Friday, November 14, 2003

Forgoing the day by day thing, I'm just going to put the rest of this out there. The Monday after seeing The Time Of The Wolf was probably the best of the festival. First on the day was Reconstruction, a film from Denmark that won the Golden Camera at Cannes this year. Its a very fractured and manufactured love story, bopping through time and space with a sort of Kieslowski influenced sense of fate. Gorgeous cinematography by Manuel Alberto Claro in a variety of stocks and formats. I really enjoyed this a lot while it was going on, and even though I realize now that its a little much, I would probably still enjoy it quite a bit if I watched it again. Despite all its film-making trickery (and this is a film which at some level is very much about film-making) it is very much alive. I can see how some people would hate this and I would understand perfectly. If this gets a release I can see it getting a lot of play.

Second film of this day was Tasi Ming-Liang's Goodbye, Dragon Inn. A small story set in an old run down film house, focusing on the events surrounding its last day in business as it shows King Hu's Dragon Inn. There is not a lot going on here - a young man cruises for gay sex, the theatre's ticket taker struggles through her duties, an older man watches with his child. Yet this had me totally sold and I really enjoyed it. Tsai even actually moves the camera once in a while and in one section has some cuts that are mere seconds long. And people are saying this is boring! I fail to see how anyone who loves movies could not like this, especially during the scene where the two old men meet in the lobby after the film is over. I never thought I would be able to describe a Tsai film as touching. Many people already dislike this, but I don't understand them at all. [more]

Posted by gdd @ 06:48 AM CST [Link]

Monday, November 3, 2003

So lets see, at this rate I will be done with the CIFF coverage around the time of next year's festival. Before I go on I should point out I just watched Ratcatcher and it is awesome.

OK. On Day 8 I had tickets for three films, but work-related issues forced me to cancel two. The one I saw is called Hush! Its basically footage a St. Petersburg resident shot out his window over the span of a year spliced together into a movie. Much of it revolves around a section of road that kind of becomes its own entity as it goes from a minor repair to a sinkhole flooded with water after a main breaks. When I first read the festival description I thought it there was a lot that could be done with a film like this, and only some of it is. What I really would have liked to see is two or three residents of the street in various situations, interacting, doing the whole "oh what a tangled web we weave" thing. Unfortunately outside of the road construction there is very little to tie the whole thing together. It is all somewhat random. There were a lot of Koyaanisqatsi-esque environmental shots which were pretty nice but I can't say they added much to anything. Disappointing, although it made me think about the various ways you could do something like this well. The two films I missed were Maria and All Tomorrow's Parties. Reports I heard about ATP ranged from mediocre to outright bad, so I didn't mind missing that. I didn't really hear anything about Maria, so I don't know what I missed there.

Day Nine had no film viewing, a totally packed Saturday. Sunday I snuck out to see The Time Of The Wolf, the new Michael Haneke film. This was not originally scheduled, but they brought it in at the last minute as a replacement for something else. The first 40 minutes or so of this are outright stunning, and make the whole thing worth the price of admission. There is a slow reveal of a situation that grows in scope even as the environment and mood around the participants shrinks. This all comes to a head in a series of scenes shot in a darkened forest which are about as effective a use of photography in film as I've ever seen. My mouth was literally hanging open. Unfortunately I have to agree with most of the other reports I've read which say that after this the film kind of flies off the tracks. There are various effective scenes, most of them revolving around the three children, but as a whole it kind of meanders and wanders. Still this is well worth the price of admission, if for no other reason than to bask in Haneke's formal mastery. The two closing shots are stunners. The whole thing kept reminding me of Tarkovsky's Stalker in a variety of ways - theme, mood, use of sound and space. Great watching, even if it doesn't completely work. Last I heard this has no distribution which is a fucking shame, however I can't imagine it will stay that way for long given that Haneke's last two films were pretty well received from what I know.

Coming Soon - lots of shorts.

Posted by gdd @ 09:25 PM CST [Link]

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