Saturday Night At The Movies
2011 SIFF Preview
By Dennis Hartley
The Last Circus: Yet another Spanish Civil War parody with killer clowns (yawn)
In case this has been keeping you up nights, I have been accredited for the 2011 Seattle International Film Festival; a privilege for which I remain forever in debt to the readers who went to bat for me a while back (you know who you are)-and to my good pal Digby, who graciously gives me this weekly forum to scribble about movies and creatively “waste valuable Digby-space” (as one of my more ardent “admirers” recently proffered in the comment thread) And thanks to SIFF for acknowledging our neck of the blogosphere.
The festival kicks off May 19th and runs through June 12th. Navigating a film festival is no easy task, even for a dedicated buff. Although, I was still a little surprised when they told as at last week’s press launch that the average attendee only catches 2 or 3 screenings per festival (I know-they have lives). SIFF will be showing 441 films over 25 days. That must be great for independently wealthy slackers, but for those of us who work for a living (*cough*), it’s tough finding the time and energy it would take to catch 17.6 films a day (I did the math). I take consolation from my observation that the ratio of less-than-stellar (too many) to quality films (too few) at a film festival differs little from any Friday night crapshoot at the multiplex. The trick lies in developing a sixth sense for films most likely up your alley (in my case, embracing my OCD and channeling it like a cinematic divining rod.) As usual there looks to be a rich crop of celluloid to pick through this year.
The documentary offerings look interesting, particularly those with a political bent. From Ghana, An African Election promises a “thrilling, unprecedented insider’s view into the political, economic and social forces at work” in that country’s 2008 presidential race. In a similar vein, a German film called The Green Wave takes a peek inside Middle-Eastern politics, reviewing Iran’s 2009 elections, using an intriguing blend of documentary and animation. The most promising film in this category looks to be My So-Called Enemy, documenting a 2002 leadership program called “Building Bridges for Peace”, in which 22 Palestinian and Israeli teenage girls traveled to the U.S. The filmmaker follows six of them on their quest (and for the sake of our world’s future, I hope it has a happy ending).
More docs I’m hoping to catch include Page One: Inside the New York Times (we’ll assume that the title pulls double duty as a synopsis), The Bengali Detective (from India) which trails a “pudgy, middle-aged private dick” as he sleuths around Kolkata, and Bobby Fischer Against the World, a portrait of the elusive and tragically loony chess prodigy from acclaimed documentarian Liz Garbus (The Farm: Angola USA). I know next to nothing about the sport where people get excited about “bowling a googly”, but the U.K. doc Fire in Babylon, which recounts how the West Indies cricket team transformed themselves from the butt of jokes to world champs intrigues me with its culture-clash theme and the promise of a killer reggae soundtrack (reminiscent of Cool Runnings) Eco-docs have become a film festival staple; two promising entries are If a Tree Falls: The Story of the Earth Liberation Front, which uses the trial of an Oregon-based activist as entree (no pun intended) into a history of the extremist environmentalist group, and Revenge of the Electric Car, director Chris Paine’s follow-up to Who Killed the Electric Car?. And I’m sure no commie pinko DFH like me can resist a documentary entitled Magic Trip: Ken Kesey’s Search for a Kool Place (will I see tracers afterwards?)
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is presenting a series at SIFF this year called “Asian Crossroads”, which includes Flying Fish, a drama from Sri Lanka that uses that country’s devastating civil war as a backdrop for a network narrative about “love, betrayal, and ethnic tension in a seemingly idyllic village”. Also showing promise are Rosario, a drama from the Philippines about a liberated Filipina in the 1920s who returns home after a visit to the U.S. and faces chastisement from her family for her “unorthodox” life choices, and Saigon Electric-starring “the most talented new faces in Vietnam’s underground dance scene” (and looks to be a Vietnamese take on Breakin’).
There aren’t a lot of Inupiaq filmmakers out there, so as a long-time Alaskan, I am intrigued to check out director Andrew Okpeaha MacLean’s On the Ice, a drama (set in Barrow, Alaska) about a fatal accident that tears apart a tightly-knit native community. Fans of Japanese cult director Takeshi Kitano (guilty) will surely be fighting over seats to see his latest flick Outrage, a Yakuza gangster yarn (surprise surprise). From France, I’m putting my money on Poupoupidou (Nobody Else but You), a thriller about a detective story author with writer’s block, who meets a beautiful blonde spokesmodel (for a cheese factory, no less). The catch? She’s sort of…dead. From the trailer I saw, it looks like a cross between Laura and Venus in Furs (which I reviewed here). An epic 156-minute action thriller from South Korea called Yellow Sea purports to deliver an “elegiac world of violence and despair with incredible action and the most elaborate car chase shot on film to date” (but better than Bullit or The French Connection? We’ll see about that…).
In the “funny ha-ha” department, there’s Boy (New Zealand), a coming-of-age story about an 11-year old Maori who fantasizes about his dad breaking out of prison so he can take his son to a Michael Jackson concert; Fathers and Sons (Canada), an ensemble dramedy about fathers and their estranged sons; and from Spain, A Thousand Fools promises a “masterfully random, occasionally interlocking collection of 15 vignettes, delivered at a rapid-fire, pin-wheeling pace.” I have a soft spot for “road movies” (in fact I did a Top 10 list on the genre a while back) and there seems to be a plethora of them at this year’s festival. Salvation Boulevard (USA) is a “righteous satire about religious hypocrisy” that concerns a “mega-church” parishioner (and former Deadhead) who hits the road to flee fellow church-members after being framed for the murder of their sleazy minister (possibly some shades there of The Big Lebowski). Pinoy Sunday (Taiwan) is about two Filipino migrant workers who “embark on a comic journey” after discovering a couch on the streets of Taipei. The Trip (UK) is the latest from director Michael Winterbottom, and follows two friends (Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, loosely “playing themselves”) literally eating their way through England’s Lake District via a series of restaurant stops (anything with Coogan is a must-see for me). Natural Selection (USA) is a “genre busting comedy” about a devout Christian housewife who finds her long-lost son (an escaped con) and takes him to visit her dying husband. Black White and Blues (USA), from director Mario van Peebles, uses an “odd couple” narrative, with a “Shakespeare-quoting, tee-totaling black man who digs country” and a “womanizing, hard-drinking white man who reveres the blues” hitting the highways of the Deep South.
My biggest weakness at SIFF remains their “Face the Music” series. Killing Bono (UK) is a “based on a true story” dramedy concerning two fledgling high-school rock bands in 1970s Dublin who are friendly rivals, until one of the bands starts to sort of make it big…well, really fookin’ big (see: title of the film). Hit So Hard (USA) is a grrl power rock doc profiling Hole drummer Patty Schemel (who I would imagine has a Courtney Love anecdote or two to share). Who Took the Bomp? Le Tigre on Tour (USA) offers a backstage glimpse at the feminist synth-punkers on their 2004-2005 “farewell tour”. Mama Africa (South Africa) is a “joyful homage” to Grammy winning singer, civil rights activist and all-around inspiring human Miriam Makeba, and is billed to be chock-a-block with performance clips from her vintage Cape Town days. Backyard (Iceland) is a film that literally started out as a backyard project for filmmaker Arni Sveinsson, who invited some musician pals over to jam at his house. The resulting documentary is said to showcase the “most exciting, young Icelandic musicians” of “Reykjavik’s up-and-coming music scene” (move over, Bjork). The one “event” presentation I really hope to snag a seat for this year is The Thief of Bagdad: Re-imagined by Shadoe Stevens with the Music of E.L.O. (I suppose the title says it all). The venerable L.A. air personality is said to have obsessed on this project for a couple decades; meticulously combing the entire Electric Light Orchestra song catalog to find lyrics and musical passages that, edited together, create a seamless (and thematically apropos) soundtrack in perfect synch with Raoul Walsh’s classic 1924 silent film (starring the great Douglas Fairbanks). Can’t wait!
I can’t guarantee that I will catch every film that I’d like to, gentle reader- but you will be the first to receive a full report, beginning with my Saturday, May 21 post. And obviously, I’ve barely scratched the surface of the catalog tonight. So in the meantime, for more info about the 2011 SIFF, just check out their website at www.seattlefilm.org.
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