10/07/2002 Entry:
"CIFF - Day Three"

Took most of the afternoon off, watched football and pondered what to see. I was wavering between several things, but finally decided on Women's Prison, from first time Iranian director Manijeh Hekmat. I had originally scheduled this, then decided I didn't want to see another heavy "issue film", then came back to it because nothing else really fit my schedule properly except Safe Conduct, and I already know I'll be able to catch that another time. I have two general fest-realted notes to make. First, it is nice to see that of the 9 screenings I had/have scheduled for the first four days of the fest, 7 are/were sold out (although admittedly this often seemed to have more to do with the size of the room the film was playing in as anything else.) It is good to see people coming out for the showings. Second, I don't know how I am going to get through a week and a half more of that Ken Nordine intro film without shooting myself.

The big story about Women's Prison is that it was banned by the government of Iran from their film festival, and Jekmat faced arrest after arranging a private screening. The film works in three parts, covering the life of two women in jail - one an inmate and one the warden. The first 2/3 of the film puts forth so much pain and misery that it started to become unbearable, but the film does manage a decent landing in the end. I didn't see anything put forth that really surprised or enlightened me, I knew going in that it was bad to be a woman in prison in Iran. The only surprising thing was the number of children running around that were apparently born in prison. The film never really explains how they got there though. I assume the women were pregnant when they came to jail, since there are really no men around the prison. Which begs the question why does a pregnant woman gets thrown in jail in Iran? Thats where I wanted the film to go, exploring the women's crimes that landed them there, which I felt would be far more interesting than just exposing how hard it is being in prison. Unfortunately Women's Prison never really goes there, and mostly this just made me want to go home and watch The Circle again. I tore a 2.

Went home, ate, picked up Bethany and went back to Landmark at 9:00 for Lost In La Mancha, a new documentary that covers the self-destruction of Terry Gilliam's film about Don Quixote. I couldn't believe the line when we got there at 8:30! So long! The disasters that befall the production of The Man Who Killed Don Quixote are almost too numerous to list, but they include F-14s, a flash flood washing the production away, and an actor with a double-herniated disc. This story was very interesting, and the behind the scenes footage of the production was fascinating (particularly Gilliam's goofy storyboards,) but the documentary itself is nothing special. The filmmakers do as adequate a job as anyone else who had been there could have done, which is fine because the material is so great, but its not like this is some masterpiece of documentary or anything. Frankly, the best part of the film is the small bits of footage Gilliam managed to shoot before the plug got pulled. It looks like this could have been the most inspired movie he's made since Brazil, a real return to form, and now its on the scrap heap. His insurance company owns the rights to his script, and he is trying to get the financing to buy it back, but it seems unlikely that this movie will ever be made in the form it was intended, which is a huge fucking shame. Directors Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe did Q&A after the screening which was fun, although the questions were fairly uninspired (not like I should talk, since I didn't have anything better to ask.) I tore a 3.

Monday is the big chaos day where I go straight from work to the Music Box for films until midnight, seeing Russian Ark and City Of God. Then Tuesday is easier, we're going to the non-fest screening of Cold Water at Block Cinema. Wednesday is the new Mike Leigh film, All Or Nothing. I was thinking of scheduling something on Thursday, but I might just take a needed day off. Then the big thing next weekend is Belvaux's The Trilogy. As if that wasn't enough, I just got my VHS of A Touch of Zen, which I sadly probably won't even get a chance to watch until I get back from vacation Oct 25. Must stay awake...