Love is in the Air in Two Independent Films

Wheelchair sports have enjoyed tremendous growth over the past several decades. One wheelchair activity I was not aware of is wheelchair ballroom dancing. The sport was invented in Sweden in the 1970s, and is quite popular in Europe and Japan now.

“Musical Chairs” may advance the sport in the USA. Written by Marty Madden, it is the story of a man who is born to dance, and his love; an award-winning ballroom star who is relegated to a wheelchair after an accident.

This is a feel-good, can-do fable directed by Florida’s own Susan Seidelman. It made its local debut at Miami International Film Festival and is now in select local theaters.

Handsome and charismatic E.J. Bonilla is a young Puerto Rican man named Armando, who works as a busboy at his family restaurant in the Bronx. Mom and dad would like Armando to go into the family business, but like Tony Manero in “Saturday Night Fever,” Armando wants to dance; not just disco, but elegant ballroom dance of competition quality. To offset the cost of lessons, Armando takes a gig as handyman at a Manhattan dance studio run by the privileged, beautiful Mia (Leah Pipes).

Mia personally teaches Armando and sparks begin to fly, despite the difference in their social station. Mom would like Armando to marry his Puerto Rican girlfriend Rosa (Angelic Zambrana). Armando only has eyes for Mia.

Tragically, Mia is struck down by a freak traffic accident, and when she awakes in the hospital, she is a paraplegic.

“Musical Chairs” is an old and familiar story of romance against all odds, and in this case with the additional element of learning to live with one’s physical imitations. Bonilla and Pipes look and move beautifully together, and the story is enlivened by a supporting cast off offbeat characters in rehab, all overcoming various social prejudices in addition to their physical handicaps.

There is an angry Iraq War veteran (Morgan Spector); a sullen punk (Auti Angel), and most entertainingly, a flamboyant black transvestite (Laverne Cox) of indeterminate sex.

“Musical Chairs” has a fable-like quality that downplays the gritty dark side of disability and prejudice, but it is a pleasant fantasy that declares yes you can!

Two and a half stars

Award-Winning Israeli
Film “The Matchmaker”

“The Matchmaker” is opening locally at several theaters, including FAU’s Living Room Theaters and the Movies of Delray. It was nominated for seven Israeli Academy Awards, including Best Picture.

It tells the story of Arik Burnstein (Tuval Shafir as a youngster and Eyal Schecter as an adult), a teenage boy growing up in Haifa in 1968.

Arik lands a job working for matchmaker Yankele Bride (Admir Miller) a mysterious Holocaust survivor with an office in a movie theater that screens only love stories. If this weren’t odd enough, the theater is owned by seven Romanian dwarves in a rundown area by the port.

As Aril begins to discover a new world built on the ruins of an old one, he falls in love with Tamara (Neta Porat), a friend of his cousin Beni (Tom Gal).

Tamara has just returned from America, full of notions of women’s rights, free love and rock ‘n’ roll.

I hadn’t seen this film at press time, but it sounds like an intriguingly unusual coming-of-age story.

Caption:

1 – Leah Pipes (Mia) & E.J. Bonilla (Armando) in “Musical Chairs”