VIFF 2011 Film Roundup

66 films. 14 days. Here's what I saw, loosely ranked from most to least favorite, with a few notes and links to reviews I wrote. It's a great slate of films and you really have to get pretty far down the list to get to films I didn't care for. (Yep, I didn't like Alps.) Ratings out of 10.

1.     House of Tolerance / House of Pleasures (France) Bertrand Bonello 9.5

Love defies logic. Find the right key and the doors to the dopamine and serotonin fly open. For those with an affinity for film, this effect has probably happened while sitting in a theater. After seeing 64 films at VIFF, most of them slow, cerebral affairs, I went into House of Tolerance with little pretense and came out head over heels. Hopefully, as an untrained cinéastic, the right side of my brain was informing my left side in my adoration, and there is some sort of critical foundation to my crush. A provocative heartbreak of a film, House of Tolerance (ridiculously renamed House of Pleasures by IFC for its US release) is set in a high class Parisian brothel at the turn of the century. And while its themes and plush visuals reminded me of Flowers of Shanghai, House of Tolerance breaks out of that mold with grandiose highs and lows and a brutal plot thread. All of the courtesan tropes are there, but Bonello orchestrates them beautifully and sometimes rather clinically. But most importantly House of Tolerance's soundtrack pulls out some of the best emotional trappings since Lee Myeong-se threw a Bee Gees song into an action sequence.


2.     This is Not a Film (Iran) Jafar Panahi 9.5
Tinged by bitter post-film developments (Jafar Panahi’s appeal denied; cameraman Mojtaba Mirtahmasb arrested), This is Not a Film is far less ostentatious than the title implies. Instead it’s an unprecedented construct that openly addresses the ubiquity of media, sometimes in its most raw form of self-discovery, and the weight of oppression on an altruistic artist. A day in the life under house arrest, Panahi composes an in-the-moment diary entry, not the least of which includes a reading from the screenplay that he was not allowed to film. This is Not a Film burns with subdued frustration and vulnerable humor building to a final shot of compulsive irreverence.
(Capsule submitted to In Review Online's NYFF coverage. No, I wasn't in NYC. If I had been, I would be yammering on about all the Nikkatsu films I saw. But many of the films playing at VIFF were also playing at the NYFF.)

3.     Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (Turkey) Nuri Bilge Ceylan 9.5
Nuri Bilge Ceylan allows his formal compulsions to recede into the background in favor of the sprawl of an impressionistic narrative in his latest, most realized film. While casually wandering the archeological rich countryside of the title, looking for a corpse, Once Upon a Time in Anatolia exhumes the dark fairy tales of public servants and the unfolding nightmares of two criminals. The characters vacillate between the perfunctory and the profound in a mysterious reality of effects without cause. But these somber and sometimes playful intrigues merely lead us down a road to a much less abstruse corporeal space where scalpel meets flesh and dirt clogs throat.
(Capsule submitted to In Review Online's NYFF coverage.)

4.     A Separation (Iran) Aghar Farhadi 9
Few films are able to keep such a character-rich balance while building a tense, plot-driven drama better than A Separation. Although literally tackling the marital difficulties of a young middle class couple, director Asghar Farhadi puts all manner of social issues under an incredibly absorbing microscope, with gender and class at the forefront. The film gives equal space to all characters: the religious caretaker, her downtrodden husband, the conflicted husband, the brazen wife and even the mature eleven-year-old daughter who is stuck in the middle. Tightly wound around an impeccable script and camera choreography, A Separation perfectly parables a country hurtling toward and uncertain future.
(Capsule submitted to In Review Online's NYFF coverage.)

5.     Year Without a Summer (Malaysia) Tan Chui Mui 9

Caged in nostalgia and folklore, a man returns home to visit his friends and family he left behind. Beautiful and mysterious and completely unexpected.

6.     Eternity (Thailand) Sivaroj Kongsakul 8.5
Although it might be safe to say that Thailand had the corner on the gentle otherworldly genre, this might be a broad stereotype brought about by the widely-seen films of Apichatpong Weerasethakul. But I would also include Mundane History (VIFF 2010) and this extremely beautiful love story by way of passing over into another world. I have little expectation that this film will gain any significant international distribution, so if it plays in a festival near you, please go see it!
 
7.     Pina 3D (Germany/France/UK) Wem Wenders 8.5
Naysayers beware! Wem Wenders Pina 3D was one of the most exhilarating films I saw at VIFF. The film is an unselfish homage to the work of modern dance icon Pina Bausch, who passed away quite suddenly early in the film’s production. Primarily a vehicle for her choreographed pieces—some performed on stage and some in the open-air ambiance of Wuppertal, Bausch’s creative home—the 3D perfectly captures the tactile buoyancy and physicality of these performances. Dispersed throughout are quiet portraits of her dance troupe, as animated and impassioned reflections of the artist. Art and film collide in the most unaffected manner.
(Capsule submitted for my VIFF coverage at In Review Online.)

8.     The Turin Horse (Hungary) Béla Tarr 8.5
More on this later. I promise.

9.     Apuda (China) He Yuan 8.5
Read my review on Twitch here.

10. Elena (Russia) Andrei Zvyagintsev 8.5
Russian director Andrey Zvyagintsev crafts his best film yet with his third, a tightly wound drama of cinematic elegance. The matronly woman of the film’s title is a social survivor who understands the delicate balance between necessary acquiescence and taciturn defiance. But when her hand is forced, the film gives her a grand stage for a paradoxical tragedy of Shakespearian tone. Maternal instinct takes over and Elena rejects fate for conscious, if not reprehensible, volition. Zvyagintsev builds a palpable mood of suspense, staged with gorgeous long takes and scored with the effective anxious sounds of Phillip Glass.
(Capsule submitted for my VIFF coverage at In Review Online.)
Read my review on Twitch here.

11. Le Havre (Finland/France) Aki Kaurismaki 8

A man in a black trench coat walks into a bar with a pineapple… Moments like these in Le Havre, delivered with a dry wit and in a peculiar light, will be very familiar to fans of Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki. But surrounding the sardonic humor is unremitting optimism and effervescent magic. Joining unlikely forces is an impassive aging shoeshine whiling away his time and a young illegal immigrant on the lam from the law, backed by an entire community of underserved idealists. Kaurismäki takes his local verve and goes global in a forgotten French port city, rife with gleeful tenderness and plainspoken marvels.

(Capsule submitted to In Review Online's NYFF coverage.)

12. Two Years at Sea (UK) Ben Rivers 8

13. Are We Really So Far From a Madhouse? (China) Li Hongqi 8
Read my review on Twitch here.

14. The Sword Identity (China) Xu Haofeng 8

15. The Day He Arrives (S Korea) Hong Sang-soo 8
Hong Sang-soo continues to amaze within a narrow frame of focus by somehow pulling a fresh rabbit out of the same hat. Hong evokes his playful side in The Day He Arrives by ruminating on the mound of minor coincidences that mold the lives of his admittedly fallible characters. The set up is familiar—a film director, his friends, women from his past and soju—but the narrative pattern is slightly askew, cycling through different possibilities ala Groundhog Day. But more importantly, Hong takes the opportunity to explore his charming, booze filled variations on a theme all within one film. Check out this brilliant tease of a trailer.
(Capsule submitted for my VIFF coverage at In Review Online.)

16. Policeman (Isreal) Nadav Lapid 8

17. Headshot (Thailand) Pen-ek Ratanaruang 8
Thai director Pen-ek Ratanaruang returns to the noir and grit of his cult crowd-pleasing 1999 film 6ixtynin9, but with an added panache for murky spaces and nuanced storytelling. A man finds his altruistic ideals crushed on both sides of the law until he suffers a bullet to the head, turning his world upside-down (somewhat literally.) Concerned with enlightenment in a croaked world, Headshot skirts the edges of genre with a striking sense of ease and control. It runs through the well-trodden paces of political, police and criminal corruption with ample bloodletting but a unique set of credos.
(Capsule submitted for my VIFF coverage at In Review Online.)
Read my review on Twitch here.

18. Martha Marcy May Marlene (USA) Sean Durkin 8

19. Life Without Principal (Hong Kong) Johnny To 7.5

20. I Wish (Japan) Hirokazu Kore-eda 7.5
No one films the subtle affairs of the heart quite like the Japanese auteur Hirokazu Koreeda. He has mastered the ability to capture delicate shifts, shuffles and pangs without caving to predictable schmaltz and eye-rolling banality. I Wish folds these skills in with a group of charismatic young kids looking to make their dreams come true. At the center are two brothers struggling with the adjustment of living apart due to the irreconcilable differences of their parents. The humble perfection of I Wish is found in the generosity not only given to the kids but also to the adults harboring their own hopes and disappointments. Cynics need not apply.
(Capsule submitted for my VIFF coverage at In Review Online.)
Read my review on Twitch here.

21. Mr. Tree (China) Han Jie 7

22. Low Life (France) Nicolas Klotz, Elisabeth Perceval 7.5
In the grand tradition of French film burning with the ethos of May 68, Low Life emerges like a hot-blooded second cousin to Jean-Luc Godard’s Film Socialisme. An unsettled Paris is portrayed through the lives of disaffected young adults and disenfranchised immigrants in a meditative pool of intellectual ideals and carnal passion. Directors Nicolas Klotz and Elizabeth Perceval steady their aim at ill-defined movements of marginal cause and effect, juxtaposed with the less theoretical reality of deportation. These two worlds meet when a graduate student and an illegal Afghani immigrant fall in love. Low Life is a film to discover, with a distinct blend of dialectical acrobats and brooding hipsters that oddly culminates with a little sci-fi and a little magic.
(Capsule submitted for my VIFF coverage at In Review Online.)

23. Kid With a Bike (Belgium/France/Italy) Dardennes 7

24. The Loneliest Planet (Germany/USA) Julia Loktev 7
Western world privilege and confidence are at the center of the latent suspense that slowly spins in The Loneliest Planet. But so is the fragile trust between companions, both intimate and professional. Julia Loktev wields a careful hand on the perceptive story surrounding two beautiful, and engaged to be married, globetrotters (Hani Furstenberg and Gael Garcia Bernal) backpacking through the country of Georgia. Triangulated by a local guide, the group forms a jovial pack until an event, and a reaction, forms a mighty fissure. Unlike Loktev’s first feature Day Night Day Night, the insinuating introspection of The Loneliest Planet is both potent and convincing.
(Capsule submitted to In Review Online's NYFF coverage.) 

25. Kill List (UK) Ben Wheatley 7
Divisive, maybe to a fault, Kill List nonetheless pummels its way from drama to thriller to horror with riotous and cavalier flair.

26. Patience (After Sebald) (UK) Grant Gee 7

27. Return to Burma (Taiwan) Midi Z 7

28. A Simple Life (Hong Kong) Ann Hui 7
Between July Rhapsody, The Way We Are and this film, Hui has made some of the best and most understated films coming out of Hong Kong. 

29. The Skin I Live In (Spain) Pedro Almodóvar 7
With its veins pumped full of style, The Skin I Live In launches Pedro Almodóvar back into the spotlight with a riveting explosion of noir melodrama. Antonio Banderas plays a plastic surgeon too confident for his own good, and Elena Anaya plays the mysterious object of his demented affection. Harking back to Almodóvar’s early years, plotlines go haywire but with the measured control of his more recent films. But for all its storytelling confidence and cinematic elan, there is an absence emotional zeal. Obsession and death are brilliant but somewhat plastic tools of the film’s trade.
(Capsule submitted for my VIFF coverage at In Review Online.) 

30. Michael (Austria) Markus Schleinzer 7

31. The Color Wheel (USA) Alex Ross Perry 7

32. Flirting with Heights (France) Jean-Michel Bertrand 7

33. A Time to Love (S Korea) Boo Jiyoung, Yang Ikjune 7
Omnibus things rarely work, but this South Korean dyptich was impressive.  Thinking about it now, it would probably rank higher amongst the films I rated a 7.

34. Mitsuko Delivers (Japan) Yuya Ishii 7
Can we call this screwball comedy?

35. Woman in a Septic Tank (Philippines) Marlon N. Rivera 7

36. Bachelor Mountain (China) Yu Guangyi 7
Read my review on Twitch here.

37. The Artist (France) Michel Hazanavicius 7
Michel Hazanavicius ditches his OSS 117 franchise for a very probable spin through the awards circle. Although The Artist will likely dazzle audiences with flashy design, good performances and cute dog, behind this silent film’s undeniable charm is an unsurprising and rote story. Jean Dujardin plays silent movie star George Valentin whose career is threatened by Hollywood’s new fangled talkies. The film follows George’s downfall and his love’s rise to the top. The fact that you can guess what will happen every step of the way doesn’t decrease the enjoyment, but it does increase its eventual depreciation.
(Capsule submitted for my VIFF coverage at In Review Online.)  

38. Nana (France) Valérie Massadian 6.5

39. Baby Factory (Philippines) Eduardo Roy Jr 6.5

40. Salt of Life (Italy) Gianni Di Gregorio 6.5

41. Almayer’s Folly (Belgium/France) Chantal Akerman 6.5
In her adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s first novel, Chantal Akerman casts a wider swath over the notion of colonialism. Taking touchstones from the book, Almayer’s Folly puts a more random spin on time and place with an effective theatrical air. Akerman piles on the atmosphere suffocating Almayer in his own malaise of failure while his wife and daughter burn with madness and rage, respectively. The film is a stunning treatment of the material, but alone it becomes an abstruse illusion with a topical fever of power, obsession, jealousy, depression and death.
(Capsule submitted for my VIFF coverage at In Review Online.)  

42. Invasion of Alien Bikini (S Korea) Oh Youngdoo 6.5

43. Dragonslayer (USA) Tristan Patterson 6.5
Read my review on Twitch here.

44. Bullhead (Belgium) Michael R. Roskam 6

45. Shattered (China) Xu Tong 6
A disappointment compared to last year's stunning Fortune Teller.

46. Bonsái  (Chile/France/Argentina) Cristián Jiménez 6

47. Honey Pupu (Taiwan) Chen Hung-I 6

48. Seediq Bale (Taiwan) Wei Te-Sheng 5
Read my review on Twitch here.

49. We Can’t Go Home Again (USA) Nicholas Ray and friends 5

50. Dendera (Japan) Tengan Daisuke 5

51. My Little Princess (France) Eva Ionesco 5

52. The Sun Beaten Path (China/Tibet) Sonthar Gyal 5

53. Outside Satan (France) Bruno Dumont 5

54. Recreation (Japan) Nagano Yoshihiro 5

55. My Back Page (Japan) Yamashita Nobuhiro 5

56. Harakiri:Death of a Samurai (Japan) Takashi Miike 4
Read my review on Twitch here.

57. Alps (Greece) Yorgos Lanthimos 4

58. The Mirror Never Lies (Indonesia) Kamila Andini 4

59. Our Future (Japan) Iizuka Kashou 3

60. Hi-So (Thailand) Aditya Assarat 3
Read my review on Twitch here.

61. Buddha Mountain (China) Li Yu 3

I'm glad that Li Yu (who brazen started her career with a indie love story, Fish and Elephant, about two women) continues to make films, but this is a mess. There's some good material for a music video here, but the story and script fail to launch with some cringe-worth melodrama. Starring Fan Bingbing, Sylvia Chang and Chen Bo-lin.

62. There Once Was an Island (New Zealand/USA) Briar March 3
A well intentioned but barely realized documentary about a community on a disappearing island off Papua New Guinea.

63. Sleeping Beauty (Australia) Julia Leigh 3
It’s going take more than waifish confidence and blissful servanthood for me to buy what this austere, affected film is trying to sell. Sleeping Beauty channels the emotional distance of young woman (Emily Browning) willing to endure a drug induced sleep for the pleasures of elderly clientele. First time director and accomplished novelist Julia Leigh turns in a stylish debut, inhabiting an ethereal atmosphere that is not so different from her novels. But the characters are cardboard cutouts of failed hearts and broken psyches with little gravity, especially when tears are shed. Give me Sucker Punch any day.
(Capsule submitted for my VIFF coverage at In Review Online.)

64. Fatigue (S Korea) Kim Dongmyung 2
Fatigue is an extremely heavy-handed film about a woman in an oppressive domestic situation. The film steers far from literal interpretation, and I (incorrectly) read it as a lo-fi analogy about a male-dominated South Korean society. As it turns out, Fatigue is about the environment and a social engineering project going on right now to boast tourism...huh? The director was on hand to explain the film, but it only resulted in digging a hole. The Q&A was not pretty.

65. White (S Korea) Kim Sun, Kim Gok 2
Read my review on Twitch here.

66. Sufferosa (Poland/UK) Dawid Marcinkowski 0
This is a web based idea, not a film. Check out the idea here at www.suferosa.com. A frustrating waste of an hour on a gimmick.

VIFF 2011 Non-film Roundup

Here's some photos from my two weeks in Vancouver for the International Film Festival. Yes, I spent most of my time inside a movie theater or cranking away in a notebook or on a laptop, but here is a nominal record of some other things that made my trip and experience special.

VIFF was primarily housed in four venues, not including the Park which hosted the two 3D films in the line up. (No photo of the Park because I was too anxious about getting into both Pina and Harakiri, one of which was awesome and the other disappointing. Stay tuned if you don't already know the answer to that one.)

The massive 1200 seat Vogue Theater was the place for the premieres and hot tickets of the fest, and it routinely filled up. Built in 1941, the Vogue is a venue for mostly live performance. (Tom Morello, looking old, coming soon.) I sat in the balcony every time I was in the Vogue, and oh, what a balcony it was. For Twin Cities folks, imagine the upper half of the Riverview being a balcony - huge! I heard one projectionist complaining about sore quads from climbing up the steps to the booth.

The more modest Pacific Cinémathèque hidden behind the foliage is also a nice theater that has regular programming similar to the Trylon: great rep series and interesting first run screenings. It has a great feel to it and super duper comfortable seats. I would be at this theater a lot if I lived in Vancouver.

Vancity Theatre is the year around venue for VIFF and it is incredibly beautiful. The seats in the Vancity are like first class airplane seats (not that I've ever traveled first class...but I've seen those seats as I walk by!) At 170 seats, Vancity was probably the smallest venue but also the nicest.
And finally, the Granville 7, also known as VIFF Central Station. This seven screen multiplex was where 90% of the action was, and everyday I was shocked at the organization and planning that went into getting hundreds of people in and out and in and out of this bottleneck. The theater doesn't look like much from the outside, but it's towering lobby with all-glass windows is really nice, especially on those days where I needed to confirm that I wasn't a vampire.

Downtown Vancouver is flush with cheap eats, some better than others. Although I dipped by toe into the many inexpensive sushi places (finding a good one down near Vancity that suited me just right a couple times), my bread and butter was $5 or less. The true object of my Vancouver food obsession was Japadog, with carts around town and a storefront on Robson.

This cart was conveniently located right outside the hotel of the VIFF media office. My favorite was the oroshi: a brat with grated daikon and soy sauce. Yum!

Here's the outside of their storefront on Robson between Richards and Seymour, but if it was too packed it didn't matter. Right next door at Viet Subs you could get an amazing bahn mi (rivaling St Paul's Saigon Cafe sandwiches) that you could easily smuggle into any theater. And on the corner is Gyudon-ya, an inexpensive rice bowl restaurant that does a bustling business. Top any of those off with a cream puff from Beard Papa's (with rotating flavors like mango, caramel, and green tea) and you will be ready to take on a day of movies.

Vancouver has nature! Not that I saw much of it, but here we are at Lynn Canyon Park, the suspension bridge that the locals go to. (Props to the good folks at the media office for this free recommendation!)

I bet you didn't know that one of those exits from Union Street Station puts you in Vancouver. Or at least it did for one morning.

In between films I worked on my behind-the-back dribble here. Steve Nash was able to give me some good pointers.

A poster in the hostel I was staying that had an unwitting VIFF 2011 theme to it. (Cough, cough. Aki Kaurismaki's most recent.) The St. Clair Hostel has done me right for the second year in a row, providing the most amazing free Thanksgiving dinner. Even if I could afford the Sutton with the film fest rock stars, I prefer the humble and mellow ambiance of the St. Clair.

And last but not least, a big shout out to my buddy Erik McClanahan who contributes to the Playlist and works for the NW Film Center in Portland. For the second year in a row, Erik and I have been festival roommates and movie comrades. I love talking to this guy about movies, even if he is over-obsessed with Drive. Above is a drawing by a panhandler made while we stood in line for tickets. The guy earned his 2 bucks.

Up next: the final tally of films, their rankings, my ramblings and link to reviews.

30th Vancouver International Film Festival

The full schedule for the 30th Vancouver International Film Festival went live over last weekend with 375+ films from 75 countries. The Fest will open with Pedro Almodóvar’s The Skin I Live In on September 29 and close two weeks later with the Dardenne Brother’s The Kid With a Bike. VIFF and its stellar array of films might be overshadowed by Toronto’s buzz, glitz and glam (not to mention the other film festival also known as VIFF), but Vancouver packs 16 days with an eclectic mix of films, including the largest East Asian selection outside of that region and the influential Dragons & Tigers Award.

In competition for the Dragons & Tigers Award are eight films: three from the Philippines, two from South Korea, two from Japan, and one judiciously stated from China, parenthetically, Tibet. This year’s jurors are producer Simon Field (Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall his Past Lives, I Can’t Sleep Alone), director Ann Hui (July Rhapsody, The Way We Are and this year’s A Simple Life) and actor/director Yang Ik-joon (Breahtless). The award, announced October 8, has had a long history of recognizing some of the most important young talent coming out of the region, including the debut features of Jia Zhangke, Hong Sang-soo, Lee Chang-dong and Hirokazu Kore-eda.

There are 46 Asian features in the Dragons & Tigers Program, and rounding out the award nominees are new films from well-known directors (Johnnie To’s Life Without Principle, Hong Sang-soo’s The Day He Arrives, Hirokazu Kore-eda’s I Wish, Pen-ek Ratanaruang’s Headshot and Takashi Miike’s Harakiri: Death of a Samurai) as well as a number of highly anticipated titles (Wei Te-sheng’s four-hour epic Warrior’s of the Rainbow: Seeqid Bale, Xu Haofeng’s The Sword Identity and Jang Hun’s The Front Line.) But it is the remaining discoveries of under-the-radar Asian films, curated by Tony Rayns and Shelly Kraicer, which make the Dragons & Tigers Program a unique treasure trove.

On the international stage VIFF offers regional premieres of some of the most talked about films on the festival circuit. Fresh from Cannes and direct form Toronto, VIFF 2011 will include Aki Kaurismäki’s first feature in five years Le Harve, Gerardo Naranjo’s follow-up to I’m Gonna Explode, Miss Bala, Wim Wender’s 3D documentary Pina, Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s Once Upon a Time in Anatolia, novelist Julia Leigh’s debut Sleeping Beauty, Frederick Wiseman’s newest Crazy Horse, Jafar Panahi’s This is Not a Film, filmed under house arrest, and Bela Tarr’s purportedly final film, The Turin Horse.

Equally exciting is the long list of buzz worthy titles making an appearance at VIFF. Markus Schleinzer’s debut film Michael seems worthy of controversy. Recently picked up by Strand, Michael taps into the taboo subject of pedophilia. Also sure to divide audiences is Yorgos Lanthimos’ follow-up to Dogtooth, ALPS. Lanthimos employs more of an ensemble for his newest that has been called an “absurdist ghost story.” Also of note: one of the latest in a exploding US independent scene, The Color Wheel from Alex Ross Perry; the SXSW and Hot Docs favorite from Tristan Patterson, Dragonslayer; the sophomore features from Julia Loktev (The Loneliest Planet), Ben Wheatley (Kill List) and Canada’s own Sarah Polley (Take This Waltz.)

The Vancouver International Film Festival, in its 30th year, runs from September 29 to October 14. I will be there from September 30 to October 14, covering the festival daily for Twitch and providing festival overviews for In Review Online and KFAI.

Clio Barnard's THE ARBOR

My review of Clio Barnard's amazing documentary The Arbor is up on In Review Online. I've watched this film four times of the past 6 months and it continues to grow on me exponentially. As I mentioned in my halftime post, it is easily one of my favorite films of the year so far.

I gave The Arbor a four star review in the Star Tribune for an MSPIFF capsule, trying as hard as I could to maximize praise without fluff or hyperbole. Shortly after, I was randomly talking to a stranger at one of my various jobs about the films she had seen at MSPIFF, and she said, "Did you see that one...what was it called...it got a really good review...but really depressing!" I had to take responsibility and sort of explain myself beyond the 100 words I was allotted for the Strib. It seems fitting that I took the time to flesh out a longer review and am glad I did.

Although it has already passed the Twin Cities by, playing at MSPIFF a couple months ago, The Arbor comes out on DVD September 6. Be sure to check it out!

MSPIFF wrap on In Review Online

Festival Coverage: Minneapolis St Paul 2011

If you thought you missed it, you probably didn't because it only recently went online a couple weeks ago...but, better late that never, my coverage for MSPIFF 2011 is up and available at In Review Online. Check out my thoughts on Mohammad Rasoulof's The White Meadows, Federico Veiroj's A Useful Life, Arvin Chen's Au Revoir Taipei, Mike Mills' Beginners, Jordan Scott's Cracks, Denis Cote's Curling, Jean-Luc Godard's Film Socialisme and most importantly Sergei Loznitsa's My Joy - a film that nearly broadsided me with narrative surprise and dark ingenuity. And because Dan Dobbs was recently asking me why I liked My Joy so much, I'm re-posting my review here. This is for you Dan:

My Joy / Sergei Loznitsa. A kindred, chaotic spirit of Huang Weikai’s Disorder, Sergei Loznitsa’s My Joy has a rigid Russian gloss that takes a traditional approach only if you watch a portion of the film’s random hopper of narratives. Although My Joy is made of two halves, those halves meander through various stories that each leave a lingering vapor trail to a much larger allegory. Corruption unapologetically blankets the film, trickling down from a history of authoritarianism and extreme conditions. Any kindness is met with an untrusting hostility that, at least within the gage of the film, is not unwarranted. But these vignettes, in their structural ambiguity, are anything but detached. Heavy with heartbreak and despair, each sequence is loaded with the components of profound social destruction and deranged malaise. My Joy opens with a mysterious corpse being covered in cement and ends with a shell-shocked murderer walking off into the darkness of night—although the literal connection is abstruse, the cyclical implication is crystal clear. The narrative is loosely structured around Georgy, a stolid truck driver, and the people he comes in contact with. Loznitsa and his cinematographer Oleg Mutu, who worked on The Death of Mr. Lazarescu and 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, tell much of their story through the complex and sardonic ‘joy’ on peoples’ faces. As the camera takes an impromptu walk through a market crowd we see it all—anger, frustration, fear, judgment, distrust, hate—and, in this case, for no logical reason, only to trail off after a man in an unexplained panic. The disjunctive anatomy of My Joy may be an aggravation to some, but I found it entirely euphoric with extremely detailed elements of subtle surprise that I could have never predicted in my wildest dreams.

Check out the full coverage here.

And in case you are wondering here is a loose ranking of the films I saw at MSPIFF, from top to bottom:

My Joy
Curling
The Four Times
The Arbor
Nostalgia for the Light
Film Socialisme
The Interrupters
The Forth Portrait
13 Assassins
The Actresses
Cameraman: The Life and Times of Jack Cardiff
A Useful Life
Applause
Page One
Ticker & Dale Vs. Evil
The Green Wave
Home for Christmas
Happy Happy
Au Revoir Taipei
Position Among the Stars
Project Nim
Rio Sonata
White Meadows
Beginners
Kinshasha Symphony
If I Want to Whistle, I Whistle
Dooman River
The First Beautiful Thing
Tyrannosaur
Who Killed Chea Vichea?
A Cat in Paris
Small Town Murder Songs
Kawasaki’s Rose
Free Radicals: A History of Experimental Film
Dossier K
Street Days
The Troll Hunter
Stake Land
Aftershock
Gigola
Merry-Go-Round
Midnight Son
Pure
The Ugly Duckling
Amigo
El Infierno

Best of 2011 - Halftime

The mid-year point is usually a time to do two things: 1) lament the summer movie season for all its empty-headed blockbusters, and 2) yearn for the Fall releases, typically far superior to Spring offerings, that are coming soon but not soon enough. Rarely is anyone extolling the virtues of a great year in film only six months in. But 2011 is a year of a different breed. For reasons that I can only speculate on, the first half of 2011 has been better, in terms of US releases, than most years in their entirety. And even though I still have more than a few releases in my unwatched column (most notably Of Gods and Men, Jane Eyre, Bridesmaids, Hanna, My Perestroika, Win Win, The Trip, Bill Cunningham New York, and Submarine), my 20 Best Films of 2011 cookie jar is already almost filled to the brim.

Normally, the year is laid out with strategic marketing logarithms. But traditional thinking, as I understand it, is to load the 'good films' (i.e. potential award winners) at the end of the year so those casting ballots will be likely to remember the critical, popular or promotional swell of a film. 'Good films' released at the beginning of the year, regardless of reception, are often forgotten about. (The best example of this happening recently is Scorsese's Shutter Island from last year, which I would contend was a great film that had award potential. But it didn't even register at the Golden Globes or Academy Awards. Further proof that those voting need to take better notes.)

What's different this year? Well, first of all, I think we can all agree that distribution tactics have been thrown up into the air with no clear understanding of how things will land. Studios struggling to make heads or tails of the benefit of various modes of attack—theatrical, on-demand and physical home formats—have started to break free from what we expect. This is especially true with distributors who specialize in foreign films or smaller independent films like IFC or Magnolia. They are aggressively exploring what it means to release films by non-traditional means: sometimes on-demand, sometimes in theaters and sometimes both.

Maybe even more prophetic to the stellar first six months of 2011 is a handful of even smaller distributors such as Kino Lorber, Cinema Guild, Oscilloscope, and Strand seem to have a much more radical approach: acquire the best films you can and release them. Period. And that's not to say they don't have a plan, but rather they work far outside of the confines of the majors and have quite a bit to show for it, especially in the first half of 2011. A look at my loosely arranged favorite 18 films of year so far reveals that 13 come from these smaller distributors: Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (Strand), Meek's Cutoff (Oscilloscope), Le Quattro Volte (Kino Lorber), The Arbor (Strand), Aurora (Cinema Guild), Putty Hill (Cinema Guild), Love Exposure (Olive Films), Poetry (Kino Lorber), United Red Army (Kino Lorber), Nostalgia for the Light (Icarus), Film Socialisme (Kino Lorber), Leap Year (Stand) and Tuesday, After Christmas (Kino Lorbor). Of the remaining five, four still come from modestly sized companies: Cold Weather, Certified Copy , Cave of Forgotten Dreams (all IFC) and 13 Assassins (Magnolia/Magnet). And only one, Tree of Life, bares the emblem of a large distributor, Fox Searchlight.

Of course, this all kind of makes sense. Many of the films that will land in the Fall that see both popular and critical success will be from some of the larger distributors who hold the line on cashing in on the awards season. The small distributors own the first half of 2011, and they may likely be the unsung heroes at the end of the year, as I don't see the lock they have on my attention wavering too much in the next six months. If that is true and if the majority of my favorite films so far end up being on my top 20 of the year, it means that many will be available if not on DVD or Blu-ray then some sort of VOD which could make the eventual lists of 2011, even the esoteric ones, more accessible than ever before.

So I say, long live the adventurous small distributors—fearless and inspired in their aquisitions—making 2011 extremely exciting! As distribution systems shift, morph and break down and as the most savvy consumers are just as willing to rip a movie from the internet than support the companies that champion them, Stand, Kino Lober, Cinema Guild, Oscilloscope, Olive, Icarus, and even back-from-the-dead New Yorker doggedly keep fighting the good fight to bring films to theaters and, more important to those not living in a major market, to home distribution.

Below are eighteen favorites, loosely arranged by preference, that hit US screens in the first six months of 2011 with notations on DVD/Blu-ray release dates if available and links for titles that I've actually written a little somethin' somethin' about:

• Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Thailand (DVD/Blu-ray July 12)
• Certified Copy, Abbas Kiarostami, France (Available on demand through some cable providers)
• Meek's Cutoff, Kelly Reichardt, USA (DVD/Blu-ray Sept 13)
• Le Quattro Volte, Michelangelo Frammartino, Italy (DVD/Blu-ray Sept 13)
• The Arbor, Clio Barnard, UK (DVD Sept 6)
• Aurora, Cristi Puiu, Romania
  
• Cold Weather, Aaron Katz, USA (DVD Aug 2)
• The Tree of Life, Terrence Malick, USA
  
• Putty Hill, Matthew Porterfield, USA
• Love Exposure, Sion Sono, Japan
  
• Poetry, Lee Chang-dong, South Korea (DVD/Blu-ray Aug 23)
• United Red Army, Koji Wakamatsu, Japan
  
• Nostalgia for the Light, Patricio Guzmán, Chile
  
• Film Socialisme, Jean-Luc Godard, France
  
• Leap Year, Michael Rowe, Mexico
  
• Cave of Forgotten Dreams, Werner Herzog, France
  
• Tuesday, After Christmas, Radu Munteau, Romania
  
• 13 Assassins, Takashi Miike, Japan (DVD/Blu-ray available now)

Trylon Premiere Tuesdays lineup

People have asked me what the theme is of the Tuesday film series at the Trylon, and logistically, they are films that we can afford to bring in for four shows that deserve to play in the Twin Cities. Outside of films that get locked in at Landmark, creative and adventurous programming of new films only happens at St. Anthony Main and the Walker. But with the Walker cutting back on many of its film programs and St Anthony radically shifting from week-to-week, it leaves a lot of holes, especially for some of the smaller indie and international releases. Ours is a modest but what I feel is an important contribution to the Twin Cities film scene. As a film fan, many of these films are ones that I would want to see come to town. Twin Cities premieres are certainly what we are striving for, but occasionally that is a white lie. Case in point, I was feeling pretty cruddy about living in a place that only gave Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (a film that I dearly love) one screening. Fortunately I was able to do something about that.

Thematically though, the films are all over the map. Nothing exemplifies this more than the next four films—a solid mixture of international drama that may be the best lineup we’ve ever had. Yes, I’m a little bit proud of myself. If I had tail feathers, they would be splayed.

Here’s what I’m looking forward to in the next couple of months and I hope you are too:

Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010)
Thailand, dir. Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Tuesday, July 5 7:00 & 9:15

There are two more screenings of Uncle Boonmee and if I've said it once, I've said it a hundred times, in one way or another: don't miss this movie. The patience and simplicity of this mystical film make it unlike anything you've ever seen before. Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s new film is a gentle and dreamy meditation on death and the magical possibilities of reincarnation. Boonmee is a man at the end of his life who is visited by spirits and visions of his past from the dense jungles of Northern Thailand.

Hadewich (2009)
France, dir. Bruno Dumont
Tuesday, July 12 7:00 & 9:15
Tuesday, July 19 7:00 & 9:15

Bruno Dumont has earned a reputation as a provocateur for the sake of provoking. But he pulls back ever so slightly with Hadewijch with a story about the incongruity between the blind faith most religions promote and the expectations of the modern world. Hadewijch is a young nun in training who is kicked out of the order because her faith is, ironically, too fervent. She returns to her bourgeois life in Paris and finds solitude with a group of men who have a passion for Allah that is equal for her passion for God. Hadewijch is an incredibly honest film even if it is allegorical and its message slight.

Caterpillar (2010)
Japan, dir. Koji Wakamatsu
Tuesday, July 26 7:00 & 9:00
Tuesday, August 2 7:00 & 9:00

Koji Wakamatsu last two films have recently gotten US releases. The first, United Red Army (2007), is an epic three hour critique on 1970s left wing politics in Japan. Caterpillar is conversely a commentary on the Right and the Nationalism that spawned the the revolutionary movement he depicted in United Red Army. At a mere 84 minutes, Caterpillar is a little more accessible not only in length, but also tone and style. (The possibility still remains that I might find a spot for United Red Army.) Loosely based on a banned short story by Edogawa Rampo, this period film tells the story of a soldier retuning from war a hero, but without his arms and legs. Caterpillar's potent metaphor is part horror film, part wartime drama.

World on a Wire (1973)
Germany, dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Tuesday, August 9 7:00
Tuesday, August 16 7:00

Here's one I haven't seen yet, but am as excited as anyone to see it. Recently restored by Janus Films, we are thrilled to give this two screenings. From Janus' website: "A dystopic science-fiction epic, World on a Wire is German wunderkind Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s gloriously cracked, boundlessly inventive take on future paranoia. With dashes of Kubrick, Vonnegut, and Dick, but a flavor entirely his own, Fassbinder tells the noir-spiked tale of reluctant action hero Fred Stiller (Klaus Lowitsch), a cybernetics engineer who uncovers a massive corporate and governmental conspiracy. At risk? Our entire (virtual) reality as we know it. This long unseen three-and-a-half-hour labyrinth is a satiric and surreal look at the weird world of tomorrow from one of cinema’s kinkiest geniuses." Yeah! Although World on a Wire is not up on the Trylon website yet, it will be up on the site by Monday. Buy your tickets in advance!

Tuesday, After Christmas (2010)
Romania, dir. Radu Muntean
Tuesday, August 23 7:00 & 9:00
Tuesday, August 30 7:00 & 9:00

Another chapter in the book of the Romanian New Wave, Tuesday, After Christmas is a sparse, pared down tale about a man's temptation to turn his back on his family. The story is nothing new, but the long-take exposition focusing on the natural performances of the two leads makes this one of the best films of the year. In the days leading up to Christmas, a married man forces himself to choose between his wife and his mistress. A sharply observed, deeply felt drama from director Radu Muntean, showcasing the strengths of current Romanian cinema in its beautifully calibrated performances, expert craftsmanship, and dazzling technical mastery. (This also is not up on the site yet, but will be soon.)

Check out the full calendar of Take-Up.
And Trylon Premiere Tuesdays.

Home Movies - May 2011

Another edition of Home Movies is up on In Review Online where regular co-conspirator Jordan Cronk, special guest Matthew Lucas and I take on the best of the best released in May.

Home Movies - May

As my my luck would have it, I review Masahiro Shinoda's Pale Flower, Henri-Georges Clouzot's Diabolique and Dario Argento's Cat 'o Nine Tails, all on beautiful Blu-ray. These three films couldn't be more different, but they are connected by three directors with an eye for formal perfection, each with their own flavor and each one brilliant in its own right. Pale Flower is a force to be reconciled, and gets my overwhelming approval for the pick of the month. Not only did I recently see (and project) the new 35mm print of Pale Flower at the Trylon as part of our Takemitsu series, but I also sat down with this Blu-ray and watch the film, almost compulsory, three times.

I also check out five DVDs released in May from French director Nicolas Philibert. Jordan Cronk reviews Criterion's Something Wild, Smiles of a Summer Night and Solaris. And Matthew Lucas looks at new releases for In the City of Sylvia and Kino's ambitious Sophia Loren Collection. Enjoy!

SUID: LITTLEROCK, ABRAXAS and LAST DAYS HERE

In its second year, Sound Unseen International Duluth held cultural court this past weekend in the Northland and I took a road trip for one day of screenings.

Littlerock (2010)
dir. Mike Ott
USA

Slowly but surly, I'm dusting up all the films I didn't get to in Vancouver last year. Littlerock, not to be confused with Little Rock, is a small town in California just north of LA. Two young tourists, brother and sister Rintaro and Atsuko from Japan, find themselves stranded in Littlerock when their rental car breaks down on the way to San Francisco via Manzanar. Wandering the roads, vacant lots and less than inspiring business, Rintaro and Atsuko feign interest in this slice of American pie that they didn't expect. When Rintaro goes to break up a party that is keeping him awake, they make friends with a group of disaffected locals who might just take the edge off the boredom of Rintaro and Atsuko's two day layover. They are adopted by Cory, an effeminate eccentric (by the town's standards) who denies he is anything but straight. (And who wouldn't. Welcome to the land of homophobia that voted for Proposition 8.) Cory shows them around town, such as it is, and takes them to another party where Jordan takes an interest in Atsuko. When their car is ready, Rintaro is ready to leave, but Atsuko has found some charm or curiosity in these hang-abouts and decides to stay on for a few days, despite her lack of English.

Director Mike Ott has mentioned that he was interested in making a Lost in Translation from the opposite perspective. As a result, and no doubt by intention, the romance of place that oozes over the loneliness in Lost in Translation is superseded by the pall of economic depression and tension of small town violence in Littlerock. But Ott asks you to try and see Littlerock through Atsuko's eyes and find what she sees in this US version of "No Exit." It seems appropriate that I would see Littlerock at SUID, where, one year ago, I saw Putty Hill, October Country, and Cold Weather—poster children in the rise of new American filmmaking who are redefining the term 'independent.' Littlerock does very similar things: modest intentions, simple means and deft filmmaking. Litllerock failed me a bit when it decided to play out the Manzanar storyline and connect it to a more contemporary form of isolation and oppression. Some subtlety was lost in this otherwise beautiful and unassuming film.


Abraxas (2011)
dir. Naoki Kato
Japan

Fresh off the Sundance presses, Abraxas is a film about a man headed into a mid-life crisis. The man, however, is a Zen Buddhist monk and his age-defying craving is the punk rock of his youth. Abraxas is one of those films that goes for the cliché of wanting to make you laugh and cry, and does so in a jumble of tones that never really gel as a whole. Jonen is a good natured monk but is struggling with life's bigger questions much to the detriment of his profession and his family. His solution is to return to his musical passions and play a live show in his local community. His wife and the elder at the monastery don't think this is such a good idea, but Jonen nonetheless trots off like a giddy teenager hanging posters and inviting all the locals. Although not much of it is very funny. As Jonen makes a fool of himself in public, his wife is bullied at her job as a convenient store clerk. And there is nothing very cute or cheeky about a husband who neglects his wife and son both physically and emotionally with selfish distractions. As a matter of fact, he's such a hopeless cause that it is hard to imagine he was ever a good monk, husband or father.

When tragedy strikes, Jonen gets a reality check and is forced once again to reassess his values. Here is where the film gets stone-cold serious, and actually starts to work for me. The struggles and emotions are played out with a certain amount of sincerity that the first half just didn't have. Jonen's confusion seems to have a little more relevance and the notion of responsibility starts to enter the picture. I couldn't help think of Sogo Ishii's Electric Dragon 80000v when Jonen pulls out his guitar to duel the ocean. Jonen is played by indie rocker Suneohair (best known in these parts for his contributions to the animation series Honey & Clover) and his grand finale rock-out is just as cathartic as it should be. Eventually, Abraxas won me over, but that first half hour was tough going.


Last Days Here (2011)
dir. Don Argott and Damian Fenton
USA

Last Days Here is the unbelievable story of Bobby Liebling, the lead singer of the heavy metal band Pentagram. If a good documentary is about having the cameras rolling at the right time and in the right place, Last Days Here is a masterpiece. The band Pentagram has been around since the early 70s and is often sited as one of the first doom metal bands with a heavy, sludgy, dark sound. Through a series of near misses, the band never found the fame that (maybe) they deserved and (probably) could have had. If one member sealed the fate of Pentagram, it was Bobby Liebling, the creative genius who dug a hole so deep with drugs, he was barely alive and the band dissolved. The filmmakers catch up with Liebling, living in his parents basement smoking crack and waiting to die. The state of Liebling is utterly frightening—skin and bones, bandaged and puffy from the effects of drugs. If you saw this man on the street, you would avert your eyes. I literally though I was going to see him die while the cameras were running. Although I guess it is a bit of a spoiler to tell you he doesn't die, Last Days Here is a story of recovery against all odds. Fan Sean Pellet is committed to helping Liebling pull himself together and to make one more album with the original members of Pentagram. Spoiler or no spoiler, what directors Don Argott and Damian Fenton catch on camera has to be seen to be believed.