Portland International Film Festival preview day 9: LA PIVELLINA and THE WHISTLEBLOWER

Walking into the Whitsell Auditorium on Wednesday, memories of Uncle Boonmee still dancing in my head, I really had no preconceived notions about either La Pivellina or The Whistleblower, other than thinking that the synopsis of the second film resembled Norma Rae or Silkwood meets The Constant Gardener.

Hailing from Austria but set in Italy, Tizza Covi and Rainer Frimmel's La Pivellina revolves around the discovery of an abandoned child on a playground swing by Patty, an aging woman with a shocking red dye job.  Patty lives in a rundown trailer park with her husband, Walter.  She brings the child home, a decision that distresses Walter, as he believes that their class position will only add to any judgment that might be brought against them if the child were discovered by others.

This is a film that is, despite what I wrote above, absolutely not plot driven.  It meanders along in a way that resembles life, even if the decision made by Patty doesn't necessarily register as something that most folks would find themselves doing. 
The image quality of the digital transfer was problematic during Thursday's screening.  The imdb.com page for the film claims that the original source material was 16mm.  What I saw at the Whitsell often looked like a consumer grade camcorder image that was falling apart.  Severely underexposed passages with jagged diagonal lines were common, as were moments where objects with strongly vertical or horizontal lines seemed to bounce in and out of the image.  These rough spots were contrasted with incredibly beautiful moments of well-lit cinematography, making it apparent that the theater's equipment wasn't to blame for the marred sections of the film.

Given that very little happens in the movie, it was a shame that these image problems occurred, since it made it difficult to become fully engaged with the meandering flow of the film.  I might have liked it more if there hadn't been so many moments where I was busy being critical about the overall look of it.

La Pivellina plays at Broadway Theater on Feb. 14th at 6:15pm, Feb. 16th at 9:15pm and Feb. 17th at 8:45pm.

Larysa Kondracki's debut feature, The Whistleblower, is based on the true story of Kathryn Bolkovac, a Nebraska police officer who takes on a position as a U.N. peacekeeping officer in post-war Bosnia.  After aiding the first successful prosecution of a domestic abuse case in the country, Kathryn is given the opportunity to work as a gender relations official.  It's not long before she discovers that what appears to be a local prostitution is actually a highly organized human trafficking ring, protected by the very people who are supposed to be aiding the Bosnian people.

The film is extremely heavy-handed in its storytelling.  Every bit of dramatic tension that can be wrung out of the story is exploited beyond its limits.  Each moment in the film seems to boldly exclaim its own significance, begging the audience to be moved by even the most minute of details.  Yes, producers and filmmakers of The Whistleblower we do realize that sex trafficking is bad.  We (and, yeah, I'm kind of speaking for the audience here) also think that a professional police officer from a major city probably would have heard of human trafficking before stumbling upon it.  We also think that Rachel Weisz and David Strathairn deserve better than the thankless roles they struggle to flesh out in this film.

The Whistleblower plays at Cinemagic on Feb. 18th at 6:15pm.  There are additional screenings at the Broadway Theater on Feb. 20th at 12pm and at Cinemagic on Feb. 21st at 5pm.

Portland International Film Festival preview day 8: UNCLE BOONMEE & IN A BETTER WORLD

The press screening at the Whitsell Auditorium was packed on Wednesday in anticipation of two of the more hyped up films at this year's installment of PIFF.  Susanne Bier's (After the Wedding, Brothers) newest picture, In a Better World, took the best foreign language film award at the Golden Globes and is nominated in the same category at this year's Academy Awards.  Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, besides winning the competition for the longest title in the PIFF schedule, is the first film from Thailand to receive the Palm d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.

Uncle Boonmee is the sort of film that will appeal strongly to a certain kind of filmgoer, while leaving the majority of viewers wondering why so much attention has been placed upon this curious Thai import.  One of the festival staff confessed that a passholder complained that he has had "a better time watching oil drip down a dipstick."  Having said that, Weerasethakul's film is among the best two or three films I've seen in the program thus far.  It's a movie that continues to clang around in your head days after you've seen it.  I'm already dying to see it again.

Weerasethakul keeps the narrative wide-open, blending everyday life and myth within a loose and experimental narrative that requires the audience to suss out much of the details for themselves.  Coming out of the film with a friend, we spoke about it in terms of lenses through which the film could be viewed, rather than the specifics of plot, ranging from the mindful juxtaposition of interior and exterior spaces to representations of time.  None of which goes anywhere near describing what the film looks or feels like to a first-time viewer. 
What to expect: long (VERY long) takes of natural jungle settings, vividly life-like sound design, supernatural events, unexpected movements away from the primary narrative with little to no conventional segue (ex: hey, suddenly there's a princess being carried through the jungle by her servants...um, ok, I'll just go with it), etc.

I really don't want to talk too much more about the film, as I'd encourage potential viewers to go into it with as little preconception as possible.  But here's just a very basic overview of the plot:
Boonmee is a man dying of kidney failure.  One evening while dining, the spirit of Huay, Boonmee's late wife, appears at the table.  While having a conversation with Huay's ghost, their long-missing son, Boonsong appears in a greatly transformed state.  There's talk of shadowy figures called "monkey ghosts" and interspecies (or is it supernatural) mating.  Oh, and later there's an awe-inspiring and befuddling sequence involving a princess and a catfish.  Yup...a catfish.

Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives plays at the Whitsell Auditorium on Feb. 16th at 8:45pm.  There is an additional screening at Cinemagic on Feb. 18th at 9pm.

In a Better World is exactly the type of film you expect to see programmed in festivals and featured at awards shows.  Examining nothing less than the human condition and the phenomenon of violence as it cycles through the culture, it sets its sights on extremely lofty (and hyper-dramatic) goals that, although traveled by many other filmmakers (yeah, I'm lookin' at you Alejandro González Iñárritu), it mostly ends up achieving.

Centering on two young boys, Christian and Elias, who have come under the attack of school bullies, the film exhibits how (yeah, I know...it's simplistic and obvious) violence begets more violence.  Parallel to the schoolyard squabbles, Elias' father, Anton, is bullied by a mechanic after Anton breaks up a fight between two kids at a playground.  Despite Anton's warnings that reprisals will only bring more trouble, Christian and Elias decide to teach Anton's bully a lesson, a decision that spirals out of control, as these things tend to do.

In a Better World plays at Cinemagic on Feb. 20th at 4:45pm.  There is an additional screening at the Broadway Theater on Feb. 21st at 7:15pm.

Opening Night

Things get kicked off in style this evening for the 34th annual Portland International Film Festival.  The newest feature from French auteur François Ozon (Swimming Pool, Water Drops on Burning Rocks), Potiche, starring Catherine Deneuve and Gérard Depardieu, is this year's opening night film.  The festival schedule describes the film thusly:

"Updating a popular boulevard farce and employing a shrewd sense of its vintage camp elements, Ozon and his stellar cast poke fun at the foibles of French society and the war between the sexes. Set in the late 1970s in the provincial town of Sainte-Guenole, Suzanne Pujol (Catherine Deneuve) lives a bourgeois life dutifully waiting on her philandering husband Robert (Fabrice Luchini), who seems to be managing the family umbrella factory into bankruptcy. Everyone thinks that Madame Pujol is just “une potiche”—a trophy housewife—but when labor troubles break out at the factory and her husband has a heart attack, Madame has to take over the business. Aided by her Communist ex-lover Babin (Gérard Depardieu), she quickly proves that she’s more than mere decoration, setting in motion a suitably complicated power struggle for control of the business."



Information about the opening night screening (and the accompanying opening festivities) can be found at the official PIFF 34 site.  The madness begins now.
 

 

Portland International Film Festival preview day 7: AFTERSHOCK & A FAMILY

I entered into the Whitsell Auditorium for Tuesday's PIFF press screenings expecting to begin the day with a Chinese take on the Hollywood disaster film.  After all, this is certainly what the trailer for Aftershock would lead most people to believe:

In actuality, Xiaogang Feng's film is a dramatic feature that takes place almost entirely after the events of the Tangshan earthquake of 1976, which, according to the film, claimed the lives of over 240,000 people.  We're given entry to this tragedy via a set of fraternal twins and their mother, separated by the disaster.

The first fifteen minutes of the film, in which we meet this family and get to see the natural disaster unfold, shows a lot of promise.  But when the post-earthquake rescue is followed by the first of many narrative leaps into the future, things begin to unravel quickly and the movie loses focus.  From there, the film slowly devolves into one long slog where it becomes increasingly difficult to care much about any one member of the family, due mostly to the director's stubborn resistance to providing the audience with a central protagonist.  Aftershock is almost 2 1/2 hours long (it feels longer).   And it's very apparent where the story is headed almost from the moment the post-quake rescue effort is summed up (at about the 15 minute point).

I should mention that Aftershock is the biggest domestic box office success in the history of Chinese cinema.  Go figure.

Aftershock plays at the Whitsell Auditorium on Feb. 13th at 7pm.  It screens again at the Broadway Theater on Feb. 14th at 7pm and one last time at the Whitsell Auditorium on Feb. 17th at 5:30pm.

Pernille Fischer Christensen's (Soap) newest film, A Family is a well sculpted piece of cinema concerned with the issues of duty, love and, you guessed it, family.  Ditte is the eldest daughter of Rikard, the proprietor of a bakery that's been in the family for three generations.  Rikard, whose health is failing him, needs an heir to the family business and looks to Ditte to assume that role.  Leading up to her father's request, Ditte's been offered an enviable position at a gallery in New York and, along with her boyfriend Peter, has made sacrifices in order to accept the job.

 

  

Audience members seeking a reprieve from the realities of life need not apply for a seat at this table, as what at first seems like a light chamber drama develops into a dark and mournful film.  However, the acting alone, especially from Jesper Christensen as Rikard and Lene Maria Christensen as Ditte, is worth enduring the expected Scandinavian heaviness.  Very highly recommended.

A Family plays at the Broadway Theater on Feb. 12th at 3:15pm and 8:45pm and again on Feb. 14th at 9pm.

Feed, links and more added to THE RAIN FALLS DOWN ON PORTLANDTOWN

I'm still fairly new to this blogging stuff, so the site is still somewhat under construction.  Just wanted to point out a few new additions to the page:

#1  I've added the ability for readers to subscribe to a feed for the blog.  If you find what's going on here interesting, go ahead and take advantage of that feature (found in the upper right hand corner of the page).  It's the easiest way to get new posts as soon as they're published.

#2 There's a short list of links for other blogs that I enjoy reading, including local blogger Anne Richardson's great Tall True Tales: Oregon Film A to Z site.  One of her more exciting recent posts?  An announcement that the Oregon Film Commission will be hosting a pre-release screening of Kelly Reichardt's (Wendy & Lucy, Old Joy) Meek's Cutoff (starring Michelle Williams) at the Elsinore Theater in Salem, Oregon.  Check out Anne's site for more info!

#3 I've added the ability to share via Facebook & Twitter, as well as the ability to perform a Google search through the posts.  Now you can share and search to your heart's content, people!

Hope these changes make it easier to enjoy the blog.  Keep an eye out for future posts...or subscribe to the feed and you won't even have to pay that close of attention!

Portland International Film Festival preview day 6: BOY

I was feeling pretty run down when Monday morning crept around and, as a result, only caught the first of the two features programmed for that day's press screenings.  The second one, Human Resources Manager from Israel, is scheduled for a dvd release in April via the Film Movement dvd label, so I'll likely get around to it sometime 'round then.

I've been looking forward to seeing Boy ever since the festival schedule was announced.  It's the second feature from New Zealand actor/director Taika Waititi, following the indie-cult success of Eagle vs Shark (2007).  Here's the trailer for that earlier feature:

Eagle vs. Shark gathered more than a few comparisons to Napoleon Dynamite, which, if you watch the trailer above, seems fair.  Except, while I didn't much care for Napoleon D, I really dug its New Zealand cousin quite a bit.  Chalk it up to different strokes for different folks...or a love of NZ accents (maybe).

Waititi's new film is an ever slightly more mature product, inspired in part by his 2003 Oscar-nominated short film Two Cars, One Night:

Boy tells the story of a kid named, appropriately enough, Boy.  After his mother died giving birth to his younger brother Rocky (yes, it's a pop reference--watch out, there are MANY), their father, Alamein, was thrown in prison for robbery.  In their father's absence, the kids have been under the care of their grandmother.  That is, until shortly after the start of the film, when Alamein is released from prison.

Thus far, Waititi's characters have all been misfits and dreamers and Boy is no exception.  He's obsessed with Michael Jackson to an almost unhealthy degree, mentioning him no less than three times during the introduction.  He's friends with a goat.  And, to top it all off, Boy is pretty sure that his father is a war hero, rather than a convict.

Alamein's return proves him to be no less delusional than his son, smoking endless amounts of marijuana and drinking all day instead of taking proper care of his kids.  Nevertheless, Boy quickly transfers his hero worship onto his father, even seeing him take on the signature moves of Michael Jackson to comic effect.

Perhaps because the narrative is filtered through the consciousness of a child, Boy comes off as less self-conscious and twee than Eagle vs. Shark felt at times.  Although I enjoyed both films, I'm guessing that the second feature will likely pull in more viewers.

Boy plays at the Broadway Theater on Feb. 13th at 1:45pm, Feb. 17th at 6:45pm, Feb 18th at 6pm and Feb. 19th at 8:15pm.


Just in case anyone's curious about the second film that screened on Monday, here's the trailer:

Human Resources Manager plays at the Broadway Theater on Feb. 12th at 8pm, Feb. 13th at 2:45pm and Feb. 13th at 5:15pm.

Exceptional films from years past

I've spent a lot of time this week writing about the films that are about to play at this year's Portland International Film Fest.  Here's a short list of some of the best films I've caught at the annual fest (mind you, I've only been living in PDX for about 6 years now):

The Bothersome Man dir. Jens Lien from Norway:

Silent Light dir. Carlos Reygadas from Mexico:

Lights in the Dusk dir. Aki Kaurismäki from Finland:

The Edge of Heaven dir. Fatih Akin from Germany:

The Visitor dir. Thomas McCarthy from the United States:

Taxidermia dir. György Pálfi from Hungary:

Shotgun Stories dir. Jeff Nichols from the United States:

Afghan Muscles dir. Andreas Dalsgaard from Denmark:

Red Road dir. Andrea Arnold from England:

Fish Tank dir. Andrea Arnold from England:

Chronicle of an Escape dir. Adrián Caetano from Argentina:

Forever dir. Heddy Honigmann from the Netherlands: