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:
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Portland International Film Fest preview day 5: CERTIFIED COPY & IF I WANT TO WHISTLE, I WHISTLE
I'm not even going to bother pretending that Friday's press screenings for PIFF need much vetting, since the festival programmers saved two of the most critically acclaimed films at the fest for the end of the week. Along with Monday's screening of Silent Souls from Russia, If I Want to Whistle I Whistle and Certified Copy were the finest features of the week. Whereas viewing the previous day's screenings had felt a bit like doing homework, Friday's films were an absolute joy to watch.
Florin Serban's If I Want to Whistle, I Whistle peers deeply into the world of Silviu, a teenage inmate at a juvenile detention center in the Romanian countryside. Two weeks before he is to be released from the institution, Silviu is visited by his younger brother, who informs him that their mother has returned and has plans to abscond to Italy in one week with the younger brother in tow. Being the damaged product of his mother's care, Silviu is shaken by this news and enters into an unsteady campaign to prevent their mother from realizing her intentions.
Romanian films aren't exactly known for their light and airy approaches to narrative and this one doesn't stray at all from that preconception. Serban's camera places Silviu in an emotionally unforgiving and cold terrain that owes a debt of influence to the films of Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne (Rosetta, La Promesse). Like those Belgian filmmakers, the director abstains from the use of unnecessary exposition to tell his story, preferring to observe behavior rather than explain it. It's a strategy that pays off in dividends, as we are placed intimately into the spaces occupied by the young protagonist and forced to grapple with his frustrations and decisions. If I Want to Whistle, I Whistle is a great film by an emerging talent.
If I Want to Whistle, I Whistle plays at the Broadway Theater on Feb. 11th at 7pm, Feb. 12th at 5:15pm and Feb. 15th at 9pm.
Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami (Ten, Close-Up) is without debate an established master in the contemporary cinematic canon, celebrated critically and at film festivals the world round. Which, unfortunately, doesn't translate to most of his films being very accessible to the majority of film goers. Experimental documentaries and narratives set almost entirely in automobiles apparently don't thrill the masses, regardless of how many film geeks gush at the mere mention of Kiarostami's name. His new film, Certified Copy, starring French film star Juliette Binoche (who won the best actress award at Cannes for this performance) and the world-renowned opera baritone William Shimell, has more potential to draw in new viewers to Kiarostami's work than any of his films since the much loved 1997 feature, Taste of Cherry.
Which is not to say that Certified Copy is without its own experimental devices, as the film certainly blurs its narrative into an exercise wherein reality takes on the shape of the ideas being debated by the characters. However, these unorthodox narrative tendencies are made entirely palatable by the sheer loveliness of the performances, the lush look of the film and the tireless wit of the screenplay. I won't bother with describing the actual story, as it's best encountered freshly and without preformed notions about its plot.
At this point, there's still another two weeks (and twenty films) left in the PIFF press screening schedule. For now, I declare Certified Copy the one to beat.
Certified Copy plays at the Whitsell Auditorium on Feb. 12th at 3pm and Feb. 14th at 8:45pm.
Florin Serban's If I Want to Whistle, I Whistle peers deeply into the world of Silviu, a teenage inmate at a juvenile detention center in the Romanian countryside. Two weeks before he is to be released from the institution, Silviu is visited by his younger brother, who informs him that their mother has returned and has plans to abscond to Italy in one week with the younger brother in tow. Being the damaged product of his mother's care, Silviu is shaken by this news and enters into an unsteady campaign to prevent their mother from realizing her intentions.
If I Want to Whistle, I Whistle plays at the Broadway Theater on Feb. 11th at 7pm, Feb. 12th at 5:15pm and Feb. 15th at 9pm.
Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami (Ten, Close-Up) is without debate an established master in the contemporary cinematic canon, celebrated critically and at film festivals the world round. Which, unfortunately, doesn't translate to most of his films being very accessible to the majority of film goers. Experimental documentaries and narratives set almost entirely in automobiles apparently don't thrill the masses, regardless of how many film geeks gush at the mere mention of Kiarostami's name. His new film, Certified Copy, starring French film star Juliette Binoche (who won the best actress award at Cannes for this performance) and the world-renowned opera baritone William Shimell, has more potential to draw in new viewers to Kiarostami's work than any of his films since the much loved 1997 feature, Taste of Cherry.
Which is not to say that Certified Copy is without its own experimental devices, as the film certainly blurs its narrative into an exercise wherein reality takes on the shape of the ideas being debated by the characters. However, these unorthodox narrative tendencies are made entirely palatable by the sheer loveliness of the performances, the lush look of the film and the tireless wit of the screenplay. I won't bother with describing the actual story, as it's best encountered freshly and without preformed notions about its plot.
At this point, there's still another two weeks (and twenty films) left in the PIFF press screening schedule. For now, I declare Certified Copy the one to beat.
Certified Copy plays at the Whitsell Auditorium on Feb. 12th at 3pm and Feb. 14th at 8:45pm.
Friday, February 4, 2011
Portland International Film Festival preview day 4: SON OF BABYLON & THE FIRST GRADER
Four days into these press screenings, I've seen five films (out of eight) that feature war torn landscapes. Can't express just how much this makes me look forward to some of the comedies that are scheduled for next week.
Thursday's first feature was Mohamed Al-Daradji's Son of Babylon, essentially a road movie (on foot, bus, cart, etc.) set in Iraq shortly after Saddam Hussein's fall from power. A boy, Ahmed, and his paternal grandmother, Ur-Ibrahim, travel across a deeply scarred Iraqi terrain in search of the child's father, Ibrahim, who was reportedly imprisoned shortly after the Persian Gulf War of the 90s.
Admirably, the film narrows its perspective to reflect only the experience of the central characters, refusing to include too many explanatory details regarding the political tension of that time and place Rather than attempting to present an historical overview, Al-Daradji places much import upon the personal loss that Iraq's conflicted past has wrought upon Ahmed and Ur-Ibrahim. And it's the focus on the smaller details of their larger challenge that allows the film to succeed as much as it does in the end.
The First Grader tells the true tale of an elderly Kenyan man, Maruge, who wants to attend an elementary school that has recently opened in his village. Maruge is a survivor of the fight against British colonialism, which provides ample opportunity for the atrocities perpetrated against the Kenyan people to be relayed via flashbacks from Maruge's past. In addition to those flashbacks, we also get more than a few truncated nods to the rhetoric of tribalism (both past and present) in Kenya.
While the film succeeds greatly on a technical level (beautiful cinematography, good performances, tight editing, etc.), the actual treatment of the story is so lightweight and steered towards a "feel-good" response that it's hard to take the film very seriously at all. To make matters worse, the dialogue is peppered with groan-worthy platitudes that the filmmakers seem to have intended us to read as heartfelt and deep. An example: one character asks, "can't we just put the past behind us?" Another responds: "the past is always present, never forget that..."
Essentially, what we have here is a formulaic and slickly presented piece built around the notion that an inspirational true story always yields an inspirational film. In this case, the final product ends up serving as a strong challenge to that assumption.
The First Grader plays at the Broadway Theater on Feb. 11th at 6pm. An additional screening is scheduled for Feb. 14th at 6pm at the Whitsell Auditorium.
Thursday's first feature was Mohamed Al-Daradji's Son of Babylon, essentially a road movie (on foot, bus, cart, etc.) set in Iraq shortly after Saddam Hussein's fall from power. A boy, Ahmed, and his paternal grandmother, Ur-Ibrahim, travel across a deeply scarred Iraqi terrain in search of the child's father, Ibrahim, who was reportedly imprisoned shortly after the Persian Gulf War of the 90s.
Admirably, the film narrows its perspective to reflect only the experience of the central characters, refusing to include too many explanatory details regarding the political tension of that time and place Rather than attempting to present an historical overview, Al-Daradji places much import upon the personal loss that Iraq's conflicted past has wrought upon Ahmed and Ur-Ibrahim. And it's the focus on the smaller details of their larger challenge that allows the film to succeed as much as it does in the end.
The First Grader tells the true tale of an elderly Kenyan man, Maruge, who wants to attend an elementary school that has recently opened in his village. Maruge is a survivor of the fight against British colonialism, which provides ample opportunity for the atrocities perpetrated against the Kenyan people to be relayed via flashbacks from Maruge's past. In addition to those flashbacks, we also get more than a few truncated nods to the rhetoric of tribalism (both past and present) in Kenya.
While the film succeeds greatly on a technical level (beautiful cinematography, good performances, tight editing, etc.), the actual treatment of the story is so lightweight and steered towards a "feel-good" response that it's hard to take the film very seriously at all. To make matters worse, the dialogue is peppered with groan-worthy platitudes that the filmmakers seem to have intended us to read as heartfelt and deep. An example: one character asks, "can't we just put the past behind us?" Another responds: "the past is always present, never forget that..."
Essentially, what we have here is a formulaic and slickly presented piece built around the notion that an inspirational true story always yields an inspirational film. In this case, the final product ends up serving as a strong challenge to that assumption.
The First Grader plays at the Broadway Theater on Feb. 11th at 6pm. An additional screening is scheduled for Feb. 14th at 6pm at the Whitsell Auditorium.
Portland International Film Festival preview day 3: HIS & HERS and OF GODS & MEN
Wednesday's press screenings presented two films with very little in common other than their fixed focus on a single gender. Even thought the title would suggest otherwise, the documentary His & Hers is made up entirely of interviews with women. And, although a few women do show up in Of Gods and Men, the film places nearly all of its attention on a group of men and the uneasy decision facing them.
Ken Wardrop's His & Hers concerns itself with Irish women talking about the men in their lives. As these women speak of their fathers, lovers, husbands and sons, the stories unite into a single and common tale of a life lived with men
Unfortunately, there's one glaringly big issue that keeps the film from blooming into something beyond a series of interviews on a related topic. The choice to structure the film in a chronological order based on the age of the women, beginning with a baby and ending with a woman alone in a nursing home, is a great idea on paper that sadly doesn't bear as exciting of fruit as one might expect. Instead, this editing strategy forms a film where the best interviews are delayed until the final quarter of the film, forcing us to wade through quite a lot of facile chit-chat beforehand. While such a commitment to strategy is admirable, the actual application ends up producing a much weaker film than a non-chronological use of the interviews might have yielded.
I'm afraid I admired His & Hers more than I actually enjoyed it. The final interviews with a series of widows are fantastic but cannot make up for the overall problems contained within the structure of the piece. Pleasant enough but, ultimately, unsatisfying.
His & Hers plays at the Broadway Theater on Feb. 12th at 5:45pm. Additional showing are at the Whitsell Auditorium on Feb. 13th at 2:30pm and at the Broadway Theater on Feb. 15th at 6:15pm.
Ken Wardrop's His & Hers concerns itself with Irish women talking about the men in their lives. As these women speak of their fathers, lovers, husbands and sons, the stories unite into a single and common tale of a life lived with men
Unfortunately, there's one glaringly big issue that keeps the film from blooming into something beyond a series of interviews on a related topic. The choice to structure the film in a chronological order based on the age of the women, beginning with a baby and ending with a woman alone in a nursing home, is a great idea on paper that sadly doesn't bear as exciting of fruit as one might expect. Instead, this editing strategy forms a film where the best interviews are delayed until the final quarter of the film, forcing us to wade through quite a lot of facile chit-chat beforehand. While such a commitment to strategy is admirable, the actual application ends up producing a much weaker film than a non-chronological use of the interviews might have yielded.
I'm afraid I admired His & Hers more than I actually enjoyed it. The final interviews with a series of widows are fantastic but cannot make up for the overall problems contained within the structure of the piece. Pleasant enough but, ultimately, unsatisfying.
His & Hers plays at the Broadway Theater on Feb. 12th at 5:45pm. Additional showing are at the Whitsell Auditorium on Feb. 13th at 2:30pm and at the Broadway Theater on Feb. 15th at 6:15pm.
Xavier Beauvois' Of Gods and Men, winner of last year's Grand Jury prize at the Cannes Film Festival, sets its sights on exploring the choice that a group of French monks in Algeria must make when war breaks out near their monastery. Based on actual events during thee mid-90s Algerian civil war, Of Gods and Men masterfully establishes the pre-war peace of their monastic life, painting an admirable connection and ongoing dialogue between the Christian monks and the Islamic villagers who share the rural setting of the film.
The pivotal question that emerges when the danger of war draws ever close is this: does the threat of death negate the monks' obligation to God and the villagers? Beauvois (Le Petit Lieutenant) explores that tension between faith, duty and mortal concerns via the daily meetings of the men and, most effectively, in the songs of faith that they sing throughout the film. Those moments are supported by a gracefully elegiac pacing and tone that never ignores the dramatic circumstances of the characters but also resists being whipped into frenzy by them.
Of Gods and Men plays at the Whitsell Auditorium on Feb. 12th at 8:15pm.
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Portland International Film Festival Preview day 2: THE FIRST BEAUTIFUL THING & INCENDIES
Tuesday's press screenings paired two features involving adult children dwelling on the past history of their mothers. Despite sharing interests in maternal themes, the films were strikingly different in tone.
The first film of the day came in the form of a sweet Italian melodrama. Paolo Virzi's The First Beautiful Thing is a highly formal romp through the distant and messy past of a now much older and recently hospitalized woman. Her son Bruno, a once promising poet turned teacher, has fallen into depression, drugs and drink, blaming his failures on painful memories of an unhappy childhood. When the news of his mother's hospitalization brings him to her hospital bedside, he is forced to confront both the circumstances of his upbringing and the present state of his mother's health.
Refreshingly, the film doesn't try to exonerate the mother for either her poor parenting skills or the endless parade of unscrupulous men in whose beds she fell. Bruno's remembrances of what he and his sister had to endure while in their mother's care are treated as objective renderings of their living conditions at the time. These memories review and inspire some rather hilarious sequences in both the past and the present, such as when Bruno confesses being overcome by a feeling of emptiness and then attempts to fill it by ransacking his mother's home for any available intoxicants.
Overall, though, the film felt like a rather rote, by-the-numbers production, simply giving us what we've come to expect from this lighthearted genre of Italian film. Everything is exceptionally pretty but none of the characterizations carry much weight--and that goes double for the predictable manner in which the story unfolds. I left this early screening feeling more catered to than challenged, which is quite the opposite of why I usually go to the movies. Still, I'm positive that many people will be amply satisfied by this meal.
The First Beautiful Thing plays at 8:45pm on Feb. 11th at the Broadway Theater. There will be additional showings at the Broadway on Feb. 13th at 7:30pm and Feb. 16th at 6pm.
Next up was Incendies from Canada, the Academy Award-nominated film by director Denis Villeneuve (Maelstrom).
When Nawal Marwan (Lubna Azabal) dies, she leaves behind a will that stipulates that her children can only mark her grave if they carry out one last task for their mother's sake. The mission involves the delivery of two sealed envelopes--one to a brother they never knew existed and another to the father they assumed was dead--in present day Lebanon. The story deftly intertwines this journey with a harrowing retelling of their mother's life during the civil war of the 1970s
This is big, (capital "I") important storytelling that often teeters towards excess, without fully tumbling into the abyss of the sensationalistic. Given what the final 15 minutes of the film hold for the viewer, this is quite a feat indeed.
Incendies plays at 8:30pm on Feb. 11th at the Whitsell Auditorium. There will be an additional showing at the Broadway Theater at 4:15pm on Feb. 13th.
The first film of the day came in the form of a sweet Italian melodrama. Paolo Virzi's The First Beautiful Thing is a highly formal romp through the distant and messy past of a now much older and recently hospitalized woman. Her son Bruno, a once promising poet turned teacher, has fallen into depression, drugs and drink, blaming his failures on painful memories of an unhappy childhood. When the news of his mother's hospitalization brings him to her hospital bedside, he is forced to confront both the circumstances of his upbringing and the present state of his mother's health.
Refreshingly, the film doesn't try to exonerate the mother for either her poor parenting skills or the endless parade of unscrupulous men in whose beds she fell. Bruno's remembrances of what he and his sister had to endure while in their mother's care are treated as objective renderings of their living conditions at the time. These memories review and inspire some rather hilarious sequences in both the past and the present, such as when Bruno confesses being overcome by a feeling of emptiness and then attempts to fill it by ransacking his mother's home for any available intoxicants.
Overall, though, the film felt like a rather rote, by-the-numbers production, simply giving us what we've come to expect from this lighthearted genre of Italian film. Everything is exceptionally pretty but none of the characterizations carry much weight--and that goes double for the predictable manner in which the story unfolds. I left this early screening feeling more catered to than challenged, which is quite the opposite of why I usually go to the movies. Still, I'm positive that many people will be amply satisfied by this meal.
The First Beautiful Thing plays at 8:45pm on Feb. 11th at the Broadway Theater. There will be additional showings at the Broadway on Feb. 13th at 7:30pm and Feb. 16th at 6pm.
Next up was Incendies from Canada, the Academy Award-nominated film by director Denis Villeneuve (Maelstrom).
When Nawal Marwan (Lubna Azabal) dies, she leaves behind a will that stipulates that her children can only mark her grave if they carry out one last task for their mother's sake. The mission involves the delivery of two sealed envelopes--one to a brother they never knew existed and another to the father they assumed was dead--in present day Lebanon. The story deftly intertwines this journey with a harrowing retelling of their mother's life during the civil war of the 1970s
This is big, (capital "I") important storytelling that often teeters towards excess, without fully tumbling into the abyss of the sensationalistic. Given what the final 15 minutes of the film hold for the viewer, this is quite a feat indeed.
Incendies plays at 8:30pm on Feb. 11th at the Whitsell Auditorium. There will be an additional showing at the Broadway Theater at 4:15pm on Feb. 13th.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Portland International Film Festival preview day 1: SILENT SOULS and KAWASAKI'S ROSE
Monday marked the beginning of press screenings for this year's Portland International Film Festival (PIFF). Two movies a day, five days a week for three weeks equals a lot of films to talk about, so I'll probably only have time to touch on each one lightly before rushing off to check out the next set of screenings each day.
Things fall apart, it’s inevitable. Our bodies, minds and even our culture are all positioned on a path that leads towards dissolution. Silent Souls, the new film by Russian director Aleksei Fedorchenko, explores this base fact in a mode typical of Russian cinema, by which I mean that the film is bleak in subject, slow moving and comes off as somewhat emotionally neutral when compared to films we see being produced in the west. It’s also a visually stunning movie that allows ample time to be fully drawn into the world being depicted.
Silent Souls tells the story of two men, Aist and Miron, on a mission to lie to rest the body of Miron’s wife. Both men are descendants of the Merjan (or Meryan) people, whose culture was long ago absorbed into the larger Russian society. Fedorchenko presents the disappearance of their culture and its accompanying rituals as a lens through which we can view the more direct and personal loss felt by these characters, slowly revealing the intersections between these parallel experiences.
Silent Souls is definitely one to catch at the festival, especially if you're a fan of visually rich, Russian cinema. I adored this film.
Silent Souls plays at 6:15pm on Feb. 11th at the Broadway Theater. A second screening is scheduled for 4:45pm on Feb. 13th at the Whitsell Auditorium.
The second film of the day was Kawasaki's Rose (dir. Jan Hrebejk), hailing from the Czech Republic. The story: A well-respected psychiatrist, Pavel, is about be honored for his work before, during and after the Velvet Revolution. The conflict? Well, it turns out that the doctor has a much darker past than most of his family ever imagined. Kawasaki's Rose is a solid film but it does spend a bit too much of its run time establishing characters on the periphery of the central narrative, eventually picking up a great deal of steam as it goes along. And some of those supporting performances, Antonin Kratochvil's turn as the sculptor Borek, in particular, make it worth catching if you're planning on seeing a wide swath of the programming at this year's festival.
Kawasaki's Rose plays at 6pm on Feb. 11th at the Whitsell Auditorium. Additional screenings at the Broadway Theater are at 3:30pm on Feb. 13th and 6:45pm on Feb. 14th.
Sunday, January 30, 2011
DOGTOOTH: Not for the weak of heart
The critically acclaimed (and Academy Award nominated) Greek film Dogtooth was finally released on dvd in the U.S. this past Tuesday. The basic premise of the film involves an aging couple who have raised their children to fear that which lies outside the gates of their home. Playing out like some kind of Freudian nightmare sporting a wink and a twisted grin, Dogtooth fashions a world that is fully enclosed within the repressed fantasies and regressed understandings of those now adult offspring. As the film unfolds, those characters play an endless series of nonsensical games which only partially discharge the sexual friction that grows between them. And every once in a while, when the safety imposed upon them by their parents is challenged, the father punishes the offender brutally.
Dogtooth resides in the same darkly tense terrain as films like Todd Solondz' Happiness and Michael Haneke's Funny Games. Like those past films, it provokes without moralizing, interrogates without resolution and leaves the heavy lifting of interpreting the thematics almost entirely to the audience. With its primary meaning not at all locked down, a post-screening discussion of Dogtooth is likely to produce just as many interpretations as there are audience members in attendance. My own reading of the film vacillates somewhere between a fairly standard critique of the family and/or the socialization process as it starts at birth and continues until death. Yeah, folks...it's just that wide open.
A warning: the film is not for the overly squeamish. There are some truly shocking moments peppered throughout its run time. It's plenty disturbing but also funny, engaging and completely original in its approach.
One last note: as a bonus feature, the Kino released dvd has an excellent 12 minute interview with director Yorgos Lanthimos on the production, casting and his overall filmmaking philosophy. Very much worth checking out.
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