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SIFF '08: week three (and final weekend!)
Submitted by imaginary embracey on June 14, 2008.
Friday, June 13 was a lucky SIFF day, with two live-scored archival films providing a nice break from traditional festival venues and fare. My evening began with Alexander Nevsky, about the titular 13th-century Russian prince who led a ragtag army against a Teutonic invasion, which screened at Benaroya Hall along with a thrilling performance of Sergei Prokofiev's cantata arrangement of his 1938 film score. The Seattle Symphony Orchestra (and the chorus, and the mezzo-soprano) were in glorious form under conductor Xian Zhang.
Afterward I scampered down the block to the Triple Door, thinking my cinema evening couldn't get any more enchanted, and ended up being blown away again (and in a whole different way) by The Album Leaf's live score to the 1927 F. W. Murnau film Sunrise, a crazed fever-dream of a morality fable about a married farmer vexed by an evil city-gal temptress. Where Nevsky was elegant, refined, and melodic, Sunrise was brash, crazed, and wonderfully messy. And both were absolutely brilliant.
By comparison, earlier offerings in week 3 were a bit lackluster overall. Especially on the documentary front: Saving Luna (nicely-shot but overly-narrated recap of the titular Vancouver Island orca's tragic tale), Walt & El Groupo (oddly dull account of Walt Disney's famed goodwill trip to South America in the 1940s) and Pierre Rissient: Man of Cinema (star-studded but pitifully-produced profile of the highly influential international-cinema icon) all had their moments, but ultimately left me feeling unsatisfied.
The same cannot be said for The Secret of The Grain, the best fiction film I've seen at SIFF '08 and easily one of the 10 best films I've seen so far this year. The multilayered story follows an immigrant Turkish family living in a French Mediterranean port town -- with all their struggles-in-an-unwelcoming-land drama this setup entails -- and dealing in various ways with themselves and each other. The main characters are a depressed, careworn, sixty-something dock worker patriarch who dreams of owning his own restaurant, and the take-no-shit daughter of his longsuffering ladyfriend; two brilliantly-drawn characters in an exquisitely intricate, gorgeously observed, unaccountably mesmerizing drama that's by turns funny, frustrating, and overstuffed. Just like my family (and probably yours too).
On tap this weekend are Jolene (Sundance darling about a gifted woman's 10-year quest for love and independence), Towelhead (Alan Ball's feature directorial debut about an Arab-American girl coming of age in Texas during the first Gulf war), La France (gender-bending WWI thriller), Fugitive Pieces (Jeremy Podeswa's long-awaited follow-up to The Five Senses), and Apollo 54 (Italian homage to 1950s sci-fi).
Yep, it's feeling like SIFF '08 is winding down. And still I can't believe there are only two days left.
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imaginary embracey said on June 16, 2008:
SIFF award winners were announced yesterday, and the full list can be found here.
I topped out at 50 films and didn't see most of the Jury winners, but on first glance some of the audience-chosen Golden Space Needle Awards seem a bit off the mark. (Jessica Chastain, mediocre star of the mediocre Jolene, as best actress? Please.) Still, ChrisB loved him some Wrecking Crew, which won in the Documentary category.
Anyway, I'll be posting a SIFF recap later this week (once ChrisB, Roxie Rider and I rest up and adjust our eyes to natural light).
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ChrisB said on June 16, 2008:
I thought that Alan Rickman was an even more mediocre choice in the most mediocre of mediocre movies (Bottle Shock, the closing night film - there might be a review kicking around the imaginary tubes somewhere). He wasn't even the leading actor!
I was at the awards brunch and the Saturday afternoon screening of ,em>Jolene (which I liked more than you did but didn't love) and both times the director, Dan Ireland, gushed about how Jessica Chastain was the best actress he's ever worked with (I thought if he made the film 7 or 8 years ago he'd say the exact same thing about Natasha Lyonne). I'm sure that since Ireland is such an important person to SIFF, that didn't hurt any.
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imaginary embracey said on June 16, 2008:
I wondered what you thought of the Bottle Shock kudos. I took your word for it and skipped the Closing Night screening.
Back to Jolene, it knows absolutely nothing about the South and refuses to be a remotely interesting film until Chazz Palminteri makes his appearance halfway through. And did Frances Fisher really have to lick her fingers in that one scene? I mean, really...
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ChrisB said on June 16, 2008:
I agree Chazz Palminteri was the best part of that movie - and he was the only male character that was not entirely a lecherous creep - and he just mostly was.
Even creepier about that scene: during the Q&A at the Saturday afternoon screening, Chastain said that that scene wasn't in the script and it was Fisher's idea to do it.
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Reviews
ChrisB said on June 14, 2008:
I really loved the two films I saw yesterday, too. Not a bad Friday the 13th, if I don't say so myself. I really enjoyed Letting Go of God and The 27 Club. I also interviewed both filmmakers (Julia Sweeney and Erica Dunton, respectively) and will have those interviews here very shortly.
I'm really going to have a hard time finding time to transcribe those interviews with so many good films this weekend!