Saturday Night at the Movies
SIFF-ting through cinema, Pt. 1
By Dennis Hartley
The Seattle International Film Festival kicked off May 17, so over the next several posts I’ll be sharing highlights. SIFF is showing 433 films over 25 days. Navigating such an event is no easy task, even for a dedicated buff. Yet, I trudge on (cue the world’s tiniest violin). Hopefully, some of these films will be coming soon to a theater near you…
After the War (France, Belgium, Italy, Switzerland) – Director Annarita Zambrano’s feature film debut concerns a left-wing radical who fled his native Italy for political asylum in France after assassinating a judge in the 1980s. Now, 20 years later, the French government has rescinded his extradition protection; and to compound his anxiety, a professor in Italy is murdered in the name of the old revolutionary cell he founded. When several of his ex-compatriots are taken into custody, he and his 16 year-old daughter go underground. It’s similar in theme to Sidney Lumet’s 1988 drama Running on Empty, but not as involving; Zambrano’s film starts strong, but gets too draggy and dramatically flat.
Rating: **½ (Plays May 19 & May 26)
The African Storm (Benin, France) – Writer-director-producer-star Sylvestre Amoussou’s political satire (a cross between The Mouse That Roared and O Lucky Man!) is set in the imaginary African republic of Tangara. There are no Marvel superheroes in sight, but there is the nation’s forward-thinking President (Amoussou), who issues a bold decree: he is nationalizing all of his country’s traditionally Western-controlled businesses and lucrative diamond-mining operations. Naturally, the various multinational corporations concerned immediately bring in their “fixers”, who employ every dirty trick in the playbook to sow political upheaval, public discord, and outright violence throughout the tiny nation. Undeterred, the President continues to rally, even daring to denounce (gulp) the IMF and The World Bank. Can he pull this off? I really wanted to love this plucky anti-colonial parable, but…it’s overly simplistic, to the point of cringe-worthy audience pandering (and it knows its audience-anti-corporatist liberals like moi!).
Rating: **½ (Plays May 23 & May 24)
Angels Wear White (China, France) –An orphaned teenager without work papers becomes a pawn in a collusion between her sleazy boss and corrupt officials, who scramble to cover up a local politician’s sexual assault of two primary school girls at the hotel where she’s employed as a maid. There’s no sugarcoating in writer-director Vivian Qu’s drama about the systemic exploitation of women in Chinese society. Qu directs her younger actors with great sensitivity; particularly when handling the more difficult material.
Rating: *** (Plays May 25 & May 30)
Happy Birthday (Greece) – Remember that generation-gap comedy, The Impossible Years? The one where David Niven plays a Professor of Psychology who has to deal with with the embarrassment caused by his free-willed hippie daughter’s shenanigans? Writer-director Christos Georgiou’s family melodrama reminded me of that 1968 film…except here Niven is a Greek cop, and his teenage daughter is a wannabe anarchist. After Dad spots his daughter hurling projectiles at him and fellow officers during a demonstration, tension at home comes to full boil. Mom intervenes; insisting the pair take a time out for a weekend at the family’s country home-where they can hopefully reconcile. What ensues is a kind of family therapy session, which becomes analogous to the sociopolitical turmoil plaguing modern Greece. The film is slow to start, but it becomes quite affecting.
Rating: *** (Plays May 26 and May 30)
Hot Mess (Australia) – I’ll confess, I go into any film labelled as a “mumblecore slacker comedy” with a bit of “old man yelling at whiny millennials to get off his lawn” trepidation, but I was pleasantly surprised at how much fun I had watching writer-director Lucy Coleman’s, uh, mumblecore slacker comedy from Down Under. Comedian-playwright Sarah Gaul is endearing as a 25 year-old budding playwright and college dropout who suffers from a perennial lack of focus, both in her artistic and amorous pursuits. For example, she expends an inordinate amount of her creative juice composing songs about Toxic Shock Syndrome. She becomes obsessed with a divorced guy who seems “nice” but treats her with increasing indifference once they’ve slept together. And so on. The narrative is…lax, and the film meanders, but there are a lot of belly laughs. Stay with those closing credits, or you’ll miss “The Tampon Song” (I couldn’t breathe).
Rating: *** (Plays May 19 & May 26)
The People’s Republic of Desire (China) – You thought America’s Got Talent was a mind-numbing celebration of mediocrity? Wait ‘til you get a load of China’s “digital celebrity universe”. Equipped with little more than a digital camera, an internet connection, and even less talent, China’s most popular online celebrities gear up for a contest in which whomever successfully begs the most money from their fans wins. A truly bizarre subculture. Fascinating subject, but this documentary becomes an endurance contest for the viewer.
Rating: **½ (Plays May 19 & May 20)
The Place (Italy) – Much of the “horror” in Paolo Genoveses’ horror anthology is left to the imagination, which is not dissimilar to what an enigmatic benefactor who holds court at a diner requires of his “clients” – if they want their wishes to come true. This deadpan “genie” hands out dubious assignments to desperate souls. There’s an opt-out, but few take it. Slow to start, and somewhat marred by repetitive staging, but becomes more gripping as it chugs along.
Rating: *** (Plays May 20, May 24 & May 26)
Sansho the Bailiff – The great Japanese director Kenji Mazoguchi made nearly 100 films between 1923 and his death in 1956 (he was only 58). This 1954 drama is one of his most admired and beautifully photographed efforts, which is why its recent 4K restoration gives cause for celebration. Based on an 11th-Century folk tale, it’s the story of what happens to the wife and children of a beneficent governor after he is arrested and sent into exile. While travelling to reunite with him, his family is kidnapped by bandits. His wife ends up in a brothel; his son and daughter are sold to the eponymous bailiff, a sadistic land owner. Their subsequent struggles add up to a moving observation on the human dichotomy-from the most unfeeling cruelty to the most selfless act of compassion.
Rating: **** (Special revival presentation; plays May 20 only)
Previous posts with related themes:
2018 SIFF Preview
More reviews at Den of Cinema
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— Dennis Hartley