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.

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!