Ratner is back for more

BAILA LAZARUS EDITOR

Those who remember Ben Ratner from his involvement in a neurotic relationship in the movie Last Wedding at last year's film festival will be pleased to see him in yet another of the same genre; Ratner does dysfunction so well.

In Last Wedding, it was the new bride who was a few cheese slices short of a sandwich; in this year's 19 Months, it's Ratner who plays the jealous, possessive, almost psychotic boyfriend to a tee.

The premise for 19 Months is that relationships only have a shelf life of a year and a half.

After you pass through the infatuation phase and the honeymoon phase, you end up in the now-I-know-what-she-takes-in-her-coffee phase and that's pretty much it. Romantic love, the film suggests, lasts only 19 months. Routine sets in so it's time to get out.

However, while many couples realize their relationship is toast, separating is the hard part. One person usually gets hurt because they are left alone while the other has moved on, possibly into another relationship. To avoid this trap, Rob (Ratner) and his girlfriend, Melanie (Angela Vint), devise a "foolproof " plan.

As the film opens, the two have-been lovebirds are telling a documentary film crew how their 19 months are up but they've decided that they won't officially break up until both of them have found new 19-month partners. Despite the obvious problems with such a scheme, they proceed as planned, even ostensibly helping each other find appropriate mates. But when Melanie gets off to a head start in the find-a-date race, Rob's evil side emerges with hilarious results. In one scene the documentary crew catches Rob spying on Melanie who has gone to meet her new love interest.

"How am I supposed to help her if I don't know what's going on," Rob laments.

Ratner is great playing the ditched boyfriend, left behind to stew in his own compulsiveness and over-analytical thinking, turning to almost desperate acts when things don't go his way. Although the film is a comedy, it does raise some interesting questions as to where quirkiness ends and harassment starts.

Power and strategy

Henry Kissinger has been called the most well-known and influential national security advisor and secretary of state of the 20th century. He has also been referred to as a war criminal and an outright liar. The Trials of Henry Kissinger does not lie somewhere in the middle.

The movie, based on the book by Christopher Hitchens, sets out to make a case against Kissinger and to implicate him in the deaths of thousands of Vietnamese, East Timorese and Chilean civilians.

Using interviews with government officials who were involved at the time, as well as recently released documents, director Eugene Jarecki follows the paper trails that chronicle U.S. involvement in such international events as the overthrow of Salvador Allende of Chile, the bombing of Cambodia and subsequent rise of the Khmer Rouge, and the aggression on East Timor by President Suharto. Kissinger's world view, says the film, "blinded him to the human cost of the Cold War."

On the other hand, some American political players in the international field, such as Gen. Alexander Haig Jr., a former Kissinger aid, calls Hitchens a "sewer pipe sucker." Indeed, Hitchens, who is interviewed for the movie, does come across as a muck-raking yellow journalist, akin to those who write unauthorized biographies in order to make a few bucks.

Even so, you'd have to be living under a rock or on some other planet not to know the lengths to which the United States has gone to form a New World Order. The lists are endless of people who have suffered for the good of an American vision of democracy in many areas of the world. Even now, the United States is being criticized for its earlier involvement giving arms and money to Osama Bin Laden and his gang. Certainly, the film's evidence of Kissinger's participation in various underhanded schemes is enough to at least raise eyebrows, if not cause shudders of disgust. In one claim, the movie says the United States decided that the reins of power in Chile had to be changed in order to protect the financial interests of an American copper company and Pepsi Cola.

Ultimately, those who believe the actions of the United States were justifiable in the context of Cold War paranoia (most of the events discussed take place in the late 1960s and '70s) will consider Kissinger just a loyal player in the international arena; others will call for a seat to be made available next to Slobodan Milosevic at the International War Crimes Tribunal.

Film damning to Israel

Of all the films at this year's festival that deal with the Middle East conflict, After Jenin will, no doubt, be the most damaging to Israel. While Gaza Strip and Dead in the Water present their own anti-Israel messages, neither are as strong or as compelling as Jenin.

Director Jenny Morgan has presented on screen the arguments typically used by Israelis to prove their victim status – wars with their Arab neighbors, UN resolutions, bombing attacks, the Oslo peace accords – but this time we hear them coming from the mouths of Palestinian academics, IDF refuseniks and even Jewish Israelis to support the Palestinian cause.

These latter spokespeople, perhaps sig- nificantly, are referred to only as "academics." The film never tells us what academic means; is it a university professor or just someone who reads a lot? But the points made by these Israelis are rational sounding, well thought out and incredibly incriminating of the Israeli government.

When a pro-Israel government official is finally interviewed in the film, he ludicrously compares Palestinians to Nazis, Israel to Great Britain during the Second World War (perhaps appealing to the British sensibilities of the filmmaker) and compares Sharon to Churchill. He comes across as glib and facile, not contributing to the pro-Israel debate at all.

This film proves the Palestinian propaganda machine is alive and well.

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