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Rocks in My Pockets

Opens Fri., Jan. 2 at Sundance Cinemas. Not Rated. 88 minutes.

The first minutes of Rocks in My Pockets unfold in standard-issue animation of the European variety: cutesy (yet grown-up) drawings, whimsically surreal images, black-comic storytelling. Before long, though, the movie begins traveling in ever-darker spirals, as director-animator Signe Baumane spins a personal tale of family disturbance and depression. The Latvian-born filmmaker reaches back to the story of her grandmother to discover why the women in her family seem inexorably drawn to suicide. (The title refers to family lore about grandma being discovered standing in a river, trying to drown herself—but lacking the weight of rocks that might help her sink to the bottom.)

The grandmother, Anna, provides the most colorful part of the saga. She was an educated young woman—evidently uncommon in interwar Latvia—whose career plans changed when she ran off with her married boss, had eight children, and then weathered World War II and the Soviet years that followed. Her disappointment and Job-like burden is captured in the repeated image of her gathering 40 buckets of water every day to keep the family farm going. Baumane animates the film in a mix of papier-mache objects and simple drawings, an effective way to keep everything personal and handmade.

As Baumane explores the instability and suicidal feelings that afflict the women of her family, the film gets a little more scattered. But the fact that Baumane explores her own struggles with depression makes Rocks anything but a distanced, clear-headed examination of an issue. It’s a rare movie that makes you want to check in on how the filmmaker is doing since completing the project. She also narrates the film, in a broadly-accented, looping voice that never ceases for the entire hour-and-a-half running time. Baumane’s a very funny, slightly unhinged actress; she’d be a spellbinding raconteur at a dinner party. While watching the images, though, I couldn’t shake the thought that her nonstop chattering actually detracts from the power of her quirky visual art—more than once I wished she’d pipe down for a while so I could watch the pictures tell the story. I confess the movie wore me out a little, but it certainly is unusual. There aren’t many first-person cartoon memoirs out there that tie together the history of Latvia with inherited depression, so sheer novelty carries the day. Robert Horton

Viva la Liberta

Opens Fri., Jan. 2 at Seven Gables. Not Rated. 94 minutes.

I am sure, when Roberto Ando published his novel in 2012, that Italian critics cited Being There and Dave as likely influences. Now directing its adaptation, Ando strikes a lightly comic, wistful tone as identical twin brothers (played by Toni Servillo, from The Great Beauty and Il Divo) shake up the nation’s politics with a role swap. Estranged for 25 years, Enrico is the weary, antidepressant-pill-popping leader of Italy’s opposition left (though cozy with the ruling right); while philosopher Giovanni has evidently published a few books, but lives carefree and contentedly in a no-security mental asylum (where he’s also been practicing his tango moves). Enrico is married yet childless, still pining for the one great love of his past: Danielle (Valeria Bruni Tedeschi), now a married mother in Paris. Enrico’s political party and globe-trotting wife seem equally bored with him; the nation’s politics are in perpetual gridlock; so one morning he simply disappears—leaving loyal lieutenant Andrea (Valerio Mastandrea) to deal with the crisis.

Predictably, this is where the movie brightens up, thanks chiefly to Servillo’s unhinged zeal. Wearing his brother’s elegant suits and glasses, yet with hair inexplicably gone gray, the imposter bursts onto an ossified political scene, spouting philosophy and jokes. He’s a man of the people: hugging factory workers and scolding the press. He plays hide-and-seek with the confounded Prime Minister and, with a female factotum, puts those tango skills to good use. The polls are rising thanks to this truth-telling, seemingly reanimated old pol! Hardworking Andrea suddenly looks like a genius, and the false Enrico actually treats him like a friend—even a son.

Everything’s sunny in Italy, while the actual Enrico’s adventures in wintry Paris don’t carry such satiric spark. Danielle allows Enrico to hide with her family, even gets him a film-set job moving props (thereby mixing with the proles), but an affair is out of the question. Her movie director husband and cute daughter don’t do much for the plot, other than humanize Enrico in all the expected ways. We know Enrico will eventually return to power in Rome; the question is only when.

Given the boring range of choices available to us in American politics—professorial Obama, cautious Hillary, ersatz populists on the right—Ando’s gentle comedy ought to resonate more. But Italy itself is gradually emerging from the colorful corruption and bling of the Berlusconi years. The notion that a boldly unscripted and unfiltered leader could shake the nation out of its torpor is attractive, but not the correct comedic remedy. (Also, where are the actual voters here? They exist only as poll numbers, not people, notwithstanding Giovanni’s final invocation of Brecht.) Viva la Liberta offers a tame political fantasia where more lacerating laughs are needed. Brian Miller

Winter Sleep

Runs Fri., Jan. 2-Thurs., Jan. 8 at Grand Illusion. Not Rated. 196 minutes.

The rustic hotel at the heart of Winter Sleep is a strikingly unfamiliar place: Located somewhere in Turkey’s Anatolian countryside, perched on a rocky slope, the buildings seem to emerge directly from the stone of the hillside itself. The cave-like setting might suggest we have not evolved very far from our primitive ancestors, an implication supported by the film’s portrait of psychological cruelty and selfish behavior. In the course of 196 slow minutes, we discover the world of Aydin (Haluk Bilginer, from Rosewater), who inherited the inn and is now running it after working as an actor for many years. He also inherited a bunch of local rental properties, the income from which allows him to sit around penning op-ed newspaper essays while washing his hands of the economic woes of his tenants.

Director Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s previous film was Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (2011), one of the best movies of the decade thus far. Although Winter Sleep won the top prize at Cannes this year, Ceylan isn’t quite at that level in this outing. He does retain his uncanny eye for landscapes, a rich talent for getting the most out of actors, and a novelist’s grasp of how small incidents can open up an entire world—in this case, the small incident is a child throwing a rock at Aydin’s truck. The rock breaks some window glass, but it also begins the process of cracking apart Aydin’s arrogant sense of life. The kid isn’t around much, but he witnesses some of the film’s most devastating moments, including the humiliation of his responsible uncle (Serhat Kilic) because of the family’s debt to landlord Aydin.

After a brilliant opening hour, Ceylan falls out of rhythm—he has cited the influence of Chekhov on this film, but Chekhov kept the drumbeat and the humor going. Two extremely long and talky sequences dominate the middle of Winter Sleep: Aydin and his sister (Demet Akbag) calmly engaging in a duel of mutual laceration; and Aydin and his younger wife (the superb Melisa Sozen) arguing over her charity work—he insists on “helping” her with things she desperately needs to do herself. Those scenes are precise and well observed, but the film has a hard time finding its stride again. If it fails to finish as strongly as it began, Winter Sleep nevertheless collects a series of haunting moments and unflinching exchanges. It’s not as great as it wants to be, but it doesn’t miss by much. Robert Horton

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