hapless dry-cleaner's son who's torn between his bupscale brother and his criminal best friend.

There's plenty of intriguing imagery and observant humor in "My Brother's Wedding," and Burnett's purpose -- to depict poor African-American characters without even referring to ghetto stereotype -- comes through loud and clear. But too much of the picture is claustrophobic, talky and unconvincing. It often feels earnest without being real. Viewers interested in Burnett's work should see it, of course, but "My Brother's Wedding" is more an intriguing point of transition on the road to his later breakthrough with "To Sleep With Anger" than a fully realized work on its own terms. (Now playing at the IFC Center in New York, and will be released Nov. 13 on DVD as part of "Killer of Sheep: The Charles Burnett Collection.")

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