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.
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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 concludesI 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).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.
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?
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