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.
Friday, February 18, 2011
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.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
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.
Monday, February 14, 2011
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.
Saturday, February 12, 2011
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.
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.
Friday, February 11, 2011
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.
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.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
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.
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