SAN FRANCISCO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2005

[Chris Knipp]

Arnaud Desplechin: Kings and Queen (Rois et reine, 2004)

(San Francisco Film Festival showing, March 22, 2005)

An amazing if somewhat indigestible film, Desplechin's KINGS AND QUEEN (Rois et reine) is a genre-bending family drama that alternates wired comedy with solemn tragedy, in particular nutty violist Ismaël's (Mathieu Amalric's) tax problems and sudden third-party commitment to a mental hospital and ex-girlfriend Nora's (Emmanuelle Devos') discovery that her writer father is dying of advanced stomach cancer. Meanwhile Nora is haunted by memories of the father of her young son Elias (Valentin Lelong), is about to marry a rich "gangster," and other relatives wander in and out of a tumultuous narrative which alternates present tense scenes with flashbacks, dreams and fantasies. Buffoonery and melodrama, which are sometimes hard to separate, turn out to work well together as director Desplechin modestly points out is true of Shakespeare, whose King Lear may have given him the idea for the brutal, vindictive final letter Nora's father, Louis Jenssens (Maurice Garrel) leaves for her. The audience at the SFFF cheered a gratuitous sequence where Ismaël's father Abel (Jean-Paul Roussillon) singlehandedly subdues three punks trying to rob his convenience store while Ismaël looks on with terror. In the next scene, father and son are lifting weights together at a health club. The plan by Abel, who was himself adopted, to adopt a man who's lived with him and his wife for years, over the protests of his adult children, rhymes palpably with the question of Ismaël's adopting Elias, who doesn't like Nora's new man, Jean-Jacques (Olivier Rabourdin). The long scene where Ismaël explains to Elias why he can't adopt him, while they walk through a museum, is one of a number of tours de force.

Secondary characters in this overwritten but always entertaining drama make themselves hard to forget though buffoonery in the case of the Ismaël's junkie lawyer (Hypolytte Girardot); though their neediness, in the case of Arielle, "la Chinoise" a flirtatious 'princess' at the psych hospital, (Magalie Woch) or Nora's sister down-and-out Chloé, (Nathalie Boutefeu); bitchiness in the case of Ismaë's sister. Ismaël's usual shrink is a huge African grande dame; he gets his entrance exam and his walking papers at the hospital from none other than Catherine Deneuve (whose iciness and soulfulness would be an unforgettable blend even if she were not already one of the world's most beautiful sixty-somethings). The women are goddesses, bitches, or queens. Ismaël says women have no souls; but the story's main men are talented but narcissitic problem children. Elias seems poised to grow up into one of those too. Most of the acting is remarkable, or at the very least arresting. The mercurial Amalric and lovely Devos completely live up to their top billing. Still, even their parts might have done with some trimming back.


The movie comes with allusions to Leda and the Swan, Nietsche, Yeats, Emily Dickenson, and a large number of musical references including rap (and a break dancing demo by Ismaël at the mental hospital), Klezmer, Randy Newman and, as a framing device, Moon River. Suspicions that there may be too much going on here are stifled by sheer pleasure in the drama of it all.

Six César nominations in France, where it opened in late 2004.

The title may refer to Shakespeare's plays, or to the way paterfamilias are seen by their children. Kings and Queen is wildly underedited and at 2 ½ hours definitely too long; Desplechin even acknowledged repeatedly that his answers to questions after the SFFF showing were too long too. But his inability to edit his work down may be inseparable from his unique flavor and charm. Desplechin wrote the excellent screenplay for Un monde sans pitié (A World Without Pity, 1989) the story of a fascinating young loser. "Desplechin is a wonder with actresses, at least as long as they're with him: Devos' character is close enough to My Sex Life star and former Desplechin paramour Mariane Denicourt that she responded to the movie with a retaliatory roman à clef," writes Sam Adams in the Philadelphia City Paper. A question about this contretemps met with a flurry of interesting doubletalk from the soft-spoken director.

Posted on Knipp website (http://www.chrisknipp.com/writing/viewtopic.php?t=411).

[arsaib4]

You certainly saw it in time as Wellspring will release the film on May 13th starting in NY.

Since you didn't mention his earlier films I'm assuming that you haven't seen them (or perhaps you just didn't like 'em). But if you haven't watched them, The Sentinel, My Sex Life... or How I Got Into an Argument, and Esther Kahn are all worth checking out.

[oscar jubis]

Originally posted by arsaib4
The Sentinel, My Sex Life... or How I Got Into an Argument, and Esther Kahn are all worth checking out.

Yes, they are. I found that all three would be improved by a bit of trimming yet, paradoxically, the one with the longest running time is my favorite, the 3-hr. long My Sex Life.

[Chris Knipp]

No, I have not seen any of Desplechin's other movies, though I knew the name. Those who want to see his previous oeuvres compared with this new one will have to read reviews in French; I found some via IMDb. I did mention Eric Rochant's Un monde sans pitié from 1989, an earlier favorite of mine, which Desplechin wrote the screenplay for. Have you two tireless omnivores seen that one?

It doesn't surprise me that you like the longest one--he doesn't know how to edit himself, and some of the best stuff seems to be stuff any sane person would edit out, so I can see from Kings and Queen that you have to take him with his limitations, or rather his excesses.

One of these French reviews speaks of Desplechin's "family" as being "reconsitituted," and it seems from his remarks that a lot of the actors have worked with him before, including Amalric (who they spoke of as Desplechin's having "created" or discovered) and especially Emmanuelle Devos, who by the way as I've mentioned I saw in La femme de Gilles, with the talented Clovis Cornillac. It opened in September. I didn't like the movie so much but she was a powerful presence in it, as she is here, in a subtler role.

[arsaib4]

Along with Mathieu Amalric and Emmanuelle Devos, many other young actors found their breakthrough with My Sex Life which was a critical and a commercial success. (Both were also part of The Sentinel.)

In Amalric, French filmmakers seem to have found the perfect actor to portray characters going through mid-life crisis. Assayas, Téchiné, and the Larrieus to just name a few. He won the César for Best Actor earlier this year for Kings and Queen, the only major award L'Esquive didn't win.

You're right about Devos, she brings a certain "presence" to just about everyting she does. Her best performance so far is probably in Audiard's Read My Lips.

I haven't seen A World Without Pity, and the same goes for Desplechin's 2003 effort Playing 'In the Company of Men' which isn't availabe anywhere.

[hengcs]

Originally posted by arsaib4
You're right about Devos, she brings a certain "presence" to just about everyting she does. Her best performance so far is probably in Audiard's Read My Lips.



Hmmm ... I have watched Read My Lips some time ago ... I will talk about it when I am free ...

Regarding Kings and Queens, I will also like to talk about it ... too many movie reviews to write from SF International Film Festival (amidst my hectic schedule) ... too little time ... ha ha ha

[Chris Knipp]

At least list what you're seeing, hengcs. So you were at Kings and Queen?

We need to move over to a general SFIFF thread...

I'd forgotten Devos was in Read My Lips. That was a great one -- a better movie to my mind than La femme de Gilles -- and maybe one of the best roles for Vincent Cassel? I don't think I've seen anything else by Audiard except Un héros très discret--or a lot of what Cassel has done. I'm really not very good at finding French movies if they aren't shown here.

[hengcs]

Originally posted by Chris Knipp
At least list what you're seeing, hengcs. So you were at Kings and Queen?

We need to move over to a general SFIFF thread...



ok ... i will migrate there ...
;P
http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1275

you really want me to list them?
i feel VERY VERY VERY guilty ...

* guilty grin *

... why? because I am watching 22 films!!!
;P

[Chris Knipp]

Do you know how to merge the threads? If not, I have asked Peter. I changed the name of my Desplechin thread to the Festival to put any comments of mine on festival films there, but we should merge our two threads.

Why feel guilty to be seeing 22 films at the SFIFF? Have you checked out Oscar's journal lately? You're simply qualified like the rest of us for the 12-step recovery program, FilmHeads Anonymous.

[arsaib4]

You're simply qualified like the rest of us for the 12-step recovery program, FilmHeads Anonymous.

Amen.

I'd forgotten Devos was in Read My Lips. That was a great one -- a better movie to my mind than La femme de Gilles -- and maybe one of the best roles for Vincent Cassel? I don't think I've seen anything else by Audiard except Un héros très discret--or a lot of what Cassel has done. I'm really not very good at finding French movies if they aren't shown here.

I haven't really looked into La Femme de Gilles yet but I think it recently shared the top award at Istanbul. I didn't know that you've already seen it. Jacques Audiard has only directed 5 features so far, I think. Along with Read My Lips I've also seen A Self-Made Hero (Un héros très discret [1996]) which is quite good but perhaps not as formidable an effort as Lips. (His latest film De battre mon coeur s'est arrêté [The Beat That My Heart Skipped] will be released by Wellspring in the summer.) Cassel's films (at least the watchable ones) usually do get distributed here so you are not missing much.

[Chris Knipp]

My own personal mini-film festival . . .(my favorite kind). . .


La Femme de Gilles . . . I didn't know that you've already seen it. I listed the films I saw in Paris last September when I was there, but don't ask me what thread that was on! They weren't all French; they included Infernal Affairs, Ken Park, Head On, and Amelio's Le chiave di casa, but also Il se marièrent et eurent beaucoup d'enfants (Attal), La femme de Gilles, 5x2, Clean, Mensonges et trahisons, Amal Badjaoui's Un fils, and, what turned out to be particularly memorable, Arnaud de Pallières' Adieu.

Anyway, La femme de Gilles is a period piece and kind of a mood piece, which I found rather deterministic and simplistic, though sort of an acting showcase for both Devos and Clovis Cornillac. I mentioned at the time how versatile Cornillac evidently was being in several films, terribly brooding and dangerous in La femme de Gilles, and hilarious as a kooky football star in Mensonges et trahisons http://www.chrisknipp.com/writing/viewtopic.php?t=361. This was duly noted by Le Monde in its weekend film section, which said something like, "imagine what he'll be like if he gets some great roles...." Cornillac is a wildly talented if possibly over-prolific star -- these two movies opened within about a week of each other and A Very Long Engagement was soon to come -- but I'd be interested to check out most anything he's in http://www.allocine.fr/personne/filmographie_gen_cpersonne=7754.html but I've actully only seen these two plus his small role in Jeunet's Very Long Engagement.

Agreed, Sur mes lèvres is more original than Un héro très discret, but that one was still quite interesting. At least Jacquot is still active, while according to somebody, of Desplechin's generation some of the (directing) stars of five years ago have faded, or gone into TV. Cassel was "formidable" in Sur mes lèvres, but perhaps uninteresting elsewhere; I was going to skip over the embarrasment of his part in Ocean's Twelve. I think he has had some edgy roles besides Read My Lips though, no?

[Fan of Kubrick]

I was at Kings and Queen as well, which I found entertaining but too long and unedited as has been posted here before, so I'll move on to the other films I saw.

Low Life
The 99th film by Im Kwan-Taek was a bit of a let down for me. It takes place during the start of the Korean War and continues through the war. It is the story of a young gangster named Tang-Ung. This film was wild and jumped around, it was in dire need of a logically moving plot and a straightforward timeline. The fight scenes are strangely out of place and very stylized. Although comedy adds a lot to the film, as it leaks out and there is less and less until the end of the film it rather loses the effect it had. Characters seemed to come and go with little or no explanation at all. All in all, its not worth seeing at the festival, but it might be if it gets studio backing (but I doubt it will).

Los Muertos
The film was brilliant in my opinion. Slow moving and quiet. Lisandro Alonso dishes out some pretty amazing camerawork. The very first shot of the film is a very long pan and tracking shot with complete silence... Absolutely marvelous. I can't give away any story, because there isn't much to give. But there are some brillaint shots of the main character (named Vargas, played by Argentino Vargas). This film has very little dialogue, and the dialogue that is in the film is so strange that it captivates you. This film is open to almost any interpretation. The beginning can be the end, or it can be the reason for the second scene. It's all up to you. Underlying themes can also be interpreted in many different ways as well, but one major one for me was the fact that we disturb things just because we were there. It is a theme well executed in this film but is common in other films such as Lola Rennt (Run Lola Run).

Dias de Santiago
This film from Peru is very similar to Taxi Driver in many aspects. The main character is a veteran and drives a taxi. That is the most obvious connection, but the plot breaks the character down into pieces and makes him nervous and strange. The character (Santiago played by Pietro Sibille) suffers from something in the past, although this film makes it obvious that it is what he did in the army, while Taxi Driver does not tell you what is haunting Travis Bickle. The film trudges back and forth between color and two different black and white film types. Santiago is trouble by the fact that he cannot adjust to modern city-life after being trained to kill. He is constantly analyzing what does not need to be analyzed and is constantly speaking of what needs to be saved, but when it is time to save someone (I won't give it away) he fails. The film is pretty straightforward and enjoyable.

Dear Enemy
This film portrays the life of one man hiding several men in his cellar in World War Two Albania. In his cellar there is a parisian, an Italian and a Jew. The film does not focus on any one character or any one relationship in the film, but instead appears to be a fly watching this one family and the people who interact with it. The film has quirky comedic moments and is very light-hearted, despite the material that it handles so well. This film is very straightforward and does not leave a whole lot up to interpretation other than two affairs that occur in the film, but it does leave you questioning the heart of one German, like so many other World War Two films. With an extremely ironic ending, this film is a good choice to go see if you are able to. This was its North American premiere, and I'm sure it will have more showings across the country...

[oscar jubis]

Originally posted by Fan of Kubrick
Los Muertos
The film was brilliant in my opinion. Slow moving and quiet. Lisandro Alonso dishes out some pretty amazing camerawork. The very first shot of the film is a very long pan and tracking shot with complete silence... Absolutely marvelous.

Lisandro Alonso is without a doubt my favorite young Latin American director. Both La Libertad and Los Muertos are excellent. Both have received awards at important film festivals (Rotterdam, Viennale) and have absolutely no chance of being distributed in the USA. Special showcases like Film Comment Selects and festivals are the only outlet for a certain type of quality cinema. Here's my review from the Miami FF: www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=9223#post9223

[Chris Knipp]

After your two descriptions I'm sorry I missed Los Muertos. I guess I would have liked Dear Enemy too. I like Fan of Kubrick's precise and concise comments. He gives an excellent sense of how he rates a film which I am hoping to learn from myself.

[Chris Knipp]

Nikolaj Arcel: King's Game (Kongekabale, 2004)

(San Francisco Film Festival showing May 25, 2005)

A fast-paced thriller with time for subtlety.
Brace yourself for a little snow flurry of Danish names. In this breathless Danish political thriller, Democratic party leader Aksel Bruun (Jesper Langberg) is involved in a serious car accident right at the end of a major political campaign. While he's in intensive care and may be dying Democratic functionaries and rival leaders meet around a big table and argue over strategy. Meanwhile a young journalist named UlrikTorp (Anders Berthelsen, a Peter Sarsgaard type) whose father, Gunnar (Ulf Pilgaard) was once a leading liberal politician, is suddenly assigned to parliament. Perhaps it's because his family background gives him good connections there; but when a scandal involving one of the Democratic party leader's rivals falls into Torp's hands and he gets a front page story out of it, he begins to suspect he may be only a pawn in a party power struggle. But he refuses to cooperate. . .

Kongekabale (it sounds more like a cabal than a game but it's both) has some of the moral excitement of the 1989 Alistair Reed/Simon Moore UK miniseries Traffik as well as its sense of inexorable forces working fast, but director Arcel, adapting the identically titled bestseller by Niels Krause-Kjær, has cleverly condensed a lot of material into only an hour and forty-three minutes by focusing on Torp's struggle to throw a monkey wrench into the Machiavellian schemes of the powerful Drier (a steely Søren Pilmark). (I'm guessing the strong actress who plays one of Drier's chief obstacles, Lone Kjeldsen -- Nastja Arcel -- is the director's wife.)

This involves many details we can't reveal, but suffice it to say that as in Traffik there's a sense of upright people striving desperately to make a difference while the odds keep threatening to tip toward the bad guys. But "Bad guys" is a simplification King's Game is too smart to make. Though situations are heightened beyond what may have happened in actual recent Danish politics and characters have been simplified to fit their functions on the chess board, there's also a good sense of the complexities of political alliances in a country where everybody knows everybody else and often went to the same schools.

The film begins with a long shot at night of a low sectioned building with people coming out. Soon we're into a lot of close-ups, but that opening shot is a metaphor for the web of dark conceit that is to unfold. The cinematography isn't overtly fancy but workmanlike, almost gray -- grainy, like news photos, or surveillance telephotos -- but it subtly swings from an epic scale to an intimate one, and the editing is neat, sweeping us forward with little surprise links and maintaining an intense but never rushed pace. This may be a conventional piece, a "potboiler," if you like, but it's smart stuff and above all compulsively watchable. When Torp links up with the more experienced, but equally idealistic Henrik Moll (Nicholas Bro), they're no Woodward and Bernstein but more like loose canon private dicks. Moll has a greasy, go-for-broke quality that recalls Rainer Werner Fassbinder in his prime, and their Laurel and Hardy action is headlong and astonishing. Journalism as spin doctoring and TV and commercialism as human manipulation are constant themes (even Torp's little daughter is a pawn to that), but the underlying theme is the age-old one of politics as power play, and it's nicely delineated. This was Denmark's top grosser and big award winner last year. Arcel's debut feature is a crowd-pleaser but it never seems slick or commercial.

[Chris Knipp]

Nikolaj Arcel: King's Game (Kongekabale, 2004)

(San Francisco Film Festival showing May 25, 2005)

A fast-paced thriller with time for subtlety.
Brace yourself for a little snow flurry of Danish names. In this breathless Danish political thriller, Democratic party leader Aksel Bruun (Jesper Langberg) is involved in a serious car accident right at the end of a major political campaign. While he's in intensive care and may be dying Democratic functionaries and rival leaders meet around a big table and argue over strategy. Meanwhile a young journalist named UlrikTorp (Anders Berthelsen, a Peter Sarsgaard type) whose father, Gunnar (Ulf Pilgaard) was once a leading liberal politician, is suddenly assigned to parliament. Perhaps it's because his family background gives him good connections there; but when a scandal involving one of the Democratic party leader's rivals falls into Torp's hands and he gets a front page story out of it, he begins to suspect he may be only a pawn in a party power struggle. But he refuses to cooperate. . .

Kongekabale (it sounds more like a cabal than a game but it's both) has some of the moral excitement of the 1989 Alistair Reed/Simon Moore UK miniseries Traffik as well as its sense of inexorable forces working fast, but director Arcel, adapting the identically titled bestseller by Niels Krause-Kjær, has cleverly condensed a lot of material into only an hour and forty-three minutes by focusing on Torp's struggle to throw a monkey wrench into the Machiavellian schemes of the powerful Drier (a steely Søren Pilmark). (I'm guessing the strong actress who plays one of Drier's chief obstacles, Lone Kjeldsen -- Nastja Arcel -- is the director's wife.)

This involves many details we can't reveal, but suffice it to say that as in Traffik there's a sense of upright people striving desperately to make a difference while the odds keep threatening to tip toward the bad guys. But "Bad guys" is a simplification King's Game is too smart to make. Though situations are heightened beyond what may have happened in actual recent Danish politics and characters have been simplified to fit their functions on the chess board, there's also a good sense of the complexities of political alliances in a country where everybody knows everybody else and often went to the same schools.

The film begins with a long shot at night of a low sectioned building with people coming out. Soon we're into a lot of close-ups, but that opening shot is a metaphor for the web of dark conceit that is to unfold. The cinematography isn't overtly fancy but workmanlike, almost gray -- grainy, like news photos, or surveillance telephotos -- but it subtly swings from an epic scale to an intimate one, and the editing is neat, sweeping us forward with little surprise links and maintaining an intense but never rushed pace. This may be a conventional piece, a "potboiler," if you like, but it's smart stuff and above all compulsively watchable. When Torp links up with the more experienced, but equally idealistic Henrik Moll (Nicholas Bro), they're no Woodward and Bernstein but more like loose canon private dicks. Moll has a greasy, go-for-broke quality that recalls Rainer Werner Fassbinder in his prime, and their Laurel and Hardy action is headlong and astonishing. Journalism as spin doctoring and TV and commercialism as human manipulation are constant themes (even Torp's little daughter is a pawn to that), but the underlying theme is the age-old one of politics as power play, and it's nicely delineated. This was Denmark's top grosser and big award winner last year. Arcel's debut feature is a crowd-pleaser but it never seems slick or commercial.

Posted on Knipp website. (http://www.chrisknipp.com/writing/viewtopic.php?t=412)

[hengcs]

Well, I believe some of the movies that I have watched in SFIFF have probably been reviewed by arsaib4, Chris, or Oscar when they attended other film festivals ... so, I will procrastinate those ...

Let me begin by a few possibly new (or not reviewed, I think) movies ...
;)


Tres Veces Dos (aka Three Times Two) (2004) (Cuba)

-- It won the Silver award for the Best First Film at the 28th Montreal Film Festival.

-- The movie comprises three shorts by new film graduates from Cuba.
One: "Flash" by Pavel Giroud
Two: "Lila" by Lester Hamlet
Three: "Luz roja" by Esteban García Insausti

Expectedly, it is low budget and shot in digital video!
So, please be more forgiving ...
... Despite this, I have to qualify that I like shorts one (which is well paced) and three (which is stylish).
... Also, the "opening" sequence to every short is simple but nice!
;)


One:
This is a tale about the search of a mysterious woman who appeared on most of the photographs that the guy took ... who was the woman? and how would the story end?

Comments: I like it because
... the short really parallels one of those "ghost" movies that I have watched in Asian cinema (e.g., Chinese or Thai story) ... hee hee ... haunting? or romantic? ha ha ha
... what is really excellent is how the director ends the story ... hee hee
;)


Two:
This is a story about the memories of an elderly woman and likely her first love ... there is a minor plot twist, which is kind of late and slightly not convincing ...

Comments:
... By itself, the second story has its credit, but the musical take of it makes the short really out of place, and definitely not in sync with the mood and style of either shorts one and three!
... I think the movie may be more in tune (hope you don't mind the pun ...) with shorts one and three
... However, if you like to know what a musical movie in Cuba may be like, this is for you ...


Three:
This is a nice short about the encounter between a female radio announcer and a male psychologist ... will they have a relationship? what are their fantasies and desires ...

Comments: I really like this short
... for its stylish cinematography (esp. given its low budget)
... and its more daring take of the three. Yes ... to its creativity and really captivating scenes ... ha ha ha


Overall:
-- It is definitely watchable in view that these are works of new film graduates (on a low budget)! Re-iterating, I especially like three, followed by one, then two ...

-- What is the likely connection among the three shorts?
It is a movie about LONELY people, dedicated to all the lonely people ...
;)

So, if you are lonely, the movie may keep you company (hope you like the pun again ...)

:lol

[hengcs]

Originally posted by Chris Knipp
Kings and Queen Fri 8 pm Kabuki
KIngs Game Mon 9:45 Kabuki
Up Against Them All T hurs 9:30 Kabuki
Saraband Sat 8:45 Castro
Cronicas Tues May 3 6:435 Kabuki
In the the Picture Scroll Wed 5:45 Kabuki

Do you live down near Palo Alto? We live in the East Bay, but are going over to the Kabuki or Castro in SF for all of these.



oh no ... we only have 2 films that overlap ... but on different days
-- Kings and Queen
-- Kings Game


But I will be at
-- Kabuki on Thursday, Friday, Monday
-- PFA on Saturday
-- Aquarius on Sunday ...


I have watched some (not listed), those that still remain are ...

-- The Overture (Thailand's Oscar submission)
-- Princess of Mount Ledang (Malaysia's Oscar submission)
-- Days and Hours (Bosnia's Oscar submission)
-- Hawaii, Oslo (Norway's Oscar submission)

-- The Hero (Sundance award winner)
-- Duck Season (some/many awards, rave reviews)
-- Take My Eyes (some/many awards, rave reviewS)
-- Tempus Fugit (some/many awards)
-- King's Game (rave reviews)

-- The Power of Nightmares (should be good documentary)
-- Shape of the Moon (award winning documentary)
-- Delamu (a documentary work by Tiang Zhuang Zhuang)

;)

Yes, I stay in Stanford

;)

[trevor826]

Hengcs the film Three times Two, I assume from your review that the title comes from fact that there are 3 shorts and each is basically about a form of relationship between 2 people? you'll have to excuse me if it seems a stupid question but I wanted to clarify where the 2 came into it.

Cheers Trev.

[hengcs]

Originally posted by trevor826
Hengcs the film Three times Two, I assume from your review that the title comes from fact that there are 3 shorts and each is basically about a form of relationship between 2 people? you'll have to excuse me if it seems a stupid question but I wanted to clarify where the 2 came into it.

Cheers Trev.


I would like to think so.
;)

I really can't find other connection between the three shorts except they are about lonely people ... and each short more or less have 2 "main" protagonist (but quite a few less important characters) ...

[hengcs]

Vremya Zhatvy (aka Harvest Time) (2004) (Russia)

-- It is a nominee in the EUROPEAN FILM ACADEMY DISCOVERY 2004 - Prix Fassbinder
http://www.europeanfilmacademy.org/htm/4Nominations2004.html

-- The director Marina Razbezhkina is a well established documentary film maker. According to the MC who introduced the film (if I recall correctly), the movie seems to be inspired by a woman patient who was warded next to the director when she was in hospital ...


The movie depicts tragedy without depicting any explicit tragic scenes. It is about personal tragedy and some political tragedy, but in the end, it also hints subtlely at societal tragedy (i.e., the sadness of progress or present society) ...

It is a simple and nice film that revolves around the story of a family of four -- the parents and two kids ...
... so, it pays attention to the details of daily life/culture/rituals in those times ...
... there will be scenes that make you smile ...
... there will be scenes that make you sad ...
... but like all films that are realistic, the ending depicts it all
-- the ironies of life ... and life goes on ...

The only problem, if at all is
... foreigners may fail to understand why the female protagonist is so fanatical about keeping the red banner in perfect condition ... a slight knowledge of history may be necessary ...
... to some people, the ending may be too abrupt ... BUT it is definitely thought provoking ... which is what I like ... I would really like the audience to think about the ending ...

;)

[Chris Knipp]

Lisandro Alonso: Los Muertos (2004, 78 minutes)

(San Francisco Film Festival showing, March 26, 2005)

Hearts of darkness
Los Muertos made me think of various things -- Hemingway, John Boorman's 1984 The Emerald Forest, the Mexican Carlos Reygadas 2002 Japón, the films of Bruno Dumont. This film shares Japón's use of natural settings and non-actors for a powerful minimalist effect. It's got the macho focus on simple survival tasks you find in Hemingway's Spanish novels and early short stories set in the Michigan woods. When Los Muertos' protagonist Vargas (Argentino Vargas) gets out of jail he goes into the outback. He travels downriver in a rowboat with a few provisions, feeds himself from a tree, slaughters an animal and cleans it in the boat. The crowded, open prison and the shops Vargas goes to when he first gets out are busy -- "civilized." Then he enters his own Heart of Darkness like the boy Tomme in The Emerald Forest and becomes a different person -- shucking off clothes, money, possessions, bringing out new skills. Like "The Man" in Japón Vargas is going to a remote region on an ambiguous mission and the two movies both take long looks at the land and listens to real rural people. Like Bruno Dumont, Alonso isn't afraid of long still shots and longeurs, and like Dumont his sex is crude and real. Like Dumont's, Alonso's protagonist is inarticulate and vaguely dangerous.

We see a lot of Vargas at first just sitting, sipping maté, staring into space at the prison, like you do. But Alonso's camera is also lithe and mobile from that first long hypnotic panning and tracking shot in the forest before the story begins and it continues to be supple and quick as it follows Vargas on his journey.

Style apart, Alonso takes us to a place we don't know and he keeps us there. He doesn't explain; his film suggests you can get very close to things and still not understand them, and sometimes that's the way it has to be.

The actor, Argentino Vargas, resembles Franco Citti, whom Pasolini often used in his films for sly, evil characters. Like Citti, he has a rough, sensuous quality. He's paunchy but muscular, tan, and agile; he's a handsome man gone to seed, a little indio, a little worldly. He's polite and neutral with people, but there's something not said, something blank and mysterious and menacing about him too, a sense of an unexplained purpose. This man is very, very alone, and his outdoor skills outline his ability to remain that way. We don't know what he's up to. We don't know what he's capable of.

This reserve, this mystery, is an essential element in much good storytelling that can make the simplest tale compulsive and memorable, which is what Los Muertos gradually becomes. Carlos Reygadas also uses it.

Since Los Muertos tells us so little and there are so few spoken words, little bits of information jolt us awake and our minds race. "So you're leaving!" a young man yells at Vargas at the prison. He comes too close, then disappears as if he was angry and was pulled away -- and we may think Vargas is planning to escape and word's gotten around. But instead he gets formally released.

Watching Vargas' journey suggests what travel or nature movies would be like if they had no music or commentary -- how much more powerful a camera can be without mediation, when it's just there without conventional framing devices. A long shot just shows Vargas in the rowboat, rowing on the river, coming toward us. There's nothing else. The camera is invisible, moving imperceptibly. The shot is powerful and extraordinarily beautiful and alive because it just is.

There's a boldness about Alonso's method. Some shots may seem too long. But there's an exhilarating sense of really being wholly inside the experience; of losing ourselves in the story Los Muertos tells. I got that feeling when I first watched Boorman's Emerald Forest, and it was a strange and alien -- and at the same time thrilling -- feeling to walk out of the theater into the nighttime city when the movie was over but I was still under its spell, my mind lingering in the Amazon forest.

Lisandro Alonso, who's only thirty years old, reminds us that great filmmaking can be a matter of letting the camera and what it sees speak for themselves. He throws out the paraphernalia. During the course of the film, we've seen and heard some surprising things. At the end, we're suddenly excluded. Vargas goes somewhere, and the camera doesn't follow him. It stops showing us what's going on. The camera has been our eyes and ears and this abrupt shutdown is a shock. You walk out of the theater and you carry that sense of shock with you. It's a brilliant ending to a haunting film.

Posted on Chris Knipp website. (http://www.chrisknipp.com/writing/viewtopic.php?t=413)

[arsaib4]

Originally posted by hengcs
-- The Overture (Thailand's Oscar submission)
-- Princess of Mount Ledang (Malaysia's Oscar submission)
-- Days and Hours (Bosnia's Oscar submission)
-- Hawaii, Oslo (Norway's Oscar submission)

-- The Hero (Sundance award winner)
-- Duck Season (some/many awards, rave reviews)
-- Take My Eyes (some/many awards, rave reviewS)
-- Tempus Fugit (some/many awards)
-- King's Game (rave reviews)

-- The Power of Nightmares (should be good documentary)
-- Shape of the Moon (award winning documentary)
-- Delamu (a documentary work by Tiang Zhuang Zhuang)



That's a good looking list, hengcs. I think you'll really like Hawaii, Oslo (which is similar to Lichter and a few other recent Euro-releases involving many characters). King's Game, which I brought up earlier, is a good political thriller. I really want to see Zhuang Zhuang's doc.

[Chris Knipp]

King's Game, which I brought up earlier, is a good political thriller.

As I wrote, in some detail. See above.

[oscar jubis]

Originally posted by Chris Knipp
Lisandro Alonso: Los Muertos (2004, 78 minutes)

I like your review. You provide an accurate sense of what the film is like and how one feels watching it. Also, your references and comparisons are apt. Alonso's debut, La Libertad, is similar in style and more "minimalist". It's a day in the life of a woodcutter from the Pampas. It doesn't have a flashback like the one that opens Los Muertos in which we watch the titular "dead", floating. We later learn that these are his "brothers". It also doesn't have a symbolic ending like the one in Los Muertos in which the meaning of the Maradona figurine (wearing the nation's colors of course) thrown on the dusty ground is quite obvious. At the Q&A after the screening, Alonso's main collaborator, cinematographer Cobi Migliora, stated Lisandro became a filmmaker because he wanted to create awareness of the existence and lifestyle of marginalized people within Argentina. He stated that other than the jail scene, Vargas is simply "re-enacting" his regular activities. Migliora stated Vargas was cast in the role mainly because "he doesn't drink alcohol". He stated alcohol and violence are extremely common among "river men". So common that several arrived drunk to the audition and most others wouldn't agree to stay sober for the duration of the shoot.

[Fan of Kubrick]

I like these reviews of Los Muertos and King's Game. I was at King's Game as well, but I feel that everything that should have been said about that has been said, so I'll move to the other two films I've seen this week.

Layer Cake
This action-packed thriller/action film from the producer of Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch takes his turn at directing in Layer Cake. Layer Cake is a film about a cocaine dealer who is considering retirement, until his boss asks him to find the daughter of a friend of his, and do some dealing with "The Duke" and buy some expensive ectasy pills. XXXX (Daniel Craig) is the main character without a name. He finds his once-organized gang of dealers thrown into a wild, out-of-control tangle of deception and killing. Layer Cake is very well done, the directorial premiere of Matthew Vaughn is brilliant. His basic shots are well framed, and his editing in Layer Cake is absolutely amazing... This will obviously get distribution, so it will be shown nationwide.

Tempus Fugit
This comical, sci-fi film about the end of the world and time travel is quite well done. Enrich Folch displays good prowess in this very low budget Super 16 film. The film deals with strange happenings in the life of Ramon (Xavi Mira). A man strangely keeps watching him, and one night appears at the foot of his bed and tells him that the world will end on Saturday. The film has very comical moments, and deals with the subject of how big heroes have to be. Ramon is just a normal person, he says so himself, but he is also the man who will save the world, and that makes him a hero, no matter what anybody says. This film is very modest, just as its director is, and leaves some up to interpretation, but not everything. It is a very enjoyable film. I would attempt to see it at the festival because it looks like it won't get distribution in the U.S. any time soon.

[hengcs]

Parapalos (aka Pin Boy) (2004) (Argentina)

This movie, directed by Ana Poliak, garnered the top jury prize in the 6th Buenos Aires International Festival of Independent Cinema (BAFICI).
;)

It is another of those divisive movie ... you will either like it or hate it ...

Audience who like it:
-- will respect it for its homage to life as a bowling alley pinsetter ... there are attentions to details and beauty (e.g., the appealing images of falling bowling pins)! wow ...
-- will find this fictitious story paralleling a documentary work ... it seems simple, but very sincere!
-- will ponder over the depth as the movie is peppered with some philosophy of life ... embodied in the choice of characters and their daily casual conversations ... (e.g., "Everything in my life is borrowed, except for freedom.")
-- will wonder about the hint at the issues of modernization (e.g., when we sense the threat of these pinsetters being gradually replaced by automation)

Audience who hate it:
-- will complain about the "mimimalist" approach and lack of plot, if any. Nothing eventful ever happens.
-- will wonder at the importance of every single scene ... are they really necessary? or is it just to let the audience experience and walk their life ...


In sum: It is a movie that you will enjoy if you appreciate the minimalist approach.
;)

[Chris Knipp]

(Previously posted by Oscar Jubis.)
He stated that other than the jail scene[s], Vargas is simply "re-enacting" his regular activities. Migliora stated Vargas was cast in the role mainly because "he doesn't drink alcohol". He stated alcohol and violence are extremely common among "river men". So common that several arrived drunk to the audition and most others wouldn't agree to stay sober for the duration of the shoot. I am surprised about the avoidance of alcohol by the main actor since of course Vargas does take swigs from a wine bottle in the boat, but I guess it was just "play" wine. Of course he has many outdoors skills; it was clear to me without your saying that you can't "act" them but must know them. Your details are interesting but I'm at the stage where I don't want to know much more about the background of Los Muertos because for me the movie has a larger meaning and is open to various interpretations, as Fan of Kubrick also said. I did not want to give anything away, just give people a feel for the kind of thing this is. For this reason I specifically avoided describing the opening sequence. I hope I am not reading too much into the movie; time will tell if I will go on to continue considering Alonso a consistently interesting director or if his films have something larger to say as I am assuming now. Certainly Los Muertos worked its slow magic on me. I am glad not to have missed it; Layer Cake and Tempus Fugit sound good but I am not as tempted to run and see them.

[hengcs]

Dealer (2004) (Hungary)

This movie, directed by Benedek Fliegauf, relates a day's event of an unnamed drug dealer.

I find it a rather contemplative and depressing movie indeed ...

What I find most compelling

(1) The visuals -- wow, it is stylistically cool ... but it does feel chilling and alienating ... noteworthy, the camera pans VERY slowly too ...

(2) The soundtrack -- It is really haunting, and serves to augment the visuals very well ...

(3) The ending -- what can I say, watch for it yourself ... (and how the scene fades out) ...

(4) Overall, the movie succeeds in creating the irony of sufferings and deliverance ... ;)


Q&A with the director:
He was curious to know how many audience will actually sit through to finish watching the film ... and who they are ...
* laughter *

Q: Was the visuals post production or the use of filters?
A: Nowadays, most do not use filters. Yup ... it is a post production effect.

Q: * the audience who asked did not get the characters correct, so the rest of us were confused ... *
What was the relationship between * a woman's name * and the male protagonist?
A: * it was confusing, so nobody really knew how to answer ... even the director ... *

Q: What do Hungarians feel about the movie? And how does it differ from international audience?
A: It is a very good question ... there are the old generation and new generation of directors ... there are those who appeal to the masses and those who win awards, but nobody watches ... mine belongs to the latter ... * laugh *

Q: What was the man with the spade in the soil doing?
A: The director related that it was an actual incident he saw on the beach ... when a man was drunk and kept digging until he "vanished" from his children's view ...

Q: What inspired the movie ...
A: * in order to avoid spoilers, I will just say the ending scene was an event in the news that the director read *


Well, watch it if you want to know!
ha ha ha

Again, I will only recommend to people who like the minimalist approach ... otherwise, you will get impatient with the pacing as the movie/camera pans VERY SLOWLY ...

Re-iterating ... both the visuals and the soundtrack are excellent!
;)

[hengcs]

Stand van de Maan (Shape of the Moon) (2005) (Netherlands)

This film has garnered
-- the Grand Jury Prize for World Cinema (Documentary) in the Sundance Film Festival 2005
-- the Joris Ivens Award at the International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (IDFA)

Oh yes, it is a film from Netherlands, but filmed in Indonesia ...
;)

-- It revolves around the life of a family of 3 generations, but primarily the old lady, the uncle and the grand daughter.
-- In terms of "plot", there are basically 2 main events (the marriage of the uncle and the old lady's moving back to the rural area ...) with a few subplots.
-- Noteworthy, audience who expect it to be a commentary on religious or political issues will be quite disappointed ... esp. when several synopsis try to "sell it" as a film about "Christians in a Muslim Land" ... I would rather say it is about the life of 3 people in a family who happen to be Christians ...


What is most interesting:
-- There is a great effort by the director to choreograph his frames (esp. the way he transits to different scenes). For most (not all) of the jumps, he will try to make sure there is some "continuity" in terms of visuals/images/theme ... (e.g., the gecko scene, the c*ck fight scene, the crest scene, the well scene, the soil scene, etc ...)
-- In essence, attentions are paid to cinematography and art direction ... (e.g., the walk on the high bridge scene, the moving house scene, etc) ... Most audience will likely remember the walk across the high bridge (with such ease and confidence) ...
;)


What may be "puzzling":
(I guess the audience would have lots of questions to ask ...)
-- How did the director get to know the family?
-- How many months did they take to film it? ... given that the director had the chance to film a marriage and the move from urban to rural area ...
-- How many cameras did they have? Because there are occasionally different angles of some scenes ...
-- Most important of all: How much is really documentary and how much is "scripted" (if at all)?


What may be problematic (to some people):
-- Although there are hints at religion, politics, and modernization, there is not too much "probing" or in depth discussion of the issues involved ...
-- More importantly, will the audience feel that it is a fair portrayal of both religions (i.e., Christianity and Muslim)? I would rather let the audience who have watched the film decide for themselves ...

* Disclaimer: If you decide to share your views about the religious perspective, please do not get too antagonistic in the discussion ... *
;)


Why is it titled Shape of the Moon?
-- There are 3 (or 4) allusions to the moon, if I recall correctly ...
(i) When the horde of people were chanting prayers ... the subtitles read something like "You are my moon, You are my sun ..."
(ii) The girl asked the uncle why the moon is sickled, and he provided some odd answer (because he was not educated) ... and they marvelled at the fact that the moon will always grow full again despite being "sickled" ...
(iii) The symbol of a moon and star on the mosques ...
(iv) (Given the choreography that I describe above), I am not very sure whether the beginning scene is simply the light at the end of the train tunnel or a moon that "morphed" into the end of a tunnel ... only the director and editor will know ...

I suspect it is titled as such because the moon always changes its shape but it will always be full again ...
;)

So, if you happen to attend know the director, or meet the director (e.g., in a film festival), please ask him and enlighten us ... hee hee
;)


In sum: watch it ONLY if you like some nice camera works ... do not be too demanding of the plot or commentary on religious and political issues ...

[hengcs]

La Niña Santa (aka The Holy Girl) (2004) (Argentina)


I guess some of you have watched it ... but are awaiting for it to be widely screened before reviewing it ...

The movie will get a release in America in Summer ...
;)
So, I guess more reviews can be anticipated ...


Now back to my review ...
I will skip the synopsis because it contributes a spoiler ... :P

I presume I have set too high an expectation of the movie, so the movie only comes across as very good to excellent ... but NOT a big "wow ..."
... I am not sure about others, but I find that having a controversial theme does not necessary equate with a "must watch" movie ... ;)
... It does have many good technics or potential ... but it may lose the audience with its pacing, vagueness and non resolution ...
... However, the SAME approach can be perceived as ponderous, abstraction and reality ... hee hee


What I like?
-- The well depicted "confusion" of adolescence ...
e.g., even at the end, it was unclear to the audience whether the teenage female protagonost did it out of love/desire or salvation for the doctor ...
-- The concurrent power and vulnerability of any characteristic (be it sexual, roles, occupation, age, etc) ...
e.g., is her sexuality power or vulnerability?
-- The blur between good and evil, morality and immorality, etc etc etc ...
e.g., is she a victim or a hero ...

-- As usual, I always like this kind of ending ... an ending without closure ... ha ha ha ... some audience will hate it, but I do like it ...


What may be problematic (to some)?
-- It is quite slow/average paced ... so, some audience may lose their patience ...
-- As mentioned, the ending has no closure ... so some audience will frown ...


Q&A:
(the gist, not in verbatim)

Q: Which directors or movies influence you?
A: I am ashamed to say it, but I am not very conversant about movies ... so, I am not exactly influenced by any director's style ...

Q: Is the movie faithful to the original script? Has anything been edited out of the movie?
A: It is pretty faithful to the script, any changes (which are few) are due to the budget ... If you are trying to ask about the ending ... nope ... I did not edit out any scenes ... it was scripted to end that way and nothing more was filmed ...
* audience laughed *

Q: What do you think happen in the end?
A: Maybe after a few months, the scandal will get worse, maybe not ... I would rather let the audience decide for themselves ...

Q: The movie credited Pedro and Agustin Almodóvar, what is your relationship with them? Did they influence the film?
A: It is difficult to find an investment in Argentina ... so I thought about it and decided to try Spain ... I sent them the script and fortunately, they liked it and decided to invest in it ...

Nope ... they pretty much left it to me to direct the film ...

Q: How did you start on filming or this movie?
A: I have a big family. When I was young, my father bought us a videocam, but at those times, it cost as much as a CAR!
* audience laughed *

So, my father said who could know the workings of the videocam best would handle it. Guess what, I started taking the manual and memorizing it ...

As for the hotel, we used to visit it when I was young ...

Q: You depicted a scene of the teenage girl * censored *? Would the American audience accept it?
A: I do not think it is very explicitly depicted ... I think my other films have more explicit scenes ...


In sum: I would recommend it if you like controversial movies.
;)
But it is done it a subtle and slow paced way ...

[Chris Knipp]

Good summaries and opinions, hengcs, and I especially liked your report of the Q&A's with the directors. I like it when they have a sense of humor. It rubs me the wrong way when they talk as if they think they're a genius. Leave that to the critics to decide. It is sometimes very revealing to hear these Q&A's, and almost always useful information comes out. I'd have liked a little more plot summary on these; in one case I can hardly tell what the action was, but I liked your comments' being so clearly laid out.

[hengcs]

Originally posted by Chris Knipp
Good summaries and opinions, hengcs, and I especially liked your report of the Q&A's with the directors. I like it when they have a sense of humor. It rubs me the wrong way when they talk as if they think they're a genius. Leave that to the critics to decide. It is sometimes very revealing to hear these Q&A's, and almost always useful information comes out. I'd have liked a little more plot summary on these; in one case I can hardly tell what the action was, but I liked your comments' being so clearly laid out.


Hi,

I usually like the Q&A ... esp. when the films are too cryptic ... ha ha ha ...

(1) By the way, it seems like a few others on this board are attending the SFIFF. Do any of you by chance attended films where the director/actors are present? If yes, do you care to share?

(2) To Chris,
which movie would you like to know more about the plot? I am willing to write as long as you know you are going to read spoilers ... hiaks hiaks ...

I usually avoid writing even the slightest synopsis because I think it spoils the fun ... albeit little ...
e.g., In many synopsis of OLDBOY, you know he is going to get imprisoned, you know he will manage to get out ... so, it spoils the initial surprise of his kidnap and imprisonment ... and then, it spoils the second surprise since you know he will succeed in escaping, etc ...

[arsaib4]

Originally posted by hengcs
La Niña Santa (aka The Holy Girl) (2004) (Argentina)



I wish I was there for her Q & A session. You're right, I'm waiting for this masterpiece to be released in order to talk about it in detail. I'm glad you liked it.

[oscar jubis]

Originally posted by Chris Knipp
I don't want to know much more about the background of Los Muertos because for me the movie has a larger meaning and is open to various interpretations, time will tell if I will go on to continue considering Alonso a consistently interesting director or if his films have something larger to say as I am assuming now. Certainly Los Muertos worked its slow magic on me.

Los Muertos is my favorite Latin American film since the two Mexican films I had the opportunity to watch in 2003: Japon and Aro Tolbukhin. The ethnographic aspect of Alonso's films alone makes them great for me. But both, and Los Muertos particularly, seem to encourage the viewer to extrapolate "a larger meaning" from the images. A meaning that is highly subjective, practically a different one for each viewer. I'm convinced Kiarostami would love it. Please disagree with my prediction that the film has zero chance of a distribution deal.

[Chris Knipp]

We figure you're the expert on the chances of a distribution deal, Oscar....

As you noticed Los Muertos immediately made be think of Japón, which I watched due to your prompting and liked a lot. At the moment, I think I prefer Los Muertos. Kiarostami's Taste of Cherry had a similar theme to Japón, but I am not such a fan of Kiarostami and prefer the latter treatment. I didn't know you'd talked about Aro Tolbukhin, or what it is.

Saw Moreira's Contra Todos AKA Up Against Them All tonight and wondered if you'd seen it. If you did, what did you think? We could not understand this selection and the crowded theater seemed ironic. More to follow.

[Chris Knipp]

Roberto Moreira: Up Against Them All (Contra Todos, 2004)

(San Francisco Film Festival showing May 28, 2005)

Festival dross
Why were there so many people crowding into an evening showing of Roberto Moreira's Up Against Them All (Contra Todos) at the San Francisco Film Festival? "It's about a hit man," my friend said. "Well. . . and it's Brazilian," I added. Beautiful multicolored people, tropical weather, lush rhythms, and a hip gangster plot? Ample enticements no doubt.

Somebody forgot to tell us one little detail: this is a very bad movie, really pretty horrible, and as unpleasant to watch as it is poorly made.

So how on earth did Contra Todos get to make the rounds of Berlin, Melbourne, London, Manila, Stockholm, Cairo, Chicago, numerous smaller local festivals, and now San Francisco? Apparently, because of the way the promotional process and the film festival circuit work.

First of all, it won first prize at the Rio Film Festival where it was called the best Brazilian movie of the year. It must have been a bad year; they've had much, much better ones. Next, snappy synopses in catalogs plus imaginary buzz lead to crowded auditoriums and -- since the movie isn't featured anywhere and so avoids close scrutiny by critics -- it keeps going the rounds.

The object of the festival writeups is promo. Sometimes they -- to use one writer's terms -- succeed in "goosing it up" a lot. A Chicago Festival description found on reelmoviecritic (http://www.reelmoviecritic.com/rmc/Film%20Festival/ciff_2004_lee_shelley_preview_oct_8.htm ) called this movie "a speedball cocktail shot straight out of Brazil" and refers to Claudia's sometime boyfriend as the "stud of the slum-like neighborhood." Soninha is "Teodoro's nymph-like teenaged daughter of burgeoning sexuality." The movie is "shot with the urgency of a frequently hand-held camera" and the director "works up a genuine and palpable sense of frustration borne from domestic desperation and decay." The effect is " unbearably raw and honest," and the movie hurtles "toward a conclusion as dead-ended as the lives on display." Not the best writing, but it does pump up the excitement for a certain kind of potential viewer.

Up Against Them All (the title apparently refers to the lead character) does indeed concern a hit man, a couple of them actually, and a wife and daughter and a born-again Christian girlfriend. It's shot -- in execrably ugly digital video with no talent behind the camerawork -- mostly in a barren-looking poor suburb rather than in one of the teeming "favelas" or village-like Brazilian city slums where such wonderful films as Black Orpheus, Pixote, and City of God were made, and not in Rio this time, but São Paulo.

The hit man with family problems is Teodoro ( Giulio Lopez) and his partner with a drug problem is Waldomiro (Ailtan Graça). Both actors have a little TV experience as does the actress who plays Teodoro's sluttish blonde wife Cláudia (Leona Cavalli) and Silvia Lorenço who plays his pouting, ready-to-revolt daughter Soninha. These actors might make it through the back corners of a few telenovelas. Who knows? -- in a better directed film they might even be good. Aside from them there are some young men who get bumped off by Teordoro or, when he's busy, gangs of thugs. The principals don't work up much presence, even though the camera magnifies their pores.

Though the promo and festival circuit machinery kept moving Contra Todos around, the lack of merit of this digital video effort was pointed out by at least two observers, one at the Berlin Festival and one at London's. Unfortunately their remarks are buried somewhere in the Web hinterlands. Henry Sheehan (http://www.henrysheehan.com/festivals/abc/berlin-09.html) noted from Berlin last year that this "film" (the quotes are his) was "the worst of the video works" at the festival. "The filmmaker seems to have chosen video simply because it was a cheap alternative to film," Sheehan wrote, "and hasn’t made any creative use of the new medium," nor, he adds, done anything else creative.

Sheehan pointed out the movie's first big mistake: it "starts off as a domestic drama that’s supposed to ratchet up when, half an hour into the action, Moreira reveals that the father and one of his friends are professional hit men. Waiting the thirty minutes adds nothing to the movie; it seems like a perfectly arbitrary decision and is, at the very least, a waste of time. But ratcheting up is all Moreira ever does, like a little kid who’s gotten a tool kit for his birthday, and goes around banging everything in sight without rhyme, reason or skill." Devastating, but true.

Writing about the 2004 London festival for kamera.com (http://www.kamera.co.uk/features/the_2004_london_film_festival.php), Metin Alsanjak tried to look at the positive side but nonetheless gave away the lack of redeeming features in calling the performances "easily the film's best feature." Yes, very easily, given that everything else is so bad. Alsanjak admitted that " this low-budget, violent and seedy account of the lawless in Sao Paulo is devoid of any likeable characters, and as a result, of hope. Too dark and cynical to be a telling account of the human condition, the film is not helped by poor subtitling.. ." Alsanjak's connecting Contra Todos to "Dogme" and Mike Leigh didn't help matters.

Apart from that meaningless first half hour in which nothing redeems the boredom of our wait for the first acts of violence -- a violence that as Sheehan points out, is just "banging everything in sight without rhyme, reason or skill" -- there's a clumsy attempt to redeem a too-fast finale by adding what appear to be outtakes right after it, followed by an implausible ironic concluding scene where one of the characters gets married. There's no doubt that Moreira wants to exhibit the "banality of evil" of low level hit men in working class neighborhoods, but he can't make the characters, which he sees generically, come alive for us. And the structure of the film shows that he also can't edit his material.

I thought of two American small-budget movies about Latino characters after watching Up Against Them All: Eric Eason's Manito, which has a kind of "hit" in it, is grainy and unappealing looking, and isn't the greatest of first features, but at least is full of specific detail about its people; and Raising Victor Vargas, which was made with little money in a similar poor neighborhood. But it's almost a travesty to mention the sweet, colorful, almost perfect little film that is Victor Vargas next to sloppy, nasty work like this by now globally overexposed effort by Moreira, which should be retired from action posthaste.

Seen at the San Francisco International Film Festival on April 28, 2005.

(Posted on Chris Knipp website. (http://www.chrisknipp.com/writing/viewtopic.php?t=411))

[oscar jubis]

Film festivals can be so exciting and frustrating. You may catch a near-masterpiece almost nobody knows about, which you'll never have a chance to watch again. Or you may pay $12 and wait in a rush line to catch something worse that anything playing at the multiplex. I had never heard of Contra Todos, but it's a directorial debut which makes it even more of a crap shoot. There was one horrid film at Miami's and two that were not quite worth watching.

[Chris Knipp]

The real eye-opener to me was the mob scene at this film. While my friend was out buying another ticket about fifteen people came up to ask for the seat and I thought I was going to be forced to give it up. One was quite aggressive. Then a couple dozen standing in the back were forced to leave. This is not to mention however many from the rush line may have waited in vain. We thought those who got refunds were the lucky ones. And then the introducer said this was an absolutely wonderful film. No reservations whatsoever. Had he really seen it? I begin to wonder. How many of the people involved in promoting festival films have actually seen a copy of the film? If they have seen it and rave over it that's even worse.

It is disappointing as you are suggesting that for instance Los Muertos may not be shown in theaters. I'm sure that if it got distribution it would get mixed reactions from critics and audience but it would get some raves. It should at least be shown in NYC and LA and get reviewed by the critics there. There are only two external reviews posted of Los Muertos on IMDb.com.

[oscar jubis]

I read two different reports, one in Variety magazine, regarding the mob scenes at Sundance. Festivals require a great deal of organization and coordination to remain audience-friendly. Often more tickets are sold than there are seats, or more people show for a screening than anticipated because industry and press have passes that guarantee a seat at any screening they choose. Quality varies a great deal depending on the festival's stature and the size. A fest like Toronto's, with 350+ films, includes a lot of movies that are totally worthless. Because these are often world premieres, or North American premieres, there are no reviews one can read prior to watching them. Festivals like NY's, with under 30 films, weed out the trash but feature a lot of films that will get distributed anyway. Then, there are tons of second or third tier festivals (like the ones in Ft. Lauderdale, Orlando and several in Cali) that show a lot of straight-to-video indie stuff. I'm under the uimpression that this Brasilian film must have gotten a good review in a Bay area paper (perhaps a weekly) to create that level of interest, since Moreira has no previous record.

[Chris Knipp]

Festivals are clearly a mixed bag, but Rosenbaum has shown that you kind of can't have even a slightly complete picture of what's going on in the whole world of cinema without attending them. I sort of got lured into this one, but it's turned out to be rewarding overall so far. In general I think the SFIFF has been very well managed and it's logisticaly very complicated to put on one of these things. Thanks for your other information. I still don't quite see why a bad movie gets passed on from one big city festival to another for the better part of a year. As for a local review, you may be right. Another reason why we need good local reviewers, which we ain't got. Just one good one here would of course make a huge difference.

[Fan of Kubrick]

I can see that Up Against Them All is gettin ragged on here, I would agree. I was also in the sold out theater, and surprised to see people hiding in corners to stay in the film. I'll just move on again as I think Chris has said pretty much everything that needs to be said about this film.

After reading the words Iraq War in the synopsis of The Riverside, I immediately circled. A few friends of mine said that Iranian films are often depressing, so I decided to go anyway. I attended the fillm and wasn't surprised to see that nobody who was involved in the film... What I did expect was homeland security...

The Riverside
This film starts out with a very shaky and annoying handheld camera, but as soon as the camera calms down, just as the woman standing on the landmine calms down, it becomes beautiful. The Riverside is the story of a young bride who accidently steps on a mine fleeing Iraq for the Iran border. This tragi-comedy starts out very serious but cuts to some incredibly funny characters. One scene has three men, one of whom thinks every electricity post is the 15th post, another who wants some of an old man's doogh and another who thinks that he has passed 1000 electricity post. The camera work has little to do with the beautiful scenes layed before them, but it certainly helps. I find it amazing that the rock formations and large grass hills are forgotten as one of this world's beautiful locations all due to the fact that there is a war taking place there. The camera does do a good job much of the time, not pertaining to the location. When a different character becomes a subject of the camera, the style changed completely. All in all, I think that this film was very well done, except for the subtitles, which were horrible.

[hengcs]

Hi to all

This is one of my most important weeks, so pray for me ...
;)

I will be busy this week, and I will post all my reviews and Q&A about 1 week from now ...

[Chris Knipp]

Ingmar Bergman: Saraband (2003)

(San Francisco Film Festival showing, March 30, 2005)

A quiet finale, molto adagio
Ingmar Bergman is back for one more "last" film. There's a lot of talk about how Bergman's vision is still "bleak" and how depressing Saraband is, but a lot of that is due to the heavy burden of preconceptions any long-time Bergman fan brings to it. There are reasons for finding sunshine here. At the same time, there isn't the anguished power of Bergman's best work. This film made for TV like Scenes from a Marriage is related to that longer piece through the presence of Liv Ullmann and Erland Josephson (now 65 and 81) as a couple. It's even closer to Faithless, the film Ullmann directed from a screenplay by Bergman in 2000. Now the two actors are Marianne and Johan, long-divorced spouses. She comes to visit him after 30 years of not seeing each other, and as she stays on for some weeks, his son and granddaughter, who live nearby, come into the picture with their problems.

Ultimately the center of Saraband is the granddaughter, a young woman with strong musical talent struggling to leave the nest. The title refers to one of the most haunting, simple, and sad segments of Bach's solo cello suites. The young lady who plays it is Karin (Julia Dufvenius), who's become a cellist like her father, Johan's despised son Henrik (Börje Ahlstedt). Henrik is tormented with sorrow over the loss of his wife Anna and the conflict over Karin's leaving is heightened by his need to cling to her in the absence of Anna.

The old folks are pretty spry and have no major health problems. Ullmann's still pretty and her face isn't so lost and anguished as it used to be. Marianne is still active as a lawyer. Josephson's character is a full-time jerk, but he's spry, mentally alive, and rich. He has moved out to a country place with fantastic views and lives in an old house right out of World of Interiors. The whole film has a soft color scheme and the shots are simple but glow. The weather is warm and sunny, and Marianne and Johan sit together out on the patio when she arrives and are soon holding hands and kissing. He soon unleashes a lot of sourness, but she stays on for a month or so. One isn't sure quite how she spends all this time though Henrik and Karin come back and forth for visits and we see them together at home in some scenes.

Bergman returns to his strong Strindbergian theatrical roots in Saraband, which is like stage chamber music, highly organized into named and numbered segments and with two people at a time onscreen, Marianne occasionally addressing the camera in soliloquies. Like the Ullmann/Bergman collaboration Faithless Saraband's has a lot of speeches ruminating over the past. They're devastatingly honest perhaps, but implausibly explanatory.

Though the panoramic view is lovely, we see it only briefly. The chamber music theme is borne out by the chambered settings. Only one lovely sequence is shot in a small country church blessed with a fine eighteenth-century organ on which Henrik plays Bach. This is one of the few places where the film opens up and allows music and facial expressions to speak rather than expository dialogue. A striking, and strange scene shows that Henrik and Karin now sleep in the same bed. The way the film begins and ends with Marianne sitting at a table strewn with large photos and everyone has the same one of Anna conveys a sense of people leafing back through their past. It's thanks to Karin that Saraband has a positive, hopeful thrust, and the strong, radient Dufvenius brings light and energy into the picture.

Unfortunately there are no real surprises, and this final work is not cinematic like Bergman's earlier classics. One of the weaknesses is that though Karin weeps and vents, only her father Henrik seems really in torment and awakens sympathy and sadness in the audience. However sad and concerned with twilight and death critics may find the film to be, most of the characters come out relatively unscathed. We aren't devastated either, and all the angst washes over us without leaving a deep impression. This is a mature work by a great director and it is a fine film in its way, but it doesn't seem truly profound. Unfortunately like the work of Bergman's great admirer Woody Allen it leaves an immediate good impression and then is quickly forgotten.

(Shown at the historic Castro Theater in San Francisco.)

Posted on Chris Knipp website. (http://www.chrisknipp.com/writing/viewtopic.php?t=412)

[oscar jubis]

I certainly was "devastated" and found the film "profound". For me, it's one of Bergman's best. But this is a matter of one's "gut reaction" to the film, as you'd put it. In actuality, my sole disagreement with your review is "the center of Saraband is the granddaughter". In family therapy parlance, Henrik is the "identified patient". He is a player in the three key relationships in the film: Henrik and Karin, Henrik and Johan, and let's not forget, Henrik and Anna, whose spirit hovers over all the proceedings. I can't wait to watch it again.

[Fan of Kubrick]

To me Saraband was a bit of a dissapointment. I found what I expected, but also saw that Bergman decided to break one of the key rules of cinema. Show not tell. Film is a visual art, and the scene in which Marianne decides to tell you her indecision really left me with a sour feeling for the rest of the film.

[Chris Knipp]

I agree, Oscar, that what gut reaction I felt came in response to Henryk's suffering, Henryk being the problem child and the most in pain. I see Karin as central because she's represents hope and keeps the film from being the totally bleak thing some see it as. Marianne is the least involved and is more a device to bring people together and begin and end the story. Unfortunately as Fan of Kubrick points out, such devices as Marianne almost totally represents are part of the telling not showing element that mars the film. It seems to me that Sarbande has less punch than Faithful; though the latter also is lagely in the nature of reporting rather than acting out, yet it has more meat in it.

[oscar jubis]

Our opinions on Saraband keep diverging more and more with every post. For me, Marianne's prologue and epilogue are the icing on the cake. They provide commentary on the action and amplify the film's themes by incorporating Marianne's relationship with her two daughters into Saraband's universe. Faithless is a trifle when compared with the resonant, opulent Saraband.

[Chris Knipp]

I don't think our opinions "are diverging more and more." They are simply divergent and we are merely clarifying what we already said. On IMDb I gave this film an 8/10. I would not rate this up with Bergman's best and I've tried to say why. But as I said it's a "fine film" by a "great director."

[Chris Knipp]

Sebastián Cordéro: Crónicas (2004)

(San Francisco Film Festival showing, May 3, 2005)

Nice try
Young Ecuadorian director Sebastián Cordéro's Crónicas begins and mostly sustains itself as good intense fictional coverage of what can happen when corrupt, sensationalistic journalists in Latin America cover a crime wave far from home base and encounter what even for them are obvious moral conflicts when they attempt to exploit it.

A Mexican news team out of Miami goes to cover the search for "the Monster of Babahoyo," a pedophile serial killer in the province of Los Rios in a remote part of Ecuador. A violent incident in the street when the team arrives in Babahoyo puts their reporter in contact with somebody who may be a victim of public hysteria, or may be the killer. Crónicas never gives you time to think and screws up its suspenseful situation into a tight knot and then lets go and drops you. Somewhat ironically the result feels very like the first episode of a sensational TV miniseries. The film would have been better if it had stepped back occasionally and let us and the story breathe. A haunting opening sequence of a man alone bathing and washing clothes gives a hint of how that might have happened.

The news people are serviceable stereotypes: photogenic lead reporter Manolo Bonilla (John Leguizamo); his sexy female producer Marisa (Leonore Watling), who soon hops into bed with him; his raunchy, substance-abusing cameraman Ivan (José María Yazpik), who has to keep pointing out that they're all supposed to be a team. To lend cred and support to the movie and give them a boss there's Alfred Molina in the background phoning in as Miami anchorman Victor of a fictitious news show, "Una Hora con la Verdad," seen and heard only on tiny TV screens and ever-present cells. Haunting the news team as it prances around and threatening a confrontation that never really materializes is "the only honest cop in Latin America," who happens to be the local police captain and seems to have a lot of time on his hands which he spends tracking the news team and reminding them they're not following the rules. Such reminders are feeble since they're free to fly out whenever they want and have plenty of money to bribe low level cops. Besides that Manolo is asked for his autograph constantly and greeted as a hero for things he now wishes he hadn't done.

Director Sebastián Cordéro's best move in Crónicas is to try to build a serial killer who's not a spooky Hannibal Lector type super-villain but a human being whom his victims trust and other people like. Cordéro makes real headway at achieving that goal by choosing the pitiful, sweet-faced Damián Alcázar to play Vinicio Cepeda, the "witness" in prison who may be the suspect. Where Vinicio fits in winds up being too clearly telegraphed, but the best scenes are still the ones where Vinicio gives creepy, insinuating testimony to Manolo (away from Ivan's camera) and bargains for his life.

What also makes Crónicas worth watching, if you can stomach the theme and don't mind the simplifications and lack of modulation in the sequences, are the grittily authentic local backgrounds: messy hotel rooms, grungy prison cells, chaotic streets, shantytown dwellings. These give the in-your-face story a sense of authenticity that isn't entirely undercut by the stereotypes and the pumped-up action. What doesn't quite work is a screenplay that gets everything going full speed from the first reel and never lets up till it just walks away leaving you waiting for the next gripping episode.

Posted on Chris Knipp website. (http://www.chrisknipp.com/writing/viewtopic.php?t=413)

[Chris Knipp]

Last SFIFF viewing: Sumiko Haneda: Into the Picture Scroll: The Tale of Yamanaka Tokiwa

This I won't comment on it detail now. It is an "art documentary" using landscape shots, some limited live action, and a lot of filmed closeups of a series of 17th-century Japanese scroll paintings to illustrate and tell the famous tale and puppet theater story of a young samurai son who avenges the murder of his mother by bandits. Every effort is made to open up the images and bring them to life in an appropriate way, using a voice-over with background information and a classical ballad-singer with shamisen accompaniment. The scrolls themselves, all by one artist, believed to be Matabei Iwasa, who himself may have had a mother who was brutally murdered, are amazingly detailed and often beautiful, and some of the incidents are jaw-droppingly violent. Nonetheless for the average viewer or anyone looking for a samurai movie, this will be pretty dry stuff. While the introducers at the festival showing said Haneda had revolutionized the art documentary, there have been many art documentaries in the past that brought works of art to life equally well, even in the case of Clouzot's Le Mystère Picasso actually documenting the act of painting in process. Oscar in his journal noted the evocation of Hieronymous Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights (Bosch viewers may find Sin City tame).

[arsaib4]

Originally posted by Chris Knipp
Sebastián Cordéro: Crónicas (2004)

(San Francisco Film Festival showing, May 3, 2005)

Nice try


I think we're in agreement on Crónicas. I also enjoyed the sequences between Alcázar and Leguizamo with their subversive intensity. But eventually certain other aspects of this pot-boiler do take over. Still, all in all, it's not a bad effort

[hengcs]

Tea-Horse Road Series: Delamu (2004)

This is a documentary directed by Tian Zhuang Zhuang.
He garnered the Best Director Award in the First Chinese Film Directors' Guild Awards in 2004.
see
http://p219.ezboard.com/fforeignfilmsfrm14.showMessage?topicID=13.topic

Although it has potential, I think it does not deliver (i.e., in my very humble opinion).

(i) What is good? All the exterior scenes/landscape are very well shot ...
-- BUT unfortunately, there are too few of these scenes ...
-- The beginning and ending are especially cinematographic! ;)
-- Likewise, there is a capture of the renowned "flying rocks and shifting sands". However, it is not exploited further to depict its perilous nature ...

(ii) The 6 or 7 interviewees have interesting/ insightful/ realistic/ depressing stories to tell.
-- However, they appear random and not coherent, without an overall structure or framework to tell a compelling story. Initially, you think it will be about the route, ... but then you start wondering whether it is about Christianity in Delamu ... then you suspect it may be about something else ... then you think it is probably about the kids and education, then you are transferred back to religion and Tibet Buddhism ...
-- In essence, it does not have a compelling story!

(iii) In addition, it may help the audience if the director traces the route for the audience. Sometimes, you think you have started travelling with the people, but at the end of the documentary, you think you are still at the same location all along ... I believe at the end of the documentary, a lot of audience still do not know the route that these people travel ...

(iv) There is not much depiction of historical or cultural relics, if you are hoping to see some ...

Conclusion:
In sum, there are a few good scenery and a few good interviews, but as a whole, it is not very compelling ...


My recommendation: "The Silk Road"

If you really want to watch a FANTASTIC documentary, I HIGHLY recommend "The Silk Road" (a collaborative effort by China and Japan in the 1980s). It comprises 30 episodes, with really good cinematography and art direction. Its sountrack is DEFINITELY SUPERB!!! The music by KITARO is MESMERIZING! ;)

After the 30 episodes, you will be impressed with the historical relics and cultural wealth of ancient days ... WOW ...
;)

[hengcs]

Originally posted by hengcs
My recommendation: "The Silk Road"



Before anyone purchase the DVDs/VCDs, let me share a few words of caution:

(1) As it is done in the 1980s (before the DVD era), a lot of sound/visual recordings may be considered "poor" by today's standard -- but great in those days!
(2) It is a made for TV documentary, NOT cinema.
(3) The information on the documentary may be outdated (because it is made in the 1970s and 1980s).
e.g., currency, population, names of places, etc.

According to this link
http://www.nhk.or.jp/digitalmuseum/nhk50years_en/history/p20/

-- NHK Tokushu broadcast this series over 10 years.
-- From conception to completion, it took 17 years.
-- The series was broadcast in 38 countries in Asia and Europe!
-- 7 million records and CDs of the soundtrack have been sold;
-- 3 million copies of the book have been sold;
-- 0.66 million copies of the photo series;
-- and 0.38million videos sold
;)

[hengcs]

The album by Kitaro
http://chaineux.de/kitaro/disco/silk_road_i_ii_gramavision1870192.htm