In 1993, painter-sculptor Anselm Kiefer left his native Germany for the backwoods of Barjac, France. Transforming an abandoned silk factory into an artistic Mecca -- a compound/studio located on 35 hectares of heavily forested hills -- the world-renowned artist began an artistic journey to turn his laboratory and surrounding terrain into a site-specific piece of art. Seven years later, Keifer hired bulldozers and a team of creative accomplices to fashion a subterranean labyrinth. The world below ascends up flights of stairs into domed interiors. A dilapidated world of industrial metal and concrete comes alive. And Sophia Fiennes's documentary Over Your City Grass Will Grow captures it all.
Given no context for these incongruous images -- are these industrial relics part of an abandoned rural village? -- Fiennes deliberately wants us to observe the art without pretense in its natural aesthetic; finally after twenty minutes, we learn that these fixtures were created by Kiefer. The former art enthusiast/student and now documentary filmmaker, clearly enraptured by Kiefer's landscapes, chooses not to probe too deeply into the creative mind; rather, Fiennes takes an observational, fly-on-the-wall approach. In filming Kiefer's process, she enacts an impressively photographed exhibition of site-specific artwork accompanied by a bombastic and portentous score. The opening of her documentary, intending to transfix, merely baffles. And perhaps that's the point, but the movie only begins to take form once we see Kiefer at work sculpting, usually in long takes. He is either at work in his studio, or, in the film's final sequence, playing architect ordering crane operators to erect free-standing totem poles of tiny, concrete shacks.
All the while, an enamored art historian questions the distracted artist. Kiefer responds abstrusely, speaking of biblical inspirations like the tale of Babel and alluding to its relation with the modern age -- how society is veering ever closer to the apocalyptic. Even when Fiennes interrupts the film and forces Kiefer to sit across the curious art historian, the bespectacled artist mostly speaks of his influences in tangential tidbits; for instance, he particularly is intrigued by how all humanity derives from the ocean; and furthermore, by the interrelationship between biblical and scientific narratives. But any conscious observer can already deduce that from Kiefer's work, and getting the artist to elaborate in-depth proves to be difficult and, for the audience, immensely frustrating.
Not sure whether to simply examine the splendorous artwork, the artist, or the artistic process, Fiennes does all -- superficially. Over Your City Grass Will Grow is an inviting exercise, outstaying its welcome at an exhaustive one hundred five minutes.
However, the documentary is not without merit. Vaguely reminiscent of German filmmaker Werner Herzog's canon (Grizzly Man, for example), Fiennes's documentary attempts to examine a man at odds with nature and society -- a philosopher who has resigned himself from the modern world in order to comment on the horrors and atrocities humanity, and particularly his native Germany, has exacted. Whereas Herzog is relentlessly interrogatory and so often speaks as a skeptical conduit for the audience, Fiennes remains faceless. What we are left with are impressions of a larger story: why has Kiefer really secluded himself from society?
Sycophancy in a documentary filmmaker is the kiss of death. Demanding unpleasant truth comes with the job title. There's a lingering poetic quality to Kiefer and his work, but he is a man left uninvestigated as Fiennes fails to detach herself from the position of glossy-eyed admirer.
Nina Hämmerling Smith full bio of Nina Hämmerling Smith Tweet Any period-piece movie runs the risk of sounding tone-deaf to the nuances of the times. Add to the mix a controversial or emotionally laden theme and the result can be decidedly off-key. But the right music doesn't just set the tone for the movie; it can add the weight of history and emotional authenticity. 
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Bill Gibron is a veteran film critic from Tampa, Florida.Ever since Charlton Heston crumbled in the rising surf, realizing that the alien world overrun by intelligent primates on which he had been marooned was actually Earth thousands of years in the future, Hollywood has tried to trump the original Planet of the Apes. From several early sequels (Beneath, Escape, Conquest, Battle) to a TV series and a misguided 2001 reboot (which director Tim Burton still wishes he could forget), the lure of evolution spiraling out of control has just been too great to avoid. Now, Fox is once again offering a complete overhaul of the franchise, giving us a brand new explanation for the end of humanity and the rise of the chimp. Luckily, it's a late Summer season surprise, a throwback to the days when science fiction could have heart...and a little horror...as part of its often solemn designs. 
Winner of several imaginary literary and filmmaking awards.30 Minutes or Less could've been titled Paycheck, since that seems to be the only motivating factor for anyone involved in the movie -- from above-the-title stars to below-the-line crew members -- to actually participate in its creation. Popular, talented, well-known actors run around with as much energy as they can possibly feign, being directed by a talented filmmaker who apparently realized too late that this was the wrong project to take on as a follow-up to his dynamo first feature, and the result feels as phoned-in as an order to the local pizza shack. 
In the late 6th and early 7th centuries, on what was a Buddhist religious site, monks who lived in small caves on the local mountain carved the largest Buddhas in the world into the side of the Bamiyan cliffs of Afghanistan. As a major cultural monument to religious expression, the statues stood in sculptural splendor with finely detailed textures molded from mud and straw. Most would agree that they were as much art as icons of a major world religion. It is hard to imagine anyone thinking of them as anything less than a treasure of the ages.