The IFFR: quick round-up (final update 2/2)
Posted by Hedwig on January 25, 2008
Done. Over. Finished. 34 films in 10 days. I’ll post an overview tomorrow, and hopefully (if my editor allows it) some more in depth pieces in the near future. Further info on the films can be found here.
The Great, at last: Naissance Des Pieuvres/Water Lilies (Céline Sciamma, 2007)
The Surprisingly, and Quite Stunningly, Good: Margot At The Wedding (Noah Baumbach, 2007)
The Fun & Touching: The Band’s Visit (Eran Kolirin, 2007)
The Quiet & Lovely: La Maison Jaune (Amor Hakkar, 2007)
The Should Be a Revered Classic: Der Verlorene (Peter Lorre, 1951)
The Reason I Love Older Movies: Phase IV (Saul Bass, 1974), The Honeymoon Killers (Leonard Kastle, 1970)
The Simply Fun: Estomago (Marcos Jorge, 2007), Un Baiser, S’il Vous Plait (Emmanuel Mouret, 2007)
The Not Joining the Crowd, but not Joining the Dissenters either (aka the Fun, but Not Amazing): Juno (Jason Reitman, 2007)
The Fun & Well-Acted, but Somewhat Superficial: Tiramisu (Paula van der Oest, 2008)
The Entertaining Despite Flaws: True Stories (David Byrne, 1986), 3 Days to Forever (Riri Riza, 2007), End of The Line (Gustavo Steinberg, 2007), The King of Ping Pong (Jens Jonsson, 2007)
The Absolutely Nuts, but Impressive and Fun: the 1 take Still Orangutans (Gustavo Spolidoro, 2007)
The Truly Clumsy, but Not Entirely Without Charm: Pure Coolness (Ernest Abdyjaparov, 2007)
The Worth it For the Music and Atmosphere, if not the story: Burned Hearts (Ahmed El Maanouni, 2007)
The Competent & Well-Made, yet not exceptional: Cordero De Dios (Lucía Cedrón, 2008)
The Understandably Disliked, but Quite Enjoyable to Me: Les Amours D’Astrée et de Céladon (Eric Rohmer, 2007)
The Disappointing, but Still Pretty Good: Paranoid Park (Gus van Sant, 2007)
The Odd, but Oddly Charming: Die Stille Vor Bach (Pere Portabella, 2007)
The Demanding, not Necessarily Rewarding but B&W Beautiful: The Man From London (Béla Tarr, 2007)
The Not as Great as Rumored but B&W Beautiful: Persepolis (Marjane Satrapi & Vincent Perronaud, 2007)
The Fascinating Experiment in B&W Animation: Fear(s) of the Dark (various directors, 2007)
The Entertaining but not Quite Satisfying; Uno de los Dos no Puedo Estar Equivocado (Pablo Llorca, 2007)
The Interesting Experience: Wadley (Matias Meyer, 2008)
The Operatically Strange, Somewhat Intersting: The Cabinet of Dr. Ramirez (Peter Sellars, 1991)
The Interesting Concept that unfortunately peters out: Le Tueur (Cédric Anger, 2007)
The Interesting Concept that doesn’t really add up to anything besides crying men: Men’s Group (Michael Joy, 2008)
The Unfortunately Quite Dull (and Lacking in Film Clips): Un Lugar en el Cine (Alberto Morais, 2007)
The “I wish I liked this more than I did”: Wanda (Barbara Loden, 1971)
The Not-For-Me: Hafez (Abolfazl Jalili, 2007)
The Simply Boring: Marrakesh Inshallah (Steffen Fisker Pierce & Christian Pierce, 2006)
The Highlight of Saturday:
As Cool As A Fruitstand 
Paul C. said
I agree with you on Les Amours d’Astrée et de Céladon. It’s a strange creature all right, but I found it completely delightful. Really, it felt to me like the kind of movie a master would make near the end of the his life, when he’s no longer worried about appealing to the masses. The nudity was nice too, I suppose.
I wrote a long piece about the film when I saw it at Toronto, which can be found here.
joopgij said
For the great: try ” Alexandra” from Sukurov, though it is all a matter of personal taste.
sarcastig said
@Paul: I think you’re right about the strangeness and sometimes awkwardness feeling entirely intentional. I have no doubt that this film is exactly as Rohmer intended it.
@Joop: Thanks for the tip, I’ll try to fit it in!
Paul C. said
If I might make a recommendation, I’d advise you to skip Shinji Aoyama’s tedious, borderline incoherent Sad Vacation. Might have been worth a look at 90 minutes, but at 140 a turgid bore.
Also, give Secret Sunshine. Has a kind of Von Trier feel, albeit in a more naturalistic setting.
Craig Kennedy said
I second Paul on Secret Sunshine.
Loved True Stories back in the day, but mostly because I’m an enduring Talking Heads/David Byrne fan.
Persepolis. Yeah…I’ve been trying to write a review of this one for a few weeks. Unfortunately, it’s too good to toss off a crappy review, but not so good to have inspired me to write anything better…
Juno. Yeah, everyone who cares already knows what I thought.
The rest of your list I haven’t seen, but I’m taking notes.
Craig Kennedy said
Ahhh…Festival Fatigue. It’s kind of a good feeling though, isn’t it?
sarcastig said
It is indeed, and yesterday I discovered that good movies get through anyway.
Craig Kennedy said
Nicely done Hedwig! You’ve raised the bar for me when the LA Film Festival rolls back around again this summer.
Thanks for the heads up on a lot of great movies.