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The Movie
When she was a little girl, a gypsy fortune-teller told
Mary Mirabito Livornese Cavaliere that she would live to be 96 years old. Cut to
1995, the year in which the Sicilian-American matriarch of her ganse mishpuche
reached her 96th birthday. Grandson and filmmaker Alex Halpern decided to grab a
camera and document the life of his colorful grandmother, whom he affectionately
refers to as "Nana", during the year of her prophesized
demise.
And what a life! Filmed in 1995,
Nine Good
Teeth is a vivacious and often
hilarious document depicting Nana's biography, from her earliest childhood
memories growing up in Brooklyn to her contemporary lifestyle as a
near-centenarian with a wealth of anecdotes, stories, and wisdom. Her story
plays out with equal parts laughter and sadness, but throughout the film she
maintains a rock-like demeanor of cool wisdom and strength. Her "matter of
fact" attitude towards life, death, and family, her fount of colorful
and entertaining stories featuring a host of interesting and
sometimes shady characters, as well as a rather randy admission
that I won't repeat here, all present a fascinating portrait of a woman whose
sheer force of attitude and character easily elevates her from "just another old
woman with a bunch of stories" to an eminently fascinating
person.
The documentary was shot in 1995, but features copious
amounts of footage filmed throughout Nana's life as well. Using this
footage alongside old photographs and interviews with other surviving
family members (including sisters, nephews, and most prominently her daughter
Maria Livornese Halpern), Alex Halpern delivers a compelling portrait of a woman
adored, admired, and just a little bit feared by her entire family. The film
presents stories of love, heartbreak, infidelity, mob violence, dalliances with
Jack Kerouac, death, defiance, and the rather unsurprising yet always welcome
message that the secret of life is simply pissing in death's eye. The
but-gusting "fakeout" at the end of the movie (you'll know it when you see it)
is worth the price of admission alone. And yes Nana, it is a beautiful
dress.
The DVD
Video:
Nine Good Teeth is
presented in its original full frame aspect ratio of 1.33:1. The video is culled
from a variety of sources: photographs, archival film footage,
videotape, and newly filmed footage. The different sources are of varying
quality: obviously film from the early/mid 1900s will have its own limitations.
That having been said, the film is well presented and provides a solid and
pleasing delivery of the original source material.
Audio:
The audio is presented in Dolby Digital 2.0,
and provides for a reasonably engaging presentation of the soundtrack. The
score sounds rich and pleasing, while dialog levels are bright and demonstrate
acceptable clarity. You won't find anything mind-blowing here, nor should you
really be looking for it. The movie sounds just fine, thank you very
much.
Extras:
Extra
features include an audio commentary with filmmaker Alex
Halpern, editor Angelo Corrao, composer Teese Gohl, and Nana's daughter Maria
Halpern. It's a fine commentary track and well worth a listen, but it's mixed
entirely too low. The commentary's volume levels are set to the same as those
for the movie itself, making this track a very difficult listen. We also have
seven-and-a-half minutes of deleted scenes, a short video
feature of Official Nanaisms (words of wisdom straight from
Nana herself), a theatrical trailer, cast
biographies, crew biographies, a text page about the
company Docurama, and a browsable Docurama
catalog, featuring trailers for Bob Dylan:
Don't Look Back, Brother's Keeper, Go Tigers!, Keep
the River on Your Right, The Legend of Ron Jeremy, Lost in La
Mancha, The Smashing Machine, and The Weather
Underground.
Final
Thoughts:
Like many enjoyable films, Nine Good Teeth resonates strongly
with viewers because the characters and stories presented therein are so
endearing and entertaining. Except for this time the people presented are real
and the stories are supposedly true, although surely filtered throughout decades
of memory and nostalgia. In any case, it all makes for a pretty entertaining
documentary, and at just over 80-minutes the time spent with Nana seems
altogether too short. Still, the DVD makes up for it was a fine presentation of
the film and some very interesting extras. Nine Good Teeth is definitely worth
your time. Recommended |
Buy: