San Francisco International Film Festival 2008

[Chris Knipp]

CK REVIEWS OF SFIFF FILMS:

Below is an index of all the SFIFF films I have seen with links to my reviews.

SFIFF 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 thread below:

THE AQUARIUM (YOUSSRY NASRALLAH)
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)
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.

_________________________________

My colleague Oscar Jubis went over the whole list of selections (now online and announced April 1) and gave me his own list below of ones he has not seen, I have not seen, and he thinks worthy. I immediately eliminated MY WINNIPEG, because I can't stand Guy Madden. Oscar's list and my initial comments below after a quick look at the blurbs and video clips.

Oscar's suggestions:
I.
UNDER THE BOMBS--Lebanon, documentary . Definitely a must for me.
TRAVELING WITH PETS, Russian. Maybe.
MY WINNIPEG. No. Madden's twee, fey vision turns me off. Strictly for Madden devotees, they say.
WONDERFUL TOWN--Post-tsunami Thailand. Maybe.
A STRAY GIRLFRIEND--Argentina, Un Certain Regard. Probably
NOT BY CHANCE--Brazil, coincidental disasters. Probably not?
WATER LILIES--French girls' coming of age of figure swimmers. Yes, but this is now showing in NYC!
THE WARLORDS--Chinese historical, with Takeshi Kaneshiro. I can't resist.
TIME TO DIE--Old Polish lady. Maybe. Titles reminds me of Rutger Hauser in Blade Runner.
II.
SOLITARY FRAGMENTS--Spain, lives of women, good but arty. Maybe.
I SERVED THE KING OF ENGLAND--Czech, WWII drama about waiter's experiences. Doubtful.
LA FRANCE--French WWII story, Pascal Greggory, Silvie Testud, with song numbers. Maybe, though I have doubts about the musical bits. Nathan Lee liked it--in the ND/NF series recently at Lincoln Center.
FROZEN--Himalayan drama. Mabye not.
LADY JANE--French nourish mystery. I have a weakness for noir and French films.
STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURES--Errol Morris, re: Abu Ghraib. A must for me.
MUTUM--precocious Brazilian boy, docu-fiction. Maybe.
FLOWER IN THE POCKET--two little Malasian boys and father. Will avoid. The excerpt looks too self-indulgent.
BALLAST--a suicide in the Mississippi delta. Sundance winner, also in Berlin. A must. Sounds strong. American!
THE ART OF NEGATIVE THINKING--Norwegian dark comedy about disabled people. Looks fun. Probably will see this one.

I have not ruled any of these out yet and will keep the list handy. Only a few seem musts to me at this point; I have to see what else is showing. I would hope for more US films of interest than this--also more from the Mideast and Africa, China, South Korea, etc.--a wider spread of regions.

I will see Kechiche's SECRET OF THE GRAIN/LA GRAINE ET LE MULET, possibly the most important new French film we haven't seen yet. Oscar presumably saw it so didn't mention it, but that's one I want to catch even though it will overlap in Filmleaf coverage. The opening night gala features Breillat's MY LAST MISTRESS/UNE DERNIERE MAITRESSE but that one I saw last year (six months ago!) and it is covered in the NYFF 2007 thread. A third French film in the festival is Chabrol's A GIRL CUT IN TWO/LA FILLE COUPEE EN DEUX but that I covered also as part of NYFF 2007. Michael Hawley guesting on Michael Guillen's San Francisco film blog THE EVENING CLASS goes over the French entries and says he's surprised LADY JANE got included because the Cannes reception for it was not warm. Eric Rohmer's THE ROMANCE OF ASTREE AND CELADON--again NYFF 2007 covered here--is a dry, somewhat feeble effort. Hansen-Love's ALL IS FORGIVEN, about a French heroin addict, his German wife, and their daughter, is looking better to me now and it was recently chosen as the best film of the year by Cahiers du Cinema (it was a Cannes Directors Fortnight selection too). I've seen it twice, once in Paris last fall, once in February 2008 at the Rendez-Vous at Lincoln Center. Hawley concludes

As far as the films that didn't make it into the festival (Jalil Lespert's 24 Measures, François Ozon's Angel, Gäel Morel's Après lui, Jacques Nolot's Before I Forget, Claude LeLouch's Roman de Gare, Michelange Quay's Eat, For This is My Body, Erick Zonca's Julia, Cedric Klapisch's Paris, Claude Miller's Un secret, Christophe Honoré's Love Songs), I'll just have to hope I cross paths with them somewhere else down the line.

I have 'crossed paths' with Before I Forget (Paris thread), Klapisch's Paris, Miller's A Secret, and Honore's Love Songs (all at the Rendez-Vous Feb. 2008-see Festival thread).

Eliminated--already covered:

The SFIFF 2008 selections I have already seen and written about are these:

ALEXANDRA (SOKUROV)
ALL IS FORGIVEN (HANSEN-LOVE)
BRICK LANE (SARAH GAVRON)
THE ROMANCE OF ASTRA AND CELADON (ROHMER)
GO GO TALES (FERRARA)
FADOS (SAURA)
IN THE CITY OF SYLVIA (GUERIN)
A GIRL CUT IN TWO (CHABROL)
STILL LIFE (JIA ZHANG-KE)
THE MAN FROM LONDON (BELA TARR)

I don't know which ones Oscar has seen; he didn't say. Which other SFIFF 2008 selections have you seen recently, Oscar?

[Chris Knipp]

I have gone over Michael Hawleys (implied) SFIFF wish list carefully too. He like Oscar recommends Jaime Rosales' SOLITARY FRAGMENTS and Vera Storozheva's prizewinning TRAVELING WITH PETS and the Thai WONDERFUL TOWN. And he expresses some interest in Dario Argento's THE MOTHER OF TEARS or at least in his omnipresent, campy daughter Asia's presence in it.

He mentions Hitoshi Matsumoto's "future cult classic" (SFIFF blurb) BIG MAN JAPAN, Ermanno Olmi's ONE HUNDRED NAILS. A Variety review says it's a disappointing follow-up to Singing Behind Screens, which already seemed to me quite heavy going. This loaded religious allegory about a professor is. . . dubbed, using non-actors, returning to Olmi's roots and those of Italian film itself. As a student of Italian film I may have to see it, especially given that US release seems doubtful.

Hawley mentions Sergei Bodrov's Ghengis Khan epic biopic MONGOL, which features, obviously, breathtaking visuals. It will have general US release though. He mentions that I SERVED THE KING OF ENGLAND was a Best Foreign Oscarn nominee.

And he mentions the Danish JUST LIKE HOME and the Greek VALSE SENTIMENTALE as "of possible interest." The latter was a New Directors/New Films FSLC series selection recently.

I'm marking down as a must Yousry Nasrallah's THE AQUARIUM from Egypt, because of my interest in that place and knowledge of that dialect. Also mentioned by Guillen and interesting to me are the Nigerian Newton I. Aduaka's EZRA and the French-Algerian TWO LADIES, which looks nicely shot and edited and with good acting rhythm.

Graham Leggett, the SFIFF general director, said his programmers thought this was an off year for Latin America, Guillen mentions--continuing to say the Mexicans would be very surprised with that idea. He is intersted in Alex Rivera's SLEEP DEALER and Rodrigo Pla's LA ZONA, and then he mentions COCHOCHI, which I will skip because Oscar thoroughly discussed it already.

[oscar jubis]

Originally posted by Chris Knipp
I don't know which ones Oscar has seen; he didn't say. Which other SFIFF 2008 selections have you seen recently, Oscar?

I've seen: YOU THE LIVING, FADOS, LA GRAINE ET LE MULET, MATAHARIS, STILL LIFE, IN THE CITY OF SYLVIA, STRANDED: I COME FROM A PLANE THAT CRASHED IN THE MOUNTAINS, COCHOCHI, LA ZONA, BARCELONA (UN MAPA), and of course Mike Leigh's TOPSY-TURVY.

[Chris Knipp]

Thanks--of course I was aware of most of them but had forgotten La Zona, which MIchael Guillen on his blog THE EVENING CLASS just mentioned as of interest. I am not sure what you said about it. Maybe you have not gotten to it.

[oscar jubis]

Right. I still have 2 good Mexican films to review: La Zona and Used Parts.

[Chris Knipp]

Good. Maybe next time you could list in advance all the movies you've seen that you're going to review. That would create more interest and it's good to know ahead in general.

[Chris Knipp]

First new film seen at the SF festival 2008:

New French noir. Robert Guediguian: LADY JANE (2008)

[Chris Knipp]

Another panorama of Cairo life, Yousry Nasrallah's THE AQUARIUM .

[Chris Knipp]

Naturalistic Spanish study of separate lives, awarded Goyas for Best Film, Best Director and Best New Actor.

Jaime Rosales: SOLITARY FRAGMENTS (2007) .

[oscar jubis]

I will probably have to buy the Spanish dvd to get to watch it. Like the debut by Mr. Rosales, THE HOURS OF THE DAY, it's unlikely to get distribution.

[Chris Knipp]

An old couple reveal personal secrets and talk to departing tenants.

Ventura Pons: BARCELONA: A MAP (2007) .

Also covered by Oscar at Miami.

[Chris Knipp]

A Korean period murder mystery with a woman's viewpoint.

KIM MEE-JEUNG: SHADOWS IN THE PALACE (2007)

[Chris Knipp]

Completion of "Pino" Solanas' sweeping documentary trilogy on Argentina's challenges and its future.

FERNANDO E. SOLANAS: LATENT ARGENTINA (2007) .

[oscar jubis]

Shadows in the Palace can be had on Region 1 compatible dvd (Asian) for about $10 on ebay _in case anyone's interested after reading CK's review. It's by a debutante director working with fresh talent so my knowledge of Korean cinema doesn't help me here.

Solanas is a great director who made a docu move after excelling at fiction. I'm a fan of The Dignity of the Nobodies and will seek out the follow-up.

[Chris Knipp]

The 1972 Andes crash survival story, finely told by the men, with seamless use of reenactments and a revisit to the locations. Oscar saw this at Miami and has described it, but I couldn't resist watching it too.


GONZALO ARIJON: STRANDED: I COME FROM A PLANE THAT CRASHED ON THE MOUNTAINS (2008)