Portland Oregon — Observations

As a member of the Silver Screen Club at Northwest Film Center, I’m allowed to go to the press screenings held for some of the films before the festival actually starts.   The following list of blurbs is simply my immediate reaction to the films as I’m seeing them. 

Fair warning that it’s not meant to be a full-scale review or anything other than an annotation for me. Some of the notes relate to my specific interests (such as birds). Dates refer to date seen. Ratings are based on 1-5 scale with 5 being best.

1/27/09
Baader -Meinhof Complex — Germany — 2
Very long and violent look at true-life activities of this gang in the late 60′s early 70′s.  Seemed unfocused and/or too repetitive.  Activities by the chief members of the group didn’t make me any more sympathetic to their cause — which had started out to be a good one but seemed to degenerate into just more violence for the sake of violence, both on their part and the responding authorities.

1/27/09
Of Time and the City — Great Britain — 3.5
Documentary with music/poetry narrated by Davies — combination of memories and affection for Liverpool rather than straight documentary.  Parts may be lost on those of us who’ve never been to Liverpool, but the affection for his hometown comes through beautifully.
 
1/28/2009
Gomorra  — Italy — 2.5
2+ hours of pointless, tedious violence with many scenes completely in shadow.  Disjointed music comes on blaringlyloudat a few places — supposed to signify something but I’m not sure what.  Crime groups run drugs, guns and kill each other and young people often trapped into that maze with no way out.  OK, we know this already, and the movie doesn’t add to it.  If you’ve never seen any film or TV show about organized crime, this might be new ground.

1/28/2009
Mermaid  — Russia — 4.5
More cheerful than the usual Russian; some animated fish sequences at opening credits; interspersed scenes where the young girl is dreaming or fantasizing, not sure which — noted by bright pastels at seaside; humorous sequences; underlying theme of creating what you wish for and her power to fulfill wishes.  Scenes of apples dropping off trees as she wishes for them to fall.  Move to Moscow brings her in contact with  more kinds of people including a depressed salesman of property on the moon, a brilliant character that she meets when he jumps off a bridge in front of her (that Russian depression) and then falls in love with.
Advertisements are everywhere in Moscow, telling you that your dreams are within reach. Destiny, dreams and mystical coincidence — what is it that she actually wished for at the end.

1/29/2009
Black Balloon — Australia — 4
Interesting slice-of-life film about a family trying to cope with a teenage autistic boy — and the special trials that moving from place to place and having a not-normal brother inflict on the other son — almost 16 and having to be responsible for his brother and help his parents cope.  Teenage cruelty at anyone who is different — redeemed by one girl who seems to miss a family of any kind. 

1/29/2009
Hunger –Great Britain — 3.5
Combination of inhumane prison/beatings/ etc of political prisoners in Irish prison (1981?) and the almost surrealistic peacefulness of the hunger strike of Bobby Sands (66 days).  Directed by a visual artist so some very interesting shots, but painful to watch.

1/30/2009
O’Horten –Norway — 5
Charming Scandinavian story with trains and snow. Deadpan humor as Odd Horten, a train engineer facing mandatory retirement, encounters a higher than statistically probable assortment of odd characters, and figures out what he’ll do next.  Retirement isn’t the end of the journey.

1/30/2009
Song of Sparrows  –Iran — 4
Charming slice-of-life story of family trying to make ends meet, deal with job loss, medical problems, and the way things sometimes just go wrong (or right).  Probably the only film that features ostriches.  Also does a good job with the birds nesting (the title sparrows one assumes) in the water storage house and the fish scenes. Out-of-work father tries his luck in Tehran, commuting back and forth to the country on his motorbike.  Accidentally becomes a gypsy taxi and is affected by the obsession with material goods he finds in the city. Slightly too sentimental at times, but worth seeing.

2/2/09
Revanche — Austria — 5
Starts out as thriller-type film about low-level criminal and sex-worker but changes into something both more ominous and more interesting.  Excellent use of woods/lake scenes and woodchopping.  Complications and intersections of life as seemingly unrelated events tie people together.  Even the title isn’t as straightforward as one might think.  It means “revenge” yes but it also can mean a “return game” and according to my German dictionary can also have a connotation of returning a favor.  It’s both French and German — more of the layers of meaning through the whole film. Pay attention to the details.

2/2/09
Everlasting Moments — Sweden — 4.3
Semi-documentary style story of a woman in early 1900′s Sweden, married to a dockworker who can’t quite keep the rules of the Temperance Society they belong to, and coping with a constantly-growing family.  She comes to photography by accident or fate, having won a camera as a prize. It’s only when she tries to pawn it that she learns the magic of taking pictures — keeping everlasting moments in time.  The photographer she had tried to sell it to teaches her some basics, but it’s her ability to “see” that makes them work. Told in voiceover by the eldest daughter, story is sometimes a little slow and more coverage than we really need of marital problems. Film often has the sepia look of old photos and cameras are shown with loving detail. Story based on a novel by Agneta Ulfsäter Troell (the director’s wife) which was based on the life of one of her relatives.

2/3/09
Tokyo Sonata — Japan — 3.4
Drama of family implosion, by turns funny, sad or just irrational.  Focus starts out to be on the father who has lost his job to downsizing and can’t bring himself to tell his wife, but every member of the family has things to hide from the others, and none of them are talking. Film is a little long, somewhat bewildering in places and you’re not sure where it’s going. There’s a theme of failure and the shame that comes from it, particularly in Japanese society. Somewhere in there may be a theme of starting over, either willingly or unwillingly. What if you could wake up and realize your whole life had been a dream and you were really a completely different person. 

2/3/09
Cherry Blossoms — Germany — 4
Sentimental film about the impermanence of life.  Middle-aged couple with grown children seem to be complete opposites — she wants change and adventure (and to go to Mt. Fuji) and he wants everything to remain the same.  Same trip to a government job every day, same lunch. His doctor tells her (but not him) that he has a fatal illness and she persuades him to go visit their children in Berlin who come across as spoiled and selfish with no time for their parents. When she dies unexpectedly instead, he is left to deal with grief and loneliness. This leads him to take a trip to Tokyo to visit the other son — the trip his wife had wanted to make.
It would be hard to imagine the whole film taking place in Germany but switching to Japan during the time of the annual celebration of the cherry blossoms allows it to veer into more sentimentality and a touch of creepiness as he carries her clothes withhimon this journey.  There are several sequences in his adventures wandering around Tokyo that seem both unlikely and unnecessary but the most important one is finding a young Butoh dancer — the same kind of dance his wife had done. 
Couple of interesting side points — he makes a big deal about always having an apple for lunch and saying “an apple a day keeps the doctor away” but in fact he never seems to eat the apples and neither does his son when the father packs a lunch for him.  Another is the little song about the short life of a mayfly that they sing during the brief family visit in Berlin.  Clearly this song is something the mother has taught to her children but it’s not clear that they understand it. Good use of nature and the cherry blossoms and Mt. Fuji are indeed beautiful.

2/4/09
Lorna’s Silence — Belgium — 3.5
Trying to avoid having to go back to Albania, Lorna becomes involved in a low-level criminal scheme that centers around marriage as a way to obtain Belgian citizenship. They marry her to a heroin-abuser, someone no one will miss or care about, so she can become legal.  Then the plan is for him to disappear so she can marry a Russian — who seems like a gangster type.  All they need from her is her silence when her first husband is eliminated. Heavy use of locks and keys –at the apartment she shares with her “husband” where even her bedside drawer is locked, at her job, at the properties she’s looking at to fulfill her dream of opening a snack shop with her real boyfriend. She tries to save her “husband” which brings distrust from the other members of the plan.  Film seems naturalistic up to a point and then turns a little strange — perhaps showing the effect on Lorna of the decisions she’s already made trying to fulfill her side of these bargains.

2/4/09
Séraphine — France — 4
Fascinating film based on the life of Séraphine de Senlis, 1864-1942, starting just before the beginning of WWI when she works doing all kinds of household chores around the town of Senlis to support herself and spends the rest of her time either enjoying nature or painting.  Since she’s too poor to buy paints, she makes her own from various plants and other things she collects around the town or the fields.  One of her housekeeping jobs brings her into contact with art critic/collector Wilhelm Uhde who is interested in “modern primitives” as he calls the group of painters like Henri Rousseau — often called naïve painters.  Séraphine is completely self-taught and says her guardian angel has told her to paint. She evidently spent her childhood with the nuns since she has no family.  Uhde encourages her to paint instead of cleaning houses but he has to leave town because of the impending war and loses touch with her for several years. Eventually he gets back in touch and includes her work in one of the first Naive Art exhibitions in Paris. The stresses of the economic problems of 1930 when Wilhelm’s funds were cut back and Séraphine couldn’t always find any painting materials, may have pushed her too far into madness. She was confined in a psychiatric hospital and gave up painting.

2/5/09
Shall We Kiss? — France — 5
Very French film about love, romance and unintended consequences.  Told in a story-within-a-story format, it has a lot more talking than actual action but the talking is engaging and often funny. A lot of the conversation serves to point up the fact that understanding one’s own feelings is more complicated that it seems it should be. And there’s no such thing as a completely innocuous kiss. Charming and very funny. 

2/5/09
Empty Nest — Argentina — 3
Hard to figure film about the impermanence of memory and whether some of the things we “remember” actually happened, along with how to deal with marriage after the children have gone, and what to do about writer’s block.  It’s not clear how much of this movie actually happens versus how much is just Leo thinking about his next writing project. Some scenes are clearly fantasy and others could be except nobody would fantasize about dental procedures. The wife’s friends seem to be an obnoxious bunch and it’s not clear if Leo has any. There were some good lines but overall I didn’t find it that appealing.

2/6/09
Il Divo — Italy — 4
Very interesting film of the career of Guilio Andreotti, seven times chosen prime minister of Italy, combines the feel of a Soprano’s style underworld involvement with fascinating political intrigue and the fast pacing of a contemporary thriller. Andreotti is mysterious throughout, retaining the secrets that he says he has in his “archives.” In one scene a woman says she has heard he is dangerous, and is told that he’s “daring” which is quite a different thing. He was accused in many major political corruption scandals but there was no evidence to support the allegations. Andreotti himself was apparently very sarcastic and that come through in the many funny and ironic remarks he makes — which serve as a sort of smokescreen for the man himself. What also comes through is a certain belief in the necessity of evil to promote good.

2/6/09
Jerusalema — South Africa — 3.5
Crime drama, much of which could take place in other locations than South Africa, but based on true events in recent history there. Lucky Kunene is accepted in university but doesn’t get a scholarship, so he opts for the “university of life” which leads him to various forms of escalating crime. Under the theory of “If you’re going to steal, steal big. And hope to hell you get away with it” he turns himself into a businessman –known as the “Robin Hood of  Hillbrow” — essentially “stealing” apartment buildings in a slum neighborhood. Title is apparently from a hymn “Jerusalema” in which Johannesburg is compared to a new Jerusalem or promised land.

2/6/09
The Window — Argentina — 3
Short film set in the Patagonian countryside — which Don Antonio can see from the window but isn’t supposed to go out into because of a heart problem. He’s having trouble with his memory and anxious about the preparations for his son’s arrival — evidently they had a fight years before and haven’t been in contact. Too slow and almost soporific for my taste. The ticking of the clocks seemed a little much.

2/6/09
Captain Abu Raed — Jordan — 4
Lonely widower who works as an airport custodian in Amman is mistaken for a pilot (Captain) by the children in his neighborhood who cajole him into telling them stories about his travels. He knows a lot about history and foreign places even if he hasn’t been to many and his story-telling involves him in the lives of the children and others around him. A separate story line is about a female pilot under pressure to get married. She also meets Abu Raed and then becomes involved in his efforts to improve the lives of the children he’s trying to help. First half is charming but second half veers a little too far into melodrama. Excellent performance by Nadim Sawalha and the children and views of different neighborhoods in Amman.

2/7/09
The Chaser — South Korea — 5
Crime drama withlotsof action (especially chases) and violence with a large portion of police corruption/incompetence. I was advised that it wasn’t for the squeamish and that’s mostly true but I didn’t find it any more obtrusively violent than many TV shows (think 24). Much of the worst violence was slightly offscreen or in dim light so you didn’t see it clearly. What it did very well was create a sense of dread. It’s not really a mystery because you know all along who’s doing it but the question is how far will it go. That’s what keeps you watching each new twist

2/7/09
Snow — Bosnia — 2
Dim and dark with a lot of the story taking place in dimly lit rooms or at night with characters that I didn’t care much about with the exception of Alma, the young widow who’s trying to get a business of selling chutneys and jams started. The premise of the movie seemed interesting — a story of women whose husbands and male children were killed in the war and who have kept on in their village, trying to survive. The storyline concerning a mute child seemed to go nowhere — or at least not anywhere understandable — and the ending was both strange and unsatisfactory.

2/7/09
Tricks — Poland — 4.5
Charming, quirky story of a young boy and his teenage sister who spend a summer trying to trick fortune. The boy, who seems to be under ten, spends most of his time wandering around at the train station, hanging out with the neighborhood guys who keep pigeons, or tagging along with his sister’s boyfriend. Their father had left the family for another woman at some earlier point and one of the boy’s goals is to trick fortune into letting the family get back together. His sister is more concerned with trying to get a better job than dishwasher and hanging out with her boyfriend, but she spends a lot of time with her brother and taking care of him since their mother seems to work most of the time. He’s a bright, resourceful kid who has his ideas of how things should work. Watching him deal with the pigeons is hilarious. Excellent score helps keep the film moving.

2/8/09
The Rest is Silence — Romania — 4
Entertaining and romantic period piece about the making of a movie about Romania’s War of Independence (1912).  Story is loosely based on the actual events surrounding making of that movie and clips from the few remaining minutes of the original are shown at various points in the film. Fun cartoon section about the production team’s trip to Paris and numerous examples of a director learning on the job.  Also includes a scene where he tries to explain what a director does to the King. Most expensive Romanian movie production ever made.

2/8/09
Modern Life — France — 3
Documentary on French farmers in Haut-Garonne  and the difficulties of the “simple life.”  Done as a series of interview withvariousfarmers, mostly quite elderly, on farms that are reached by narrow winding roads.  One underlying question is what will happen to this way of life as these individuals die and there’s no one to take on the work they’ve done. Interesting countryside but the film itself feels slow.

2/8/09
Eldorado — Belgium — 5
Accidental road trip of Yvan, a car dealer, who takes a would-be burglar on a trip to visit his parents.  Hilarious series of incidents along the way. The music is a perfect fit for the ’79 Chevy on country roads, which they take because Yvandoesn’tuse freeways. In this noirishtripthey encounter a series of  bizarre characters, one of whom is using an chair with the name Alain Delon (the famous French actor) on it.  According to various stories Lanners (the director/star of Eldorado) was part of a production of Asterix, as was Delon, and did not enjoy the experience so he took Delon’s folding chair. We find out eventually why Yvan is taking this road trip instead of calling the police on the would-be burglar and why there had seemed to be some underlying sadness in his character. Lanners has a background in painting and it shows in this film.

2/9/09
The Country Teacher — Czech Republic — 4.3
Story of a teacher escaping from the city and what seemed like a sex-only-no-love relationship to try to escape from himself in the country.  Gets a job teaching natural sciences to children and makes some contacts among the villagers but some of the women see him as a possible romantic candidate. One widow in particular sees him this way but he’s really attracted to her teen-aged son who in turn is interested in a girl who visits the village on weekends. Each of them is searching for love, but not finding it from the person they seek.  The unwelcome arrival of the teacher’s former boyfriend pushes the plot forward, bringing crisis into the relationship of the teacher and the farmwoman and her son. The middle section seemed a little forced but overall excellent film.

Ending scenes of cow giving birth and later the teacher telling his class that “nature produces only originals…. Diversity could be a gift or a trap, it all depends on what we do with it.”

2/9/09
Necessities of Life — Canada — 4.3
Story of Inuit hunter, Tivii, who is discovered to have TB and removed by the government from his home on Baffin Island to a Quebec City sanitarium in the early 1950′s. He is completely alone there where no one speaks his language, but demonstrates that he is more adaptable than most of the Whites running the sanitarium, learning to eat unknown foods and fix clocks. One of the nurses takes a special interest in him and finds a boy at another sanitarium who can speak his language as well as French. This gives him someone to mentor in almost a father-son relationship.
Story is not surprising and we don’t really see anything of what happened to his family in the very long time he was away. What really makes the movie is lead actor Natar Ungalaaq who compels our interest in Tivii and what happens to him

2/9/09
Nightwatching — Netherlands — 3
Peter Greenaway’sfilm is based on Rembrandt’s painting “The Night Watch” and the various political intrigues that are represented in it. Rembrandt had not wanted to do this painting of the Amsterdam Musketeer Militia but was persuaded by his wife and agent. He finally uses the painting as a way to expose the conspiracies and unsavory actions of the men in the portrait.  Film is beautiful withdetailsthat seem to have stepped out of one of the paintings themselves and Martin Freeman is excellent as Rembrandt. I found the sound problematic in many places with too many distracting noises like crying babies overriding the words. While it’s interesting to see “explanations” for many of the details in the painting, I found many scenes to be too long and repetitive. Too many characters repeating too much dialogue.

2/9/09
Karamazovs — Czech Republic — 2.5
Somewhat confusing story of Prague drama troupe doing an adaptation of “Brothers Karamazov” at an alternate theater festival in a steelworks in Poland. Steelworks seems appropriate for the darkness of Dostoevsky. Rehearsals blend into the full performance which in places blends into the actual life going on around them. Maintenance man at the steelworks receives word that his son has died from an accident at the same time there are references to a son dying in the play. The main section of “Brothers Karamazov” they’re using has to do with patricide and the trial; I’m sure there are many references I missed since I don’t remember much about the novel.
 

2/10/09
World’s Apart — Denmark — 4.5
Story of young girl who has to figure out where she stands in relation to her family and church, a group of Jehovah’s Witnesses, when she falls in love witha non-believer. Faith, love, family obligation, sense of kinship in the community, forgiveness are all themes running through the film. Questions of the impact of fundamentalist thinking and the flip side  of self-righteousness (demonstrated by the mother of the boyfriend). Rosalinde Mynster is excellent as the 17-year-old caught up in these decisions.
Film is based on a real story with some alterations.

2/10/09
Upstream Battle — Germany — 3
Documentary on the environmental battle over Klamath River fish, water rights for farmers, corporate responsibility, and whether removing dams would enable the fish to return and improve the water. Mostly told from the perspective of the Northern California and Southern Oregon tribes. The fish die-off in 2002 brought some focus to the tribal efforts and there has been an evolution toward cooperation between the farmers, commercial fisherman, and tribes looking for a solution that will work for all of them.  In November 2008, an agreement in principle was announced that would make dam removal a possibility by 2020. An earlier Administrative Law Judge decision had been to require fish ladders, which wouldn’t have the effect the tribes are seeking.
I was interested to see that the film does include some practices that are disturbing to other people — such as the “harvesting” of pileated woodpeckers. Native Americans are legally allowed to do this, but I found the statement that he didn’t think of it as “killing” but as transitioning to bird to another existence (paraphrasing the actual quote here) and that he didn’t care if others thought it was wrong. This seems very close to exactly the kind of indifference that companies are accused of showing toward the fish.

2/11/09
Lion’s Den — Argentina — 2.5
Women’s prison story — interesting from the perspective of what prison life looks like in a country where pregnant women and those with young children are housed in the same cellblock in a kind of communal living arrangement. Children are allowed to stay with the mother until they’re four and then are removed and placed with family or in a foster arrangement. There’s even have a kindergarten in the prison for them. Story focuses on a young pregnant woman who is convicted of homicide — which she says she doesn’t remember although clearly she was present during a bloody fight that took place in her apartment. My main problem with this film is that the lead character didn’t inspire sympathy or empathy — and some of her actions make it seem likely that she did kill the man in her apartment. She *is* the whole film; the rest of the characters are ok but she’s the focus and if you don’t find her believable the rest of the film won’t convince you.

2/11/09
Tulpan — Kazakhstan — 2
Story of young man trying to find a wife and a flock to tend while living with his sister and her family in the interim. We’ve seen this basic story before –the difficulties of arranging a marriage where there are few of the right age and of getting started in a place of your own.  “Tuya’s Marriage” and “The Story of the Weeping Camel” a few years had many of the same themes and were more developed.  Subtitles are in very tiny type — making it hard to catch everything. Much of the interest is in the animal scenes and sounds — camels and sheep play a major and vocal part in the film, including the live-birth scenes. Weather also has a large role, as it would in the herdsman’s life. Those emphases may be partly a reflection of the filmmaker’s documentary background — this is his first feature film. There’s also a fair amount of singing (no words are shown so I don’t know how it bears on the story).

2/11/09
King of Ping Pong — Sweden — 4
There is some ping pong in the film but mostly it stands in for the way life is like a ping pong ball — it bounces back at you often in unexpected ways. Story of two young brothers who are opposites in almost everything but are close because of their parents separation. Father is oil rig worker who rarely visits them and neither of them likes their mother’s local love interest. Quirky film which takes a turn in the middle that you don’t expect and that really seems to belong in a different film. The cats are a separate entertainment by themselves — at least a dozen of them appear in the scenes inside the family home, peering around furniture or perched on any available surface. Northern Sweden scenes of nothing but snow. Deadpan delivery of such lines as “I like to say that Ping Pong is the last remaining egalitarian sport.”

2/11/09
Opium War — Afghanistan — 1
A disorienting combination of absurdism and reality, film is set in a Taliban-controlled area in the mountains of Afghanistan, where two Americans whose helicopter has crashed find an opium-growing family living in a derelict Russian tank. Lots of stereotypes (the only thing the black character knows about is opium; the women in the family are constantly fighting) but whatever the director is trying to do doesn’t seem to quite work. Dialogue, as represented by the subtitles, didn’t seem to be complete or necessarily make sense — not sure if that was deliberate or accidental.

2/12/09
Beaches of Agnès — French — 5
Excellent look at Agnès Varda’s life and work — done by the director herself. Note that Agnès is a name she chose herself at 18. Done as a kind of collage of memory withclipsfrom her films, photographs of friends that includeeveryonefrom Alexander Calder to Jim Morrison as well as countless film people, and recreated scenes from her life. None of this is done with self-importance or name-dropping, she’s just telling a story about her life.
“If you opened up people, you’d find landscapes; if you opened me up, you’d find beaches.” She wasn’t born near the sea but beaches have played a significant role in her life. This film was done for her 80th birthday in 2007 and she says it’s her last. But she doesn’t seem like someone who’s slowing down at all.

2/12/09
Goodbye Solo — U.S. — 5
Senegalese taxi driver and curmudgeon accidentally get together in Winston-Salem, N.C., when Solo drives the older man back and forth to a movie complex several times. Being naturally gregarious and chatty, Solo wants to know more about William and his life which William, being taciturn and private by nature, resists. William engages Solo to pick him up on a day later in the month to drive him up to Blowing Rock — just off the Blue Ridge Parkway in northwestern N.C., which is known for winds that blow up, so if you toss a stick over the edge, it comes back up to you. He wants Solo to drive him there and leave him.

This is a road-trip kind of story even before they leave town since a lot of it is in the taxi withSoloincreasingly involving himself in William’s life and trying to demonstrate to William that life is worth continuing. Interestingly William accepts some of this but not completely. Their relationship evolves — showing the impact small encounters can have on each of us, but the director doesn’t take the easy melodramatic path.

Great scenes of Blue Ridge Parkway in fall color, Linn Cove Viaduct, mountains in mist and fog and impressive performances by both lead actors.

2/12/09
Loose Rope — Iran — 2.5
Semi-road trip story of two guys from cow and sheep country bringing a wounded cow to Tehran. How the cow was wounded and the novelty of two guys with a cow in a pickup truck in the city give several scenes a near-slapstick quality. They cause traffic accidents and are in turn bemused by the people in the city. Note at the beginning that no animals were harmed lets you know that there are scenes of dead animals (being buried and then dug up) and some slaughterhouse scenes.
Technical glitches with the showing made it too dark at the beginning and aspect ratio seemed wrong.

2/12/09
Under the Bombs — Lebanon — 3.5
Showing much of South Lebanon and the destruction from the Israeli strikes in 2006 but in contrast to many war-related films there are no dead bodies, only caskets that we see being dug up and moved and descriptions of people being under the rubble. Fictional story of a woman searching for her son who was staying with her sister when the fighting started, assisted by the only taxi driver willing to go to the South, is set on the real backdrop of bombs and destruction. Film was shot during and immediately after the actual war. Other than the two main characters, almost everyone else in the film was a civilian living in the midst of the destruction.
Documentary feel with a story to tie it together. Some melodrama (the sex scene and the car breakdown which delays their arrival at the monastery) could have been omitted. 

2/13/09
Dean Spanley — New Zealand — 5
Charming and quirky story based on a short novel by Lord Dunsany called “My Talks with  Dean Spanley.” Set in Edwardian England with Peter O’Toole as the curmudgeonly father who doesn’t seem to mourn his son (killed in the Boer War) or his wife.  His other son makes weekly dutiful visits and casts around for things to amuse his father, which leads them to a lecture on the Transmigration of Souls. There they run into Dean Spanleywhoisnotonly obsessed with Imperial Tokay, a sweet Hungarian wine which is closer to a liqueur than a wine and difficult to come by, but seems to be rather more enthralled by scents than most people. It becomes clear why during the succession of dinner parties as Spanley muses about his past under the influence of the Tokay. 

This is definitely not an action movie –almost everything occurs through conversation, often very witty conversation full of dry British humor.  Loss, grief, and reconciliation are as much themes as the more obvious reincarnation.  Excellent performances — especially by O’Toole.

2/13/09
Kisses — Ireland — 4.6
Two pre-teen or early teenage youngsters, neighbors and friends in a Dublin slum, try to run away from a violent abusive father (in the boy’s case) and an uncaring family (in the girl’s case). While escaping from his father’s rage they jump on a canal boat and decide to go to downtown Dublin — hoping to find the boy’s older brother who had similarly run away a couple of years before. Very effective use of black-and-white into color, remindingyouofthe Wizard of Oz, as they get away from their families into a world both more magical and perhaps even more dangerous.

I was happy for the subtitles in several sections that were a little hard to understand. Had to do a little research to find out that the person playing “DownUnder Dylan” is Stephen Rea — no credits onscreen presumably because he’s a much more well-known actor than anyone else in the film.

2/13/09
24 City — China — 3
Combination of fiction and documentary about Chengdu engine factory that’s being turned into luxury apartments. The plant was a secret military operation for most of its history since they made airplane engines. Personal interviews of workers and sometimes the children of workers mixed in with material told by professional actors and all framed by quotes from poetry and factory work slogans.  Interestingly some of the quotes used are from Yeats. Transitions are shots of the factory being disassembled and the empty rooms before most of the buildings are torn down to accommodate the new high-rises. Pace is quite deliberate.

2/14/09
Wolf (Varg) — Sweden — 5
Beautifully shot, especially the outdoor scenes, film of Samireindeerherderfamily coming into conflict with government protection for endangered wolves. The natural conflict between wolf and reindeer and the human conflict between traditional ways of life versus more modern ones. Many of the descendants of the Sami people still speak the language — this was highlighted in sections where they spoke to each other and the police investigating the wolf killing insisted on their speaking Swedish instead. Family ties, loyalty, and the push toward moving away from tradition all play a part. Peter Stormare is excellent as the older man trying to follow his traditions and teach them to his nephew.

2/14/09
Dream Weavers Beijing 2008 — China — 3
Documentary on the planning and construction for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing including sections on the architecture, relocation of families displaced for the new buildings, training of potential gymnasts, and the SWAT team. Sections on architecture more interesting to me since we’ve seen other descriptions of the rigorous training of young girls for the gymnast competitions.

2/14/09
Crossing — 2
Overly melodramatic story about poor conditions in North Korea and the suffering of those trying to escape just to make their lives possible, told through a family story of husband and father illegally crossing to China to try to get medicine for his pregnant wife who has been diagnosed with TB. Story is based on a composite of real life refugees and their tragic stories.

Shin Myung-cheolisexcellent as the young boy trying to help his mother and then find his father but the film as a whole seems overwrought. I’m sure the stories are terrible, but that doesn’t make it a good movie and the side plot about Christian Bibles which has the father reading a string of “begets” just seems unnecessary.

2/14/09
Moscow, Belgium — Belgium — 4.3
Romantic comedy about a woman with three children and a husband in the midst of a mid-life crisis who’s obviously having a bad day when she backs into a truck driven by a much younger man who’s having his own issues with women.  A screaming match ensues, with comments that quickly go from the general “stupid driving” variety to more global statements about the nature of men and women — clearly both characters have strong feelings on these issues. Somewhere along the line, and after the police talk to them, the insults turn to interest.  The truck driver turns up at her apartment (having gotten her phone number off the police form when they weren’t looking) and fixes the trunk of her car which has broken in the accident.  She invites him for dinner. When the husband finds out about her new interest, he starts making noises about coming back to the marriage.  Which leaves Matty in the position of having to, as her 17-year-old daughter says, “be the adult, and make a decision.” 

2/14/09
Home of Dark Butterflies — Finland — 3
Coming of age story that takes place at an Island training school for teenaged boys who have been put into state care for some reason, usually involving either a danger to themselves or to others. Based on a novel of the same name by Leena Lander which doesn’t seem to be translated into English. Main character, Juhani, is haunted by something he can’t quite remember — which seems to be the reason he’s been bouncing around foster homes for several years. We see flashbacks in increasingly longer segments of what happened when he was a small child. Questions of whether you can escape your past by letting go and starting over and how much you’re responsible for the actions of others. Island’s isolation forces the boys into a community of their own since the only other residents are the superintendent’s wife and daughters and a female cook/livestock manager. Plot veers into melodrama and it seems a little pasted-together in places — perhaps things that made logical connection in the novel aren’t in the film.

Dark “butterflies” refers to the silkworm moths they try to raise on the Island to make money — this is an ill-conceived plan since they don’t have anything like the right number of mulberry trees to feed the silkworms and it’s too far north for them to grow successfully.

2/15/09
The Friend (Der Freund) — Switzerland — 4
College student who seems to have no friends and lives with his mother, who makes him ring the doorbell when he comes home at night so she can sleep, becomes interested in Larissa, a singer in the local bar, and tries to make contact with her. She asks him to pretend to be her boyfriend so her parents will think she’s happy, which is more than he was hoping for. Then she dies and he takes on that role — gaining some sense of purpose or confidence. Loss and self-discovery along with the need for friendship. The German word Freund can be used to mean either a friend or a boyfriend and it’s not clear which Larissa needed more.

Songs were performed by Emilie Welti (playing Larissa) credited as Sophie Hunger, who is a singer in real life.

2/15/09
Salt of this Sea — Palestine — 3
Young woman born in American goes to her family’s native Palestine for the first time and tries to reclaim money and property they were forced to give up some 60 years earlier at the creation of the state of Israel. Part romantic drama (she meets a young man who is denied a visa to leave Ramallahand go to school in Canada), part heist film (she decides to rob the bank when it tells her those old accounts were closed), part road movie (as they tour through several sections of Israel after the robbery), and part political statement, the film slides too far into the latter. Scenes in the ruins of Dawayimawere more effective than those of her determined fight-picking withthepeoplewho happen to occupy her grandfather’s old home. Given the early depiction of the relentlessness of the Israeli police, it seems entirely unlikely that they’d have gotten away with the bank robbery and road trip anyway.

2/15/09
Terra Nova — Russia — 4
A grown-up (not to say adult) version of a “Lord of the Flies” scenario takes place on an island in northern Russia where a group of convicts are left to be “colonists.” These are men who would have been subject to the death penalty but in this version of the future, it’s been abolished and prisons are completely full. Prisoners are given the option of “volunteering” for this sociological experiment or spending the rest of their lives in prison. Fights between Russians and Chechens on the transport prison ship set up the future interactions of the group.
Zhillinleavesthe others and sets up his own camp, finding seabirds to eat, and is joined by a psychopath(his crimes involved measuring the intestines of the numerous people he killed) who is waiting to be admitted to hell where he can think up new forms of torture. Eventually they need to return to the camp to try to get some fuel to keep from freezing to deathanddiscover that the others have turned the camp into a new kind of prison and are eating each other since the 3-month food supplies have run out.
Very violent but unfortunately not completely unbelievably so. Behavior of the convicts, except for one or two, leaves little hope for the future of the human race. Behavior of the penal reform group who invented this new kind of prison isn’t much better. The first group of colonists is actually making some small amount of progress when a new group of prisoners, presumably from North America, is offloaded to stir things up.
Occasional humor, especially in the ramblings of the psychopath about God and the devil, and incongruent ending. Lemmings (little rodents who munched into all the food) were one of the nice touches.

2/16/09
Pressure Cooker — U.S. — 3.5
Entertaining and touching documentary about Culinary Arts program in a Philadelphia high school mixes students’ personal stories with the almost boot-camp like training of teacher Mrs. Stephenson. She’s both hard on them and fiercely supportive — one of the scenes shows her going out to the football practice field to measure one of her students (also a football player) so she can get him the right size dress shirt for the competition. The personal stories come through in the essays they write for scholarship competitions as well as scenes with various family members outside of the class.

2/16/09
Blind Sunflowers — Spain — 3.2
Priest-in-training, just back from a stint in the Spanish Civil War, becomes interested in a woman who seems to be a widow, with a young son in the school where the priest teaches. His interest turns to obsession, which places the woman and her son in a precarious position because they’re hiding his father in their apartment — a man who is on the wrong political side and has been presumed dead by the authorities in the Franco regime. The boy does his part to keep his father hidden, closing windows that someone might see in, etc., but is wistful about the experiences he’s missing with his father — like learning to swim — and doesn’t know how to respond when the priest starts questioning him about his parents and whether he has brothers and sisters. There is a very pregnant sister, shown in a few scenes of a subplot that doesn’t make much sense, who is trying to escape Spain with her boyfriend. Priest deludes himself into thinking the woman is attracted to him but his portrayal isn’t very believable.

Based on a book by Alberto Méndez.

2/16/09
Fermat’s Room — Spain — 3.9
Combination of thriller and mathematical history, this is a “locked-room” mystery with four people who are labeled with the names of famous mathematicians trying to figure out answers to puzzles and escape from the shrinking room. Why they were invited to this room in the first place is another question. Puzzles aren’t true high-level math which would be too boring for anyone to watch, but the whole premise is intriguing.

2/17/09
Loss — Lithuania — 4.2
Interesting and intricate storyline in drama that’s a six-degrees-of-separation story. Pieces are quite complicated and you have to pay attention.  Even so, I found it a little confusing and missed seeing how the priest came to know the history of the woman who moved from Lithuania to Dublin. Some of the six degrees are very obvious but others remain hidden till the end. Shot with a handheld camera which was not an entirely good choice; several scenes are so jerky as to be annoying and it doesn’t add to the film itself.

Interestingly, Andrius Mamontovas who plays the priest is a musician and composed the music for the film. Lithuanian title translates to “Needless/Unnecessary People” which seems to refer to the film’s characters who are treated as unnecessary or worthless in our society — the child in the orphanage, the woman who has some mental illness and tries to escape through emigration, the woman who has lost a leg and her ability to have children.  

2/17/709
Cape No. 7 — Taiwan — 3.9
A combination romantic comedy/musical with one ofthose “let’s get together and put on a show” set-ups. Not a huge amount of plot but the would-be band members and their various squabbles are  entertaining. Excuse for a band is that a well-known Japanese pop singer is coming to town and needs an opening act. Our hero has tried his luck at singing in Taipei but returned home to this village and was given a job as postman (which he does very badly). That job serves to introduce the other love story from the 1940′s of a Japanese man and local girl who were separated and never saw each other again. Some old letters that had been written to her are given to our postman for delivery — better late than never. The 1940′s girl and the modern day Japanese girl who is arranging the tour happen to both be named Tomoko. Overall watchable and fun even if the current love story seems exceptionally thin.

2/18/09
Lemon Tree — Israel — 4
Drama using the political skirmish of a Palestinian widow’s lemon grove, which happens to be next door to the new home of the Israeli defense minister and therefore a “security risk,” to not only demonstrate the division of the region but poke some fun at the general insanity of bureaucracies. As one of the security detail puts it “it’s not my job to think.” The widow takes her case to the Israeli High Court — arguing that her trees should not be cut down and no terrorist has ever been in that grove. Film is surprisingly funny in places — especially the soldier and his studies for some kind of psychology exam. Several plot strands are floating around — for example, the widow supposedly has 3 grown children and we see two of them, but not the third. Her lawyer has worked in Russia and has a child there which I suppose gives him more stature in terms of legal experience. There’s an interesting lighting effect when the lawyer and widow have a moment of closeness — the screen seems to light up — not sure if that was meant to highlight the specialness of the moment or that maybe the spotlights from next door were coming in her window — don’t think it was meant to be the sun, but that’s also possible. Another excellent performance by Hiam Abbas, who was in The Visitor.

2/18/09
Idiots and Angels — U.S. — 3.5
Would having wings cause you to do good deeds even if you didn’t really want to? And would it help change you from a sour and angry person to a good one? That’s the premise of this “cartoon noir” which features a scumbag kind of guy who does everything he can to get rid of the wings sprouting on his back. Some of the animation effects are quite interesting — the way one thing turns into another (like shower water drops into shaving cream and then milk). No dialogue — story is told in action, with grunts orscreams, in little dream bubbles that emerge from character’s heads, or with music.

2/19/09
Milking the Rhino — U.S. — 3.5
Documentary on community-based conservation efforts in Africa, primarily among the Masai in Kenya and the Himba of Namibia, focusing on the development of ecotourism as a viable way of making money from wildlife. Challenges of reserving land for wild animals when the cattle herds don’t have enough grass and the gradual awareness of local people that the animals can be a resource for them, not just a threat to their cattle. Also some interesting discussion of the kind of experience tourists want to have. Will be shown on public television stations later in the spring.

2/19/09
Katyn — Poland — 3.9
Story about the effects of the killing of thousands of Polish army officers in 1940 after the Soviet Union’s invasion of Poland, complicated by the fact that it was blamed on the Germans. Focus is on the family members waiting for word about husbands and sons who were missing and on the younger generation members who get into trouble with Communist Secret Police by talking about the Katyn murders. There are multiple strands of story, mostly but not always clear enough to keep straight, but something about the film seems to be less emotional than I expected, particularly since the director’s father was one of those people at Katyn. Perhaps that distance is meant to reflect the unemotional way these Polish officers were killed, in a quite unemotional and businesslike piece of horror.
Opening scenes of people on a bridge — one group headed east fleeing from the Germans and another group going west fleeing from the Russians — set the feeling of Poland being trapped in the middle.
Music by Krzysztof Penderecki which seems exactly right.

2/21/09
Sugar — U.S. — 4
Young Dominican Republic hopeful baseball star gets a chance at trying out for the U.S. leagues — a way to get more money for his family. The transition from his close family and friends to literally a “farm” tean in Iowa where no one speaks Spanish is tough but at least he’s sending money home to his mother. Film is not quite the usual making-it-good story but more of a coming-of-age story about Sugar figuring out what’s really important to him. Soto who plays “Sugar” was a teen-aged baseball player himself but may have an acting career now. The characters around Sugar aren’t very well developed which adds to the sense of how lonely he is. Baseball scenes were good with lots of detail without being tedious — which I appreciated because I’m not a huge baseball fan. First time I’d heard “Hallelujah” done in Spanish.

2/21/09
All Around Us — Japan — 3.5
Story of the evolution of a marriage over the course of several years (1993-2001). Some of those years seem to drag a bit, but overall interesting. Their personal story of pregnancy and losing the baby is mixed with economic problems due to Japan’s recession during that time. They are involved in  pressures on the larger family because the real estate collapse forces her brother and his wife and children to move in with her mother. Kanao’s job as a courtroom sketcher brings in the outside world but most of the film is focused on daily interactions of the couple with each other and each of them with their coworkers. Shoko gives up her job at a publisher and becomes seriously depressed after the baby dies. Her only way out of that is through her connection with Kanao and her re-awakening interest in art which she had studied years before.
Won Best Film at Mainichi Film Awards

Shorts:
Saw two programs of shorts on 2/21 and 2/22. Missed two other groups. Best ones I saw were
Procrastination — animated from Great Britain
Toyland — Germany
The Wednesdays–Ireland
Out of Spjald — Denmark