Got it; confirmed.
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Got it; confirmed.
Kechiche's triumph at the Cesars about the North African diaspora in France.
ABDELLATIF KECHICHE: THE SECRET OF THE GRAIN (2007)
CK REVIEWS OF 2008 SFIFF FILMS:
Below is an link index of all the SFIFF films I have seen and reviewed on FILMLEAF. Clink on any title to go to the review.
SFIFF 2008 titles I had seen and reviewed prior to the festival:
ALEXANDRA (ALEXEI SOKUROV)
ALL IS FORGIVEN (MIA HANSEN-LOVE)
BRICK LANE (SARAH GAVRON)
FADOS (CARLOS SAURA)
GIRL CUT IN TWO (CLAUDE CHABROL)
GO GO TALES (ABEL FERRARA)
IN THE CITY OF SYLVIA (JOSE LUIS GUERIN)
LAST MISTRESS (CATHERINE BREILLAT)
MAN FROM LONDON, THE (BELA TARR)
ROMANCE OF ASTREA AND CELADON, THE (ERIC ROHMER)
STILL LIFE (JIA ZHANG-KE)
STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE (EROLL MORRIS)
Films first seen at the SFIFF. My reviews of these are in the Festival Coverage thread:
THE AQUARIUM (YOUSSRY NASRALLAH)
ART OF NEGATIVE THINKING, THE (BARD BREIEN)
BALLAST (LANCE HAMMER)
BARCELONA (A MAP) (VENTURA PONS)
EZRA (NEWTON I. ADUAKA)
FRANCE, LA (SERGE BOZON)
FROZEN (SHIVAJHEE CHANDRABHUSAN)
LADY JANE (ROBERT GUEDIGUIAN)
LATENT ARGENTINA (FERNANDO E. SOLANAS)
MEDICINE FOR MELANCHOLY (BARRY JENKINS)
MONGOL (SERGEI BODROV)
NOT BY CHANCE (PHILIPPE BARCINSKI)
ORZ BOYZ! (GILLIES YA-CHEE YANG)
RECYCLE (MAHMOUD AL MASSAD)
SHADOWS IN THE PALACE (KIM MEE-JEONG)
SECRET OF THE GRAIN, THE (ABDELLATIF KECHICHE)
SLEEP DEALER (ALEX RIVERA)
SOLITARY FRAGMENTS (JAIME ROSALES)
STRANDED: I CAME FROM A PLANE THAT CRASHED ON THE MOUNTAINS (GONZALO ARIJON)
STRAY GIRLFRIEND, A (ANA KATZ)
TIME TO DIE (DOROTA KEDZIERZOWSKA)
TRAVELING WITH PETS (VERA STORZHEVA)
TWO LADIES (PHILIPPE FAUCON)
UNDER THE BOMBS (PHILIPPE ARACTINGI)
VALSE SENTIMENTALE (CONSTANTINA VOULGARIS)
VASERMIL (MUSHON SALMONA)
WATER LILIES (CELINE SCIAMMA)
WONDERFUL TOWN (ADITYA ASSARAT)
Each link above will take you directly to my review of the title.
I'm done with SFIFF 2008 reviews now, or very nearly. I have reviewed every SFIFF film I've seen and linked to previous reviews of ones I had seen before the festival even began--counting both, I have covered 38 of the 170-some selections. I haven't gotten to reviewing the Norwegian THE ART OF NEGATIVE THINKING, the only one left that I saw but haven't written about.
The last SFIFF film I saw Thursday evening, the last day, was Abdellatif Kechiche's THE SECRET OF THE GRAIN. This was a highlight for me and suitably climactic. For me it was the most exciting and moving of all the films I saw at the festival.
I would hope that people post comments on this thread about any of the films I reviewed so we can get a dialogue going.
I would say this was a good year for the SFIFF. I had a good experience with it, and Graham Leggett is doing a good job, as are the several program directors who are behind the choices. There was a lot of good stuff, even if the festival doesn't seem to have excelled in any one area, neither Spanish nor Asian nor European nor indie American. It may have been strongest in documentaries. Much of it was seen before at other festivals, and in some cases a pretty long time ago.. And this is partly because the SFIFF comes at the end of the line in time (and perhaps in space) if you consider the big festivals as all part of a year-lonog cycle beginning with Cannes--which begins shortly. (I wish somebody on this site could give some coverage of Tribeca, a big competitor for San Francisco since it comes at about the same time. My impression is that Tribeca didn't have as many outstanding titles as SFIFF this year, but had more new small independent items.) Time to take a look at Cannes now, of course, but I won't be there. I just get to hear about it when I'm at the NYFF and there are press and industry people who attend it.
Norwegian revolt of handicapped people.
BARD BREIEN: THE ART OF NEGATIVE THINKING (2006)
We attempted to see this at the festival but there was a foulup in the tickets then. I caught it in a Berkeley theatrical screening. I am not the only one who has pointed out the many odd gaps in the storytelling. This seems to have gotten a surprisingly free ride from critics in the US: Metacritic 75. Compare the Guardian reviews, which are dismissive.
Life of Genghis Khan up to age 35. Projected as part one of a trilogy.
SERGEI BODROV: MONGOL (2007)
I woke up this morning intending to work diligently on my 20-page-minimum essay on Luc Moullet, an original member of the conseil des dix at Cahiers and the most neglected filmmaker of the French New Wave. It has been impossible to concentrate on said task on account of a transcendental experience at the movies last night.
The culprit is Solitary Fragments (La Soledad) by Jaime Rosales. It's really a shame that the film won't find space at American screens. Rosales deserves the exposure and American movie buffs deserve a chance to experience his masterful command of formal aspects of the medium in the service of compelling narrative. Some of the ways of blocking, staging and framing used in Solitary Fragments can be found in the films of Ozu, Antonioni, Akerman and, more recently, Edward Yang, but the synthesis of elements is thoroughly original.
The canvas used by Rosales is wide and left undisturbed in the outdoor scenes. When he moves indoors he breaks the frame into segments in a number of interesting ways. Sometimes he splits the screen in two in order to: a) show two rooms in the same home in arrangements that invert their actual physical placement, or b) eschew shot/reverse shot conventions involving two characters in conversation by having one screen show a character in profile and the other screen show a frontal view of the second character, who seems to be addressing the audience directly.
When the screen is not artificially split, Rosales creates fragments of screen by means of naturally existing elements like doors, walls, poles, and pieces of furniture. He creates compartments or "pockets" that function as frames-within-a-frame. The sense of life lived beyond the confines of the film frame is conveyed assertively by Rosales's use of off-screen space. In his narrative universe, characters no longer subjected to our gaze, characters who have exited the visual realm still register their presence by aural means: by the sounds created by their activities in the adjoining room or by their voices. The viewer's imagination is constantly allowed tocome into play in ways that are very gratifying.
This is not experimentation for it's own sake. In Solitary Fragments, every challenge to mainstream convention has a purpose related to characterization and narrative. The aim of Mr. Rosales is not to obfuscate but to clarify and to deepen the portrayals of the lives of two extended families in contemporary Spain.
*Solitary Fragments can be downloaded onto disc here. The film has also been released on PAL dvd
Solitary Fragments is best viewed having no knowledge of its plot (Avoid the mediocre Variety review which gives away a major plot point). Chris Knipp's review from the San Francisco Film Festival is very good.
Solitary Fragments is very successful. Rosales' more recent film is a disappointment. It is experimentation for its own sake, and abandons the subtleties and complexities of Fragments that you mention.
I'm happy to note that Bary Jenkins' MEDICINE FOR MELANCHOLY was released thatrically in New York today. It is showing at the IFC Cener on Sixth Avenue. This means mainstream reviews (Voice, The Onion, Salon, Chicago Reader and Hollywood Reporter listed so far on Metacritic) and at least comments like "promising" and "subtle." The Voice says "tender, smart, soulful." This is a distinctive piece of work by and about young, urban, sophisticated African Americans in San Francisco. Jones of Chicago Reader notes that the male lead is "Wyatt Cenac, the latest addition to "The Daily Show" With Jon Stewart." The film debuted at the SXSW Festival in Austin, Texas and got very favorable audience buzz at the SFIFF.
Nice slice-of-life with San Francisco as much a character as Micah and Jo. Docu detour midway, a housing rights meeting, underlines that fact. James Laxton won a well-deserved Special Jury prize for its cinematography at Sarasota last year. Inconclusive ending makes it possible for the viewer to imagine several possible futures for the couple, including no future at all. Indie rock soundtrack an asset. Music borrowed from Claire Denis' Vendredi Soir (an apparent influence) fits quite neatly also. Some might feel that the characterizations are somewhat underdeveloped, but the performances never falter.
I'm glad the movie got released. I am glad you saw it, even though I don't quite agree with your description. It's better than that, even though it's a little film. SF is not in my view a third character nor it is really true that the 'characterizations are somewhat underdeveloped' and the housing meeting is an irrelevant misstep ("docu detour" yes). But Medicine for Melancholy sets its own very distinctive mood. Your mention of Claire Denis fits with O'Hehir's Salon review from January, "Young, black, sexy and sad in San Francisco," which says Barry Jenkins, the director, has cited Godard, Denis, and Jarmusch as inspirations in interviews. SF is very realistically shown visually and logistically, though that doesn't exactly make it a character.. The important matter is that it has pushed out black people, who barely remain in the City outside physically degraded areas like Hunter's Point.