IFFR Preview #1

Note: this started out as just me taking notes, making sure I had something to refer to once I needed to really write about these films. Then I figured, I might as well post what I wrote here. Regular updates and all. Some of these films (Du Levande & Mio Fratello è figlio unico) are even going to get small releases in the Netherlands.

Wonderful Town (Aditya Assarat, 2008, Thailand, Tiger Awards Competition) is about the tsunami, I suppose, in some vague way, like pretty much everything in this movie is vague, from the attraction between the two main characters to the motive behind the act of violence that suddenly, incomprehensibly, ends it. There’s beautiful images here, sure, but I can barely remember anything specific. Unless you really, really enjoy Asian flicks in which nothing much happens, I’d skip this one.

Du Levande/You the Living (Roy Andersson, 2007, Sweden) on the other hand, I can heartily recommend, even if I couldn’t possibly give a summary. It consists of fifty or so vignettes, sometimes loosely connected to each other, more often not. It’s about “the Living” in the greatest sense of the world: the happy, the sad, the kind, the mean, the dreamers and the desperate ones. It’s poignant, it’s funny, and even if I don’t remember half the scenes, I wasn’t bored for a second. The music is great, and the ending is perfect. It’s the perfect proof that a movie can be artsy and experimental without being inaccessible.

It’s too bad The Best of Times (Svetlana Proskurina, 2008, Russia) wants to be so deep. Or maybe it’s not deep enough, I’m not sure. Theme’s battle with each other to get noticed, with many images of industrialization, many shots and references to water, an obsession with aging, the different people we are during our life, and so on. Unfortunately, all the posturing takes away from the poorly motivated and illustrated story about two girls in love with the same guy. It managed to get under my skin, even giving me half a panic attack about growing old and being alone, but at the same time I didn’t care about what happened to the characters. Proskurina (a “filmmaker in focus” this year) obviously knows the craft of directing and there are some memorable shots, but this is one of the most unpleasant films I’ve seen in a while.

Mio fratello è figlio unico/My Brother is an Only Child (Luchetti, 2007, Italy) is rather the opposite: it pulls you in with its characters, and even gives a bit of historical perspective and insight on the sly. Accio (which apparently is a nasty nickname) is our narrator, a very serious, intense boy. He goes to seminary first. Then, finding them not strict enough, he becomes a fascist. His brother, older, more charismatic, and much more fun-loving, is an active communist. They fall for the same girl, of course. It’s familiar territory for the writers, who also wrote La Meglio Gioventù (which I’m afraid I still haven’t caught up with). But after the stark, anguish-filled The Best of Times, I loved how light it treaded, and that it manage to make you feel for all the characters, despite some broad characterizations. It’s a movie where an older brother gives a picture of a movie star to his younger brother to corrupt him – and it works.

I also saw some shorts. Most of them I can’t recommend. One of them wasn’t just non-narrative, but it wasn’t even figurative: just head-ache (and probably epilepsy) inducing quickly moving flecks. For 19 friggin’ minutes. Good thing I needed a nap around that time. The one short that stayed with me was actually not short at all (41 minutes), and called Hemel Boven Holland (Rolf van Eijk, 2008, Holland). It’s about the murder of Theo van Gogh, focusing on his killer, Mohammed Bouyeri. A la Memento, it’s about 20 uncut scenes in reverse order, starting with shots in the dark and ending much earlier, back when Mohammed didn’t have a beard yet and was just a slightly strange young guy, hanging with his friends. It’s nothing revolutionary, but it’s interesting, and refreshingly lacking in sensationalism.

10 days to kick-off now. I’m really looking forward to it.

Previously written-about films that will also play at the festival

• No Country for Old Men (and here be spoilers)(Coen bros., 2007)
• The Darjeeling Limited (Anderson, 2007)
• Nothing To Lose/TBS (Kuijpers, 2008)
• I’m Not There (Haynes, 2007)
  

Barton Fink, Miller’s Crossing & Hudsucker Proxy: the blurbs

Coen movie night #2 is upon us! We won’t actually be watching Barton Fink, but I really wanted to write a blurb anyway. I think I’m gonna try to stick to the thriller+comedy rythm, meaning next time (which will probably be after the film festival) will bring us Fargo & The Big Lebowski, and the time after that The Man Who Wasn’t There & O’ Brother Where Art Thou.

Miller’s Crossing
You could easily write a dozen essays about this movie. You could write at length about its noir influences, about the use of language, about the themes loyalty, death, chance, you could even see a political allegory of some kind in there. To the Coens, however, Miller’s Crossing is just a movie about a hat. It’s also, like Blood Simple, a movie about crime, adultery, murder, but this time it’s set during prohibition, and the protagonists are gangsters. Leo’s the boss, Velma is his wife, and Tom is his right hand, and that’s all I’m going to reveal about the plot.
Barton Fink
The first Coen bros. movie made with their new DP Roger Deakins is about Barton Fink (John Turtutto), who writes plays about the common man. Or so he thinks. When he gets drafted by Hollywood to write a script “with that Barton Fink feeling”. He’s put up into a big hotel where he meets only creepy clerk Chet (played by Coen regular Steve Buscemi) and his neighbor Charlie (another regular: John Goodman), and promptly develops writer’s block – the Coens in fact wrote this film when they were suffering from the same condition on Miller’s Crossing. Stuck in the claustrophobia-inducing hotel, with nothing but a picture to look at and the wallpaper peeling off the walls, Barton Fink slowly goes crazy. As an audience, you think you might be, too. The crazy, out-there, apocalyptic finale doesn’t exactly lift the spirits, either, but you’ll never forget it.

The Hudsucker Proxy (blurb courtesy of Kaj)
The Hudsucker Proxy bombed upon release and was largely dismissed by the critics, but has since then gained a following and well deserved respect. Another great comedy by the Coens, a satire of the American Dream in which an innocent young man from the countryside arrives in New York and is soon placed at the top of a large company by cynical board members who want the company to go bankrupt, so they can by up it’s stock cheap. They didn’t count on him inventing the Hula Hoop. The meticulously scripted film is one of the Coens’ visually most arresting ones, and also one of their funniest. No Coen regulars were cast as main characters, but Tim Robbins, Jennifer Jason Leigh and especially Paul Newman are all wonderful, and enough Coen cronies turn up in small supporting roles. Works great as a homage to old screwball comedies in some parts and to Capraesque drama in others, and is delightful in all.