Tribeca Trio

Each year at the end of the Tribeca Film Festival, I go through the movie guide again, this time to mark down buzzed-about titles or flicks to seek out if they ever get a release. Fortunately, a half-dozen or so made it to theaters in the past year, even if just for a week. With a 125-word and/or five-sentence limit, I've taken to writing blurb-like reviews.
P.S. Thanks to my Tribeca supervisor Kelly for the second recommendation.

Before the Rains: Before the Rains is an average addition to the Merchant-Ivory canon, boosted by Nandita Das’ performance as lovestruck housekeeper Sajani. As Sajani asks her master and married lover, plantation-owning spice baron Moores (Linus Roache), if he loves her, Das’ body quivers, her eyes a mix of panic and fury. Before the Rains lacks passion when the actress is offscreen, and director Santosh Sivan’s lush cinematography cannot compensate for his deliberate pace. The script, based on a sequence in a 2001 Israeli film, contains a meaty, albeit predictable, tale of adultery, 1930s British/Indian culture clashes, the danger of loaded pistols and issues of loyalty for Moores’ manservant, T.K. (Rahul Bose). In the end, Before the Rains merely echoes another, better Merchant-Ivory production, A Passage to India. (seen on DVD on Nov. 22)

Let the Right One In: The winner for Best Feature at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival, Sweden’s Let the Right One In is an original surprise: a touching story about acceptance and vampires with two 12-year-old leads. (Well, she's "more or less" 12.) Oskar (Kare Hedebrant) is a social outcast, an awkward target of bullies; Eli (Lena Leandersson) is also a loner, a wide-eyed waif - who happens to be a vampire. Director Tomas Alfredson gives Let the Right One In moody atmosphere, with swirling snowflakes and a lot of darkness that makes shots of red even more vivid, and elicits natural performances from his child actors. Like Pan’s Labyrinth, this isn’t a movie for children because of the graphic blood, but it’s a sweet fable adults can enjoy. (seen on Nov. 21 at the Angelika with vampire lover Brooklyn Jen)

War Child: War Child shares a framework with fellow Tribeca documentary Kassim the Dream - former child soldier, now a success abroad, returns home - only its charismatic center is hip-hop artist Emmanuel Jal. Forced to fight in Sudan’s civil war in the late 1980s, Emmanuel was rescued by a young British woman and taken to Kenya, where he thrived. Director C. Karim Chrobog artfully intersperses talking heads, dynamic concerts, images of genocide, footage of a young Emmanuel in a refugee camp, and Emmanuel today. Chrobog shows Emmanuel’s first trip home in 18 years in a straightforward fashion, marred only by a rush of outside voices at the end. Emmanel himself, his words and his music, make War Child a deserving Audience Award winner at Tribeca. (seen on Nov. 19 at the Village East Cinemas, with Ben in mind)