PIFF 35 Preview: ONCE UPON A TIME IN ANATOLIA

Darkness enshrouds the landscape in much of Nuri Bilge Ceylan's (Climates, Distant) latest work, Once Upon a Time in Anatolia; the best film I've seen from this year's crop at the Portland International Film Festival.  Whereas some films at the fest have seemed wafer thin (The Silver Cliff being a prime example), Ceylan's is a substantial feast; a visually stunning, 2 1/2 hour-long flick that navigates its extended running time without losing the interest of viewers or relying on cheap spectacle to keep 'em in their seats.  The balance is all in the story and characters, both of which are, like the land traversed, hidden from full view at first.

At the beginning of this tale, all we know is that a caravan of cars are driving at night.  They carry a group that includes a police commissar (Yilmaz Erdogan) and his men, a prosecuting attorney (Taner Birsel), a doctor (Muhammet Uzuner) and some suspects.  One of the suspects, Kenan (Firat Tanis), is leading them to where a body has been buried.  The only problem is that Kenan had been drinking heavily when the suspects disposed of their victim, so he's having a difficult time remembering the exact spot.  Frustration sets in; an emotion that is transferred to the viewer, given the immersive quality lent to the film by its languid pacing and, eventually, the men begin to tell each other stories.

Ceylan pulls off a clever narrative bait-and-switch here: we expect the film to be about the search. But as the characters divulge their secrets one by one, it becomes clear that the film isn't in any hurry to resolve that quest.  So we're left with what the men have to say to each other and the golden-hued spaces in which they speak their truths; a far more fascinating prospect than I could describe here without spoiling the content of those conversations.

I've enjoyed other films by Ceylan, especially Climates, but Once Upon a Time in Anatolia feels to me like the moment in which a good director has transformed into a great one.  This belongs on every cinéaste's queue.  Don't wait for video; the film deserves to be seen on the big screen.

Once Upon a Time in Anatolia will screen for the public at Cinema 21 on Feb. 19th at 7:30pm and Feb. 24th at 3pm.

Remember to find and "like" us on our Facebook page.
Subscribe to the blog's feed here.

PIFF 35 Preview: SNOWTOWN

In the overall realm of indie drama, there's the gritty stuff and then there's Snowtown, an Australian feature that makes darkly-themed masterpieces like Michael Cuesta's L.I.E. and Andrea Arnold's Fish Tank seem almost lighthearted in comparison.  First time director Justin Kurzel shows an unflinching resolve to tell his story without compromises; a choice that means that many people will not make it all the way to the end of his debut film.  For what it's worth, it's an incredibly well-crafted but, ultimately, bleak and disturbing picture.

Let's quickly go over the details: Jamie (Lucas Pittaway) lives with his mother, Elizabeth (Louise Harris), and his brothers in a run down hovel.  Not long after Elizabeth unwisely leaves her boys in the care of a neighborhood pedophile, she begins a relationship with John (Daniel Henshall), whose unhealthy obsession with retribution against sex offenders is an early indicator of his own violent dysfunction.  John and Jamie rapidly hit a dynamic that mimics a father-son relationship, promising Jamie a respite from his otherwise bleak existence, that is, until John places a gun in his hand, demanding that he become an accomplice in the first of many unthinkable tasks.

Snowtown is based on the true story of John Bunting, a notorious Australian serial killer, whose extreme hatred for homosexuals and pedophiles led him to perpetrate a series of crimes known as the Snowtown murders.  Although it's focused on Bunting's crimes, the story is relayed almost entirely from Jamie's perspective, which means the viewer is given just the contours of Bunting's malevolence at first, providing a Hitchcockian tension to the film that, once the threat has been fully substantiated, fills the audience with fearful apprehension about what lies ahead.

It's also worth noting the overall aesthetic at play here.  I mentioned Fish Tank at the beginning of the review.  Like that film, Snowtown draws heavily from Ken Loach's strategies for social realist storytelling, handheld camerawork mingles with an undressed sense of poverty-stricken places and the disenfranchised people who occupy them.

Because Kurzel's film is about a serial killer, the overall result of the realist approach couldn't be farther from other movies dealing with the same phenomenon; unlike Hollywood blockbusters about serial killers, this film doesn't romanticize or glorify its monster.  Contrasted with examples of the genre like American Psycho or Natural Born Killers, Snowtown is truly capable of inspiring a horrified recoil in the viewer, especially in those willing to stick with it and ponder the unmitigated evil being depicted here.

It's an incredibly potent and self-assured debut film, exceptionally nihilistic in its worldview and containing hypnotic, career-making performances from both Pittaway and Henshall.  It's also one of the darkest films I've ever seen at a festival, presenting sequences involving incest, pedophilia, torture, murder, animal abuse, etc.  Consider yourself warned.

Snowtown will screen for the public at the Lloyd Mall 6 on Feb. 24th at 6:30pm and at the Whitsell Auditorium on Feb. 25th at 8:30pm. 

Remember to find and "like" us on our Facebook page.
Subscribe to the blog's feed here.

PIFF 35 Preview: MONSIUER LAZHAR

Philippe Faladeau's Monsieur Lazhar travels well-trodden cinematic ground; it's easily filed into the inspirational teacher genre, of which there are already some fairly successful models out there (To Sir, with Love and Stand and Deliver come to mind).  So it's nice to see that what could have been yet another by-the-numbers entry is, in fact, an intelligent and humanistic look at a group of students and the adults mentoring them through the healing process in the wake of a tragic event.

Bachir Lazhar (Mohamed Fellag) is a man who has recently immigrated to Quebec from his Algerian homeland.  He shows up at the elementary school where most of the action of the film takes place, seeking to replace a teacher who has recently died.  While the circumstances behind Bachir's move are complicated, they make him the ideal candidate for dealing with a classroom packed full of children who have recently experienced their own loss.

While Fellag is wonderful in the film, exuding both deep sorrow and empathy, often in the same moment, the children's performances are amazingly nuanced as well.  This is especially true of the work of Sophie Nélisse and Émilien Néron, both of whom fearlessly project a complexity beyond their years.

Monsiuer Lazhar is an excellent film with an emotional core that has the potential to resonate for all ages (however, younger children might have difficulty with the themes or the fact that the film is subtitled).  In many ways, it reminded me of Thomas McCarthy's The Visitor, another film that tackles difficult subject matter in an optimistic fashion without attempting to declaw the more troubling emotional aspects at play.

Monsiuer Lazhar will screen for the public at the Lake Twin Cinema today (Feb. 11th) at 3pm and at the Lloyd Mall 6 on Feb. 13th at 6:15pm  A final screening will occur on Feb. 15th at Pioneer Place 5 at 8:45pm.

Remember to find and "like" us on our Facebook page.
Subscribe to the blog's feed here.
 

PIFF 35 Preview: THE EXTRAORDINARY VOYAGE

A gathering of scientists discuss, design and, eventually, pile into a spacecraft that takes them on a fantastic journey to our nearest satellite.  This simple outline constitutes the majority of the action in Georges Méliès' groundbreaking 1902 fantasy short, Le Voyage dans la Lune (A Trip to the Moon).

The Extraordinary Voyage tells the tale of how Méliès came to develop the techniques and audience that would allow him to undertake what was the most ambitious film-making production of its time, described as both the first international blockbuster and the Avatar of the silent era.

Interviews with Jean-Pierre Jeunet (Delicatessen), Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), Costa-Gavras (Z) and, oddly, Tom Hanks (The Da Vinci Code) establish Méliès position in the canon as the first filmmaker to break away from the film as mere document, introducing dramatic devices pulled from the stage.


The crux of The Extraordinary Voyage is of more modern concern, detailing the discovery of a hand-colored version of Le Voyage dans la Lune and the painstaking restoration of that print.  The piece does a good job of detailing the challenges of the process without dwelling too long on the technical aspects of the task.  And its easy as a viewer to root for the restoration team and their small victories as the film is rescued frame by frame.

The real treat of the presentation, however, comes after the documentary reaches its end.  The chance to see the restored, color version of A Trip to the Moon projected on a large screen is not to be missed.  Featuring a new soundtrack by the French musical duo Air, A Trip to the Moon vibrates with an unexpected amount of energy, more than a century after its conception.  

Contemporary audiences may have endless amounts of onscreen fantasies and spectacle to choose from nowadays, but this is a rare opportunity to see one of the earliest examples as it was meant to be experienced, in a theater setting.  Do not pass it up.

The Extraordinary Voyage will screen for the public at the World Trade Center Theater tonight (Feb. 10th) at 8:45pm and at the Whitsell Auditorium on Feb. 12th at 3pm.

Remember to find and "like" us on our Facebook page.
Subscribe to the blog's feed here. 

PIFF 35 Preview: THE FORGIVENESS OF BLOOD

A land dispute turns into a blood feud in Joshua Marston's (Maria Full of Grace) The Forgiveness of Blood.  Playing out somewhat like the Albanian version of Jeff Nichols' Shotgun Stories, the film focuses on the family of a man named Mark (Refet Abazi).  At the fore of the film, we learn that Mark's grandfather used to own a piece of land that has fallen into the hands of another family in the town.  Mark and his son Nik (Tristan Halilaj) experience a run-in with one of the children of the new landowner, an encounter that sets the tone for a later act of violence, placing Nik and his family under an indefinite term of house arrest.

Basically a cinematic piece on conflict resolution in Albanian society, The Forgiveness of Blood somehow never becomes overly didactic.  Instead, we're drawn into an identifiable human dilemma: Nik's desire for freedom from his father's actions and their consequences.  At the same time that Nik is struggling with his role in the dispute, his sister Rudina (Sindi Lacej) is forced to drop her studies and take up the family business, delivering bread and other goods via a horse-drawn cart.

It's fascinating to watch their differing reactions as the siblings are stifled under the constant threat of violent retribution.  The parameters of their liberty may be restricted but Rudina's ingenuity and Nik's youthful defiance color the film with an unexpected optimism tempered with uneasy acceptance.  And, yes, hand-held cinematography in art house films is SO prevalent that it may very well be reaching its breaking point (see this recent NY Times article for Manohla Dargis' take on the ubiquitous shooting strategy), but its use is entirely appropriate here, achieving both the standard aim of "reality" mixed with a tangible feeling of claustrophobia that works well with the subject matter of the film, transporting the viewer to the edge of their seat at multiple points in the story.

The Forgiveness of Blood will screen for the public at Cinemagic on Feb. 10th at 8:30pm and at the Lloyd Mall 5 on Feb. 12th at 5pm.

Remember to find and "like" us on our Facebook page.
Subscribe to the blog's feed here.
 

PIFF 35 Preview: ALMANYA: WELCOME TO GERMANY

Based on audience reaction during Wednesday's press screening for Almanya: Welcome to Germany, it's going to be really popular with this year's festival goers.  The film details the lives of a large Turkish family living in Germany.  Hüseyin (Vedat Erincin plays him in the present, Fahri Ögün Yardim is the younger version) and Fatma (Lilay Huser presently, Demet Gül in the past) left Turkey to participate in the "economic miracle" of the 1960s, when workers of the world flocked to find employment in the city centers of Germany.

40+ years later, Hüseyin and Fatma are officially becoming German citizens.  This doesn't rest too well with Hüseyin, who secretly purchases a home back in Turkey, springing the news on his family as they gather for a celebratory dinner.  He insists, to much protest from his family, that they join him in a journey to fix up the house during the upcoming holidays.

Almanya is a film that unfolds across two time periods.  The story of Hüseyin and Fatma's past is explained to Cenk (Rafael Koussouris), the youngest member of the clan, by his cousin Canan (Aylin Tezel).  Director Yasemin Samdereli allows the tale to flit between reality and light surreality, often without warning.  This works extremely well in the first half of the film, like in the very funny scene where Hüseyin and Fatma finalize their German citizenship and immediately have a pork-rich dinner thrust upon them.  The recurring sequences involving their son Muhamed's (Ercan Karacayli in the present, Kaan Aydogdu as the younger version) Coca-Cola obsession lean the hardest on the use of the surreal, yielding some of my favorite moments in the film.

The light mood does not prevail for the entire film, though, as the third act transition feels more manipulative than authentic.  While the move to a more serious set of circumstances is entirely appropriate, the manner in which it is orchestrated plays out much more by the numbers than anything that preceded it.  As I hinted at the beginning of this post, this didn't seem to faze those in the audience on Wednesday, and while it might not bother everybody, it did bug me.

Overall, Almanya is a good film with an incredibly charismatic cast of characters that will likely please a lot of PIFF attendees (expect laughter and clapping).  I just wish it could have taken a more honest route to its conclusion, without relying on emotional gerrymandering.

Almanya: Welcome to Germany will screen for the public at the Whitsell Auditorium on Feb. 10th at 6pm, the Lloyd Mall 6 on Feb. 11th at 3:15pm and 8:30pm  A final screening will occur on Feb. 12th at the Lake Twin Cinema at 8pm.

Remember to find and "like" us on our Facebook page.
Subscribe to the blog's feed here.

PIFF 35 site is up and running!

The 35th edition of the Portland International Film Festival is nearly upon us.  Just as we were beginning to crave more news about this year's festival, the official website just went live.

There aren't any listings for this year's lineup yet but there is info about how to buy passes, etc.  And, according to the site, the full schedule will be online by January 31st.

In related news, Shawn Levy of The Oregonian already spilled the beans about the locations that will play a part in the festival over a week ago.

That's it for now.  You can be sure that we'll have more posts about PIFF in the near future.

Remember to find and "like" us on our Facebook page.
Subscribe to the blog's feed here.

Welcome to the new year!!!

Happy new year everyone!!!  A belated best of 2011 list heading to the blog sometime in the next week.  Funny how a new baby and film projects can slow this stuff down to (less than) a trickle.  Looking back, the last time I posted was three days before my son was born.

I've already started compiling the list, so keep an eye out.  It should be hitting the blog in no time.  And speaking of blogging, PIFF 35 is happening next month.  I'm working the festival again, so expect to see more frequent posting during the month of February!

Until then, here's hoping everyone had a safe, happy holiday celebration and are on their way to a beautiful 2012.

Remember to find and "like" us on our Facebook page.
Subscribe to the blog's feed here.

ILLEGAL: Doing Time in Belgium

Having my recent experiences with Belgian films mostly confined to bittersweet comedies like Eldorado, I was somewhat unprepared for the unyielding bleakness of Olivier Masset-Depasse's Illégal, a film more in line with the emotional terrain of Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne's oeuvre than with the absurd humor of a work like Gustave de Kervern and Benoît Delépine's Aaltra.

Winner of the Prix SACD at the 2010 Director's Fortnight at Cannes, Illégal highlights the plight of Tania (Anne Coesens), a woman who has fled Russia with her adolescent son in tow, seeking a better life in Belgium.  Their actual experience in this newly adopted homeland is far from ideal, as an overwhelming paranoia about discovery and deportation by the authorities becomes a part of their daily lives.  Early on, when the plot takes the expected turn and Tania is caught, she's separated from her son and thrown into a detainment center that resembles nothing less than a prison.

Massat-Depasse makes use of the fictional scenario as an opportunity to frankly discuss the real life treatment of illegal immigrants in contemporary Belgian society.  Tania and her fellow inmates undergo extreme physical and mental abuse both within the walls of the holding station and, especially, when forced to participate in repeated "deportation rituals" designed to shake loose a confession from those inmates withholding the basic information required by the government to enact a legal deportation process.

The film's grim story is well supported by the omnipresent gray tones mixed into the color palette of its cinematography.  The overall look of the film is a bit washed out but that, along with the use of hand held cameras throughout, helps forward the notion that we're peering into a reality lived by the dispossessed around the world, since the narrative is easily transposed to multiple nations whose actions surrounding illegal immigration are dubious at best.

As much as this sounds like an intellectual exercise on the part of the filmmakers, Coesens' powerfully nuanced performance as Tania is what keeps the movie from flying off the tracks and devolving into a formulaic message piece.  Watching as Tania agonizingly yearns for a reunion with her son, despite full knowledge of all the obstacles conspiring to keep that from occurring, is to witness a performance so grounded in character and realistic motivation that it actually inspires a belief in the viewer that, if sheer will were enough, Tania just might overcome her circumstances.


Remember to find and "like" us on our Facebook page.
Subscribe to the blog's feed here.

NOSTALGIA FOR THE LIGHT: Luminously Sifting Through the Past

 

With his latest film, Nostalgia for the Light, Chilean director Patricio Guzmán (The Battle of Chile) achieves a near-impossible feat in documentary film.  He's produced a philosophically rich work that makes palpable connections between the Earth and sky alongside the historical and the theoretical, spanning both time and emotional space.  

Opening with a focus on the Atacama Desert's uniquely immaculate conditions for astronomical observation, it's not long before Guzmán is able to weave between this scientific discipline's engagement with the past (as in light seen from the Earth long after it's emanated from the cosmos) and the personal and political turmoil that still lingers long after the brutal reign of Augusto Pinochet.

To this end, Guzmán juxtaposes his interviews with astronomers against conversations with women who still comb the desert in search of their disappeared men, lost to the assassinations of the Pinochet era.  The comparison works well since, in addition to the established temporal concerns of these speakers, the complete lack of humidity in the Atacama Desert--preserving the bodies of the dead while simultaneously providing a prime opportunity to gaze upon celestial bodies--is the common thread that enables both quests.

 

 

The entire film boils down to a single provocative statement made by one of Guzmán's subjects: there is no present.  And for the people being documented here, it's a truth that hard to deny.  Like all of us, they are wrapped up in an ongoing evaluation of moments that have already drifted past our constantly unfolding futures.



Remember to find and "like" us on our Facebook page.
Subscribe to the blog's feed here.

Revolución in Portland

This feature-length collection of shorts by some of the best and emerging talents of the contemporary Mexican film scene is unified in a couple of ways.  One of its directors, Amat Escalante (Los Bastardos), who was on-hand for a Q&A at the Saturday afternoon PIFF screening, divulged that each person invited to make a short was asked by the producers to reflect upon the 100th anniversary of the Mexican Revolution via a piece set in modern times.  Beyond that slight imposition, there's also a notable thematic harmony brandished within several of the individual works that questions what lasting progress exists as a result of the revolution, as evidenced through the many nods to globalization and marketing in both public spaces and private lives.

For instance, Escalante's haunting piece, The Hanging Priest, concludes its action in a McDonald's restaurant.  While Rodrigo García's (Mother and Child) 7th and Alvarado places Pancho Villa and his men in downtown Los Angeles, surrounded by a dense modern environment packed with commercial signifiers.  And Mariana Chenillo's (Nora's Will) The Estate Store, inspired by an article she read in a local newspaper, exhibits the abuses visited upon common workers trapped in a type of wage slavery common in pre-revolutionary times.

Other shorts, like Carlos Reygadas' (Silent Light) This is My Kingdom and Gerardo Narango's (I'm Gonna Explode) R-100 go so far as to create revolution respectively via a juxtaposition of class and character situations based in desperation.  (Note: the clip below contains Reygadas' film in its entirety.)

All in all, like many short film collections based in shared concepts, Revolución is somewhat of a mixed bag.  Reygadas', Garcia's and Escalante's contributions come to mind as being the strongest of the ten films.  But even the weakest of the bunch have elements worth recommending.


Remember to find and "like" us on our Facebook page.
Subscribe to the blog's feed here.

PIFF After Dark: RUBBER

 What to say about a horror movie starring a tire?  Unsurprisingly, Quentin Dupieux's Rubber was one of the most unique films showcased at this year's Portland International Film Festival, even among those relegated to the late-night PIFF After Dark screenings.  Despite a completely packed house at the Hollywood Theatre, it was a good call to schedule the film as a part of the newly minted after hours series, especially since it might not have had the same draw without the blessing of local Grindhouse Film Festival overlord Dan Halsted (who programmed all the PIFF After Dark features).

 As for the movie itself, it upended all my expectations of just being a slightly more wacky take on the tried and true splattercore genre.  Instead of riding that old pony to town, Rubber takes a decidedly more conceptual route, fixing its sights on nothing less than a playful examination of the act of observation.  The killer tire of the title ends up being really no more than a sideshow act to the ideas explored by Dupieux and his cast, which pits an in-film audience (watching the movie via binoculars) against the participants of the main narrative.  Those players acting out the narrative--tracking down the tire as it rolls from one corpse to its next victim--desperately want to rid themselves of the audience, 'cause without those eyes watching them they can just relax and go home.

Yes, it is super-meta material for a genre film.  And by the end of the movie, the concept has been stretched a little thin.  Still, Rubber rises above the standard horror fare through its dogged resistance to categorization and the reliance upon ideas rather than just cheap thrills.  Plus, it's wicked fun to see with an audience.

Hopefully, it'll make its way back to a screen in PDX soon, especially since I get the feeling that it just might connect with the same adventurous audiences that came out for last year's week long run of Hausu at Cinema 21.


Remember to find and "like" us on our Facebook page.
Subscribe to the blog's feed here.

Portland International Film Festival preview day 15: OF LOVE & OTHER DEMONS & WHEN WE LEAVE

Hailing from Costa Rica, Of Love and Other Demons is the quite promising debut feature by director Hilda Hidalgo.  Working from a text by Gabriel García Márquez, Hidalgo crafts a deliberately paced film that entrances as much as it provokes.  As far as Márquez adaptations go, this one is especially appropriate in its translation of the great Columbian writer's evocative prose to equally fascinating imagery, especially in the haunting dream passages that are revisited several times during the film.

The story concerns Sierva, a young girl born of nobility who is bitten by a dog presumed to be rabid.  Given that it's set in colonial times, this turn of events ends up being tantamount to a prison sentence, as Sierva's condition is read by the local Catholic bishop as a possible case of demon possession.  Accordingly, she's locked up in a convent and put under the observation of a group of nuns and one sympathetic priest.

 

Simply told and visually stunning, Of Love and Other Demons is a film that absolutely deserves a larger audience.  Being that it's not one of the more hyped films at the festival, it would be easy to miss it in favor of more high profile films.  I'd suggest catching this modest piece now, since it could very well be the only chance to see it on the big screen in Portland.

Of Love and Other Demons plays at the Cinema 21 on Feb. 25th at 9pm and Feb. 26th at 2:30pm.

Sibel Kekilli is quickly emerging as one of the most talented actresses out of Germany.  After making her feature debut in Fatih Akin's Head-On, she was rewarded for her efforts with the best actress award at the German film awards.  With her most recently acclaimed performance in When We Leave, Kekilli has solidified the impression that she's an actress worth following, as well as capturing the best actress award in her native country for a second time.

In Feo Aladag's directorial debut, Kekilli plays Umay, a Turkish-German woman who flees the violence of her husband with her young son in tow.  Arriving at the doorstep of her parents home, all hopes that Umay will find solace in the arms of family are shattered as the strongly patriarchal traditions of her Turkish upbringing trump any concerns over her safety or happiness.

Pitch-perfect performances and Aladag's emphasis on characters over design blend to make When We Leave a completely engrossing piece of cinema, capturing a world that feels entirely lived-in and real.  There's only one moment near the very end of the film that feels even the slightest bit contrived.  But even that slight misstep can easily be forgiven when taking into account the power of the film as a whole.

When We Leave plays at the Whitsell Auditorium on Feb. 23rd at 8:30pm and on Feb. 26th at 8pm.

Portland International Film Festival preview day 14 pt.2: THE LAST CIRCUS

Álex de la Iglesia isn't likely to become a household name anytime soon.  Embraced by a certain type of film nerd, the director of 800 Bullets and La Comunidad tends to push the envelope when it comes to blending representations of violence, humor and sex in darkly unhinged ways, resulting in a concoction of pure crazy that resembles the work of pretty much no one else.  My personal favorite film by him, El Crimen Perfecto, ratchets up a fairly standard take on workplace competition to murderous and (possibly) demonic heights, disregarding all notions of taste or decency.

The Last Circus travels the same path as most of de la Iglesia's best work.  Basically, this means that the legibility of the plot is sometimes obscured by the action unleashed on the screen.  For a good deal of the run time, it hardly matters, since the sheer audacity on display substitutes quite nicely for more fleshed out characters and motivations.  At the same time, the tale of two killer circus clowns battling it out in post-Franco Spain for the love (or is it the hate?) of another circus performer doesn't really need to be strongly grounded in the real to play well with audiences accustomed to cult cinema.

Honestly, I'm surprised that this one didn't get picked up for the late night PIFF After Dark programming, as it would probably click best with the same audience that showed up for Friday night's screening of Rubber.  I enjoyed The Last Circus quite a bit while still acknowledging its weaknesses (a muddled third act drowned in endless and, eventually, numbing madcap action, for instance).

I almost feel like this sort of film needs a disclaimer for the uninitiated, indicating that its concerns are tied more into b-movie aesthetics than the average festival film.  To take it too seriously would be a mistake, drastically reducing one's chances at enjoying what actually does works about the movie.
To quote a friend after the press screening: that was a complete mess.  My take: yeah, it's a mess.  A beautiful, enthralling mess.

The Last Circus plays at the Whitsell Auditorium on Feb. 25th at 8:45pm.  An additional screening is scheduled at the Broadway Theater on Feb. 26th at 5:15pm.

Portland International Film Festival preview day 14 pt.1: EVEN THE RAIN

This weekend is the busiest of the fest with additional venues (Hollywood Theatre, Cinema 21 & Cinemagic) joining the PIFF army.  Between working at the fest & my regular job, it's 3 full days of doubles for me.  So here's a quick 1/2 day posting on the first of the two films screened at last Thursday's press screenings.

A Spanish film crew arrives in Bolivia to begin a production about the exploitation of the natives by Christopher Columbus.  At the same time, the indigenous people who are being cast in the film are in deep conflict with the Bolivian government over water rights, which are controlled by interests from abroad.

Icíar Bollaín's well-intentioned film pushes this parallel between historical and modern forms of colonialism well past the breaking point, reminding us at every turn how little things have changed.  It's a frightfully valid observation but the repetition of this single point lessens the overall impact of the film, especially when it feels like the recurring reminders are meant to compensate for the stragglers in the audience who may have not caught on the first five or so times that the comparison is made.

Oh...and it's also difficult to figure out who our protagonist is until more than halfway through the film.  Which would be fine in a more experimentally (or even playfully) written piece but this is one exceptionally conventional narrative film.

Even the Rain  plays at the Whitsell Auditorium on Feb. 24th at 9:15pm.  An additional screening is scheduled at the Broadway Theater on Feb. 26th at 8pm.

Portland International Film Festival preview day 13: BLACK BREAD & PASSIONE

I ended up skipping the press screenings on Wednesday.  Here's what I missed:


Agusti Villaronga's Black Bread:

and John Turturro's Passione:

Black Bread plays at the Broadway Theater on Feb. 6pm and again at 8:30.  An additional screening is scheduled on Feb. 25th at 3:15pm.


Passione plays at the Whitsell Auditorium on Feb. 20th at 5pm and Feb. 21st at 7:30pm.

Portland International Film Festival preview day 12: MY JOY & THE DOUBLE HOUR

Set against the depressed landscape of the Ukrainian roadside, Sergei Loznitsa's My Joy hitches a ride with a young trucker, Georgy, as he hauls wheat to an unnamed destination.  Along the way, he encounters a young prostitute, an elderly war veteran, a gang of homeless robbers and no end of human misery.

And then a violent shift in the action and story occurs, leaving the audience stranded with a new and oddly inaccessible principal character, which is beyond confusing since there's very little in the way of a transition leading up to this change.  The only holdover from the first part of the film being a dark, malignant tone that never lets up.

My Joy plays at the Broadway Theater on Feb. 19th at 8pm and Feb. 20th at 6:45pm.  An additional screening is scheduled at Cinemagic on Feb. 21st at 2pm.

 

Guiseppe Capotondi's The Double Hour is an odd duck of a film, starting out as an exploration of one genre before hitting the brakes and setting off in an entirely different direction.  The first third of the film had me floored as it promised to be the most original, mature and honest love story since David Gordon Green's All the Real Girls. 

Alas, it wasn't meant to be, since the narrative quickly drops a bomb in the lap of the audience, sending the remainder of the film off onto a more conventional, thriller-based path, which is still very entertaining but left me wishing that the filmmakers had held true to the initial thrust of the story.  It's absolutely worth seeing for that first section but somewhat diminished by the decision to move away from a simple tale of connection between two lonely people.

The Double Hour plays at Cinemagic on Feb. 19th at 4pm.  Additional screenings are scheduled at the Broadway Theater on Feb. 21st at 2pm, Feb. 22nd at 8:45pm and Feb. 23rd at 9:15pm.

Portland International Film Festival preview day 11: HOW TO DIE IN OREGON & POETRY

Peter D. Richardson's second feature-length documentary, How to Die in Oregon, is the hot ticket at the 34th annual Portland International Film Festival.  Setting his sights on showing the real life beneficiaries of Oregon's "death with dignity" law, Richardson isn't as much interested in seriously debating the political aspects of that landmark voter approved legislation as he is in exploring the comfort that its options bring some of the terminally ill subjects of his film.  As many of those individuals express for themselves, their choice to partake in physician-assisted suicide represents a final reclamation of control in the face of illnesses that have denied them that ability in every other aspect of their lives.

Winner of this year's Grand Jury prize for the best U.S. documentary at the Sundance Film Festival, How to Die in Oregon is not an easy film to watch.  At the fore of the film, we're placed in a room with a terminal cancer patient as he ingests a prescription cocktail that will bring his life to a close.  At its center, the film tells the story of Cody Curtis, a woman in her mid-fifties whose recurrent liver cancer has brought her to embrace the idea of ending life on her own terms.  Cody's story is by far the most harrowing and persuasive in a film filled with difficult themes and heart rending moments.  As she and her family openly struggle with end of life issues, the film blooms into one of the finest documentaries I've seen in many years.


How to Die in Oregon plays at the Whitsell Auditorium on Feb. 19th at 5:30pm.  Additional screenings are programmed at the Broadway Theater on Feb. 20th at 9:30am and Feb. 21st at 7:30pm.  
Advanced tickets for all three shows are sold out, so anyone looking to get in should arrive at least 1/2 hour early to take advantage of any rush tickets that may be sold.

Poetry, the newest film from South Korean director Lee Chang-Dong, is a slow-moving character piece built around a late in life awakening to beauty that is marred by a cruel and irresolvable tragedy.  The film follows Mija, an aging woman who enrolls in a poetry seminar.  Mija and her classmates are given the task of writing a single poem by the time the final session comes to a close.  Her instructor's advice for writing poetry involves opening up to one's surroundings, noticing the ordinary as if encountering it for the first time.  To this end, Chang-Dong places Mija into moments of discovery that resemble visual poetry--the first drops of a rainstorm scattering over a sheet of notebook paper, for instance--while simultaneously forcing his protagonist into a terrible awakening about the nature of her grandson, Wook, and his friends.

I really enjoyed Poetry even while acknowledging my impatience with its very deliberate pacing.  Chang-Dong's slow-movement through the plot of the film gives the viewer the opportunity to crawl into the skin of Mija, feeling the horror of the truths she must face, as well as the euphoria offered up in her embrace of the poetic.

Poetry plays at the Whitsell Auditorium on Feb. 19th at 2:30pm.  An additional screening is scheduled at the Broadway Theater on Feb. 21st at 6:30pm.

Portland International Film Festival preview day 10: THE FOUR TIMES & THE HOUSEMAID

Every year 'round festival time, I tend to encounter at least one feature that I end up considering my little secret.  It's usually something that didn't get a lot of advance press and/or awards gathered from Cannes or Sundance.  A couple of years ago, my "secret" was Jens Lien's The Bothersome Man.  This time around, it's Michelangelo Frammartino's The Four Times from Italy.

Frammartino's second movie is an entirely dialogue-free investigation of the transforming nature of existence, featuring an almost completely unexpected and very original shift in both the narrative and subject about a quarter of the way into the film.  It's a picture that successfully captures the most mundane aspects of rural life in ways that I've never seen depicted on celluloid.  Imagine a movie that gives equal billing to an elderly gentleman, a goat, a tree and a pile of charcoal.  Can't quite picture it?  Well, that's why you should catch The Four Times, which along with Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives and Certified Copy is one of my favorites playing at PIFF this year.

The Four Times plays at the Whitsell Auditorium on Feb. 19th at 8:30pm.  An additional screening is scheduled at the Broadway Theater on Feb. 20th at 2:45pm.

Hailing from South Korea, The Housemaid is a melodrama featuring more than a small dollop of the extreme situations that cinema fans have come to expect of films from the region.  Psychosexual tension based around issues of class?  Check.  Spooky older backstabbing ladies?  Yes, indeed-y.  Ridiculously over the top endings that still kind of work due to their sheer audacity?  You betcha.

There are moments in Sang-soo Im's (The President's Last Bang) film that don't work.  Many of the salacious sex scenes have a straight from late night cable feel that reduce the impact of the impeccable design on display in much of the film.  And the meddling mother-in-law poised as an Iago-esque adviser pushes the tone of the melodrama past the breaking point at times.  But, all in all, you could do a lot worse than to include The Housemaid as part of your PIFF experience.

The Housemaid plays at the Broadway Theater on Feb. 18th at 8:15pm.  An additional screening is scheduled at Cinemagic on Feb. 19th at 8:45pm.