The Seattle International Film Festival (the brick-and-mortar portion) wraps up this Sunday, May 19th. This year’s SIFF featured a total of 207 shorts, documentaries, and narrative films from 84 countries. The Festival will be immediately followed by a week of select virtual screenings from this year’s catalog (April 20-27) on the SIFF Channel. Hopefully, some of these festival selections will be coming soon to a theater (or a streaming service) near you!
Luther: Never Too Much (USA) *** – I confess entering Dawn Porter’s Luther Vandross profile knowing little about the late singer beyond his association with David Bowie and a string of smooth groove hits I recall spinning on the AC radio station I worked at from 1983-1991.I emerged from this documentary with a new-found respect for the artist, learning that he also wrote and/or co-wrote a number of them (including hits for artists like Aretha Franklin, Dionne Warwick, and Cheryl Lynn). Porter weaves a generous portion of archival performance clips and interviews with present-day recollections by creative collaborators and music mavens. An engaging, inspiring and ultimately moving portrait of an immensely talented artist who was not without his personal demons.
The New Boy (Australia) ** – Writer-director Warwick Thornton’s drama stars Cate Blanchett as a nun in the Outback charged with schooling a young, taciturn Aboriginal orphan who may harbor supernatural powers. The story is set in the early 1940s, at a monastery where Aboriginal children are cared for until deemed old enough (16?) to get packed off to earn their own keep. The students are largely portrayed by non-professional actors, lending the film a naturalistic feel. Despite an interesting premise (Western religious dogma vs. Indigenous mysticism) the film gets bogged down by its draggy pacing and an uneven narrative that vacillates somewhere between Peter Weir’s The Last Wave and (thanks to Blanchett’s over-the-top antics) Ken Russell’s The Devils.
Resynator (USA) *** – [shakes fist] “Curse you, Robert Moog!” They say history is written by the winners. Director Alison Tavel’s documentary may reinforce that adage. For as long as she can remember, Alison has been told that it was, in fact, her dad (who passed away when she was 2 months old) who was the “true” inventor of the synthesizer; namely, a prototype he dubbed as “the Resynator”. While not a musician herself, Tavel has pursued a career in the business as a roadie (currently for Grace Potter), which put her in a position to pull a few strings and do some detective work. Her subsequent journey to discover (and document) the truth of the matter is at once a fascinating glimpse into the fickle nature of the music biz and a genuinely touching story of a young woman finally “meeting” the father she never got to know.
Scala!!! Or, The Incredibly Strange Rise and Fall of the World’s Wildest Cinema and How it Influenced a Mixed-Up Generation of Weirdos and Misfits (UK) *** – Lester Bangs defined ‘punk’ as “…a fundamental and age-old Utopian dream: that if you give people the license to be as outrageous as they want in absolutely any fashion they can dream up, they’ll be creative about it…and do something good besides.” That philosophy informed the programming for Scala cinema, where the audience was as outrageously transgressive as the film fare. Ditto Jane Giles and Ali Catterall’s documentary, which earns a 3 “Fuck off” rating!
Solitude (Iceland) ***½ – Ah, look at all the lonely people. Ninna Pálmadóttir’s quiet drama concerns an unassuming farmer named Gunnar (Thröstur Leó Gunnarsson) who reluctantly sells his beloved horses and relocates to Reykjavik after getting pushed off his land by a hydroelectric project. He has received a generous settlement, which enables him to offer cash for a condo. For Gunnar, moving to the city is tantamount to getting drop-kicked into the 21st Century; he is overwhelmed by the stimuli. He strikes up a sweet friendship with a bubbly 10-year-old paperboy named Ari. The boy’s parents are separated. While they try to share equal time with their son, squabbles arise over scheduling conflicts, frequently leaving Ari in the lurch. As a result, Gunnar becomes his de facto babysitter. Gunnar’s naivety eventually leads to a misunderstanding that could have serious consequences for him. A beautifully acted treatise on the singularly destructive power of “assumption”.
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–Dennis Hartley