SFIFF 61: Weekend One

Makala

I went in hoping for an ethnographic documentary in the tradition of past festival favorite The Iron Ministry. But the intimacy of this film, with its singular attention to one man (Kabwita Kasongo, a native of the Democratic Republic of Congo) and one activity (manufacturing a load of charcoal and taking it to market 50km on his bicycle), gives the movie a conflicted identity. It seems to aim for a fully observational mood, with no interviews or recognition of the camera by the people onscreen. Yet being so close to the subject throughout an arduous journey makes it hard for the audience not to wonder why the director (a white Frenchman, unseen but keenly felt due to constant fluid camera movement) doesn't offer Kabwita a helping hand. I found the end result uncomfortable to watch, even if the film itself is compelling and well-crafted.

Some online research suggests that this may be a "hybrid" film, with the protagonist playing a fictionalized version of himself, and if that were so, it would make me feel better. I appreciate a "show, don't tell" style, but this is one place where just a little bit of context would have improved the experience greatly.

Claire's Camera

I still can't grok Hong Sang-soo.

Winter Brothers

The biggest disappointment of the festival so far, this did offer great visuals and atmosphere, as promised. But the story, about a miner whose moonshine starts to make his coworkers sick and who pines after his brother's sister, did not develop coherently. And the characters offered the audience nothing to hold on to.

Loveling

A universal tale, out of Brazil, of the way children eagerly leave home, and how parents (especially mothers) cope. Fernando, a high school handball star, gets an offer to join a professional team in Germany; he has to leave in three weeks. Meanwhile, his mother Irene is about to finally get her high school diploma. What stands out most from this piece is the palpable sense of family-ness, especially between the four brothers (two young twins, an awkward 12-year-old, and Fernando) and between Fernando and his mother. On paper, this would be all-too-heartwarming for me, but the end result, with such a specific sense of place (a crumbling house, next door to a house yet-to-be-built) and feeling, won me over.

★

Composed entirely of shots of stars, compiled from hundreds of films, this exceeded my already-high expectations. Like any compilation, one of the joys is identifying familiar scenes. Sometimes this is straightforward enough, but the similarity of the shots, and the refusal to show anything other than stars, makes it amusingly maddening at times. But as fun as it is, what really struck me was how this is actually a history of cinema: the clips are arranged in chronological order, beginning at the dawn of the medium and going straight through to the present. You can see tropes emerge and develop over the time, sometimes for technological reasons and sometimes just for storytelling purposes. As soon as it ended, I wanted to watch it again, but so far it seems to be a festival-only phenomenon, but I intend to closely follow the movie's website to find out when it'll be nearby. I recommend you do the same.

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Bonus content

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Guy Maddin: State of Cinema Address

Always something of a wildcard, this annual festival tradition fell to Guy Maddin this year (the programmer introducing Maddin jokingly noted that it was just an excuse to bring Maddin to San Francisco, since he doesn't have a new film this year). Clearly uncomfortable with the responsibility of talking about something as momentous as the "State of Cinema", Maddin nonetheless mostly succeeded in giving a fascinating lecture on the psychological vulnerability and openness inherent in authorship, and how that ties into the history and present of cinema, from Finnish melodrama to Ed Wood to Tarnation, and on into the YouTube era.

SFIFF 61: Day Two

Hal

A perfectly serviceable documentary about Hal Ashby, which wins one over through the force of clips from his best movies (Harold and Maude, The Last Detail, Being There). The film focuses intently on the art, and on the process of making that art (long, marijuana-fueled sessions in the editing room), with only a glimpse here or there of biography. The 1980s output is mostly left out of the story, acting as a source of frustration leading up to Ashby's untimely death. The presentation is largely conventional, with many talking heads, but a few touches stand out, particularly the use of clips from his movies to illuminate passages from his letters. In the end, one is left with the intense desire to revisit these films again (hopefully on the big screen).

First Reformed

Writer-director Paul Schrader returns, yet again, to the themes of Taxi Driver in this stark tale of a priest searching for something, anything, to hold onto. Ethan Hawke, as the priest, is magnificent. And the formalism of the film is something to behold: shot in the nearly-square 4:3 format, the framing of every scene fits its subject perfectly, while leaving the audience on-edge. As a statement about the state of the world today, the film is not entirely successful. But considered on its own terms, it's a gripping and visceral treat.

SFIFF 61: Day One

The Rider

The Wrestler goes to the rodeo. Of the hybrid fiction/documentary films I've seen, this was the most successful as a doc, in the sense that it feels like a document of a people, place, etc. Set in the plains of South Dakota, it explores the trials of a young horse trainer and rodeo champion who's just injured his head in a riding accident. There are many things to enjoy here, cinematically and otherwise: beautiful twilight shots of the prairie, a taste of the hybrid native/white culture (it appears that the protagonist/subject is mixed-race, and his friends and surroundings are similarly varied). The scenes with horses stand out the most: you can feel the connection, and almost glimpse a sense of understanding.

The Price of Everything

This documentary on the state of the contemporary art market feels all-too-real, yet also manages to be enormously entertaining (easily beating out recent Cannes winner _The Square_ as a satire on modern art). Nearly all parts of the ecosystem are captured, including established, up-and-coming, and forgotten artists, as well as curators, critics, collectors, and perhaps most importantly, auctioneers. The access gained by the director (Nathaniel Kahn, of My Architect fame) is astonishing: it's hard for me to believe that Jeff Koons thought he'd come off positively in this film. While there's not much of a conclusion to be drawn, this fascinating/horrifying story left me with lots to ponder. And its screening location, at SFMOMA, felt as appropriate as could be.

SFIFF 61 (aka, SFFILM Festival) Opening Night

This year's festival, which kicked off last night, seems to be having something of an identity crisis so far as its name is concerns, thus the strange title of this post. Nevertheless, the show goes on, as does this blog (apparently).

A Kid Like Jake

An adaptation of a stage play, this family drama on a contemporary topic probably played better on the stage than it does on the big screen. Claire Danes gives it her all in an attempt to capture the inner conflict of a "normal" mom (a white "progressive" lawyer who lives in Brooklyn) when forced to confront the gender-expansive play of her four-year-old son (he loves dressing up as a princess, playing with dolls, and is obsessed with The Little Mermaid).

But the screenplay, adapted by the playwright (Daniel Pearle), can't really pull off the complexity it's clearly aiming for. The surface plot, about New York private elementary school entrance criteria, is not compelling (at least to me). Yet the film offers its share of pleasures: Jim Parsons is great as the husband, a therapist whose off-kilter therapy sessions with Amy Landecker (also excellent) lighten the mood. And a dinner table conversation gone awry provides just the right amount of awkwardness, thanks to a cameo from Aasif Mandvi.

SFIFF 59: Weekend One

It's been a few years since I've posted here, but as long as Blogger still exists it seems as reasonable a place as any to post these things. SFIFF kicked off last Thursday, and I've been attending at least one film a day. Below are my thoughts on the first four days of the festival (now a week ago).

Love & Friendship

Whit Stillman brings his unique brand of dialogue-heavy comedy ("heavy" seems too weak an adjective) to an adaptation of a Jane Austen novella, featuring Kate Beckinsale as a caustic aristocratic widow. Hilarious, delightful, and biting, it delivers, with apparent effortlessness.

Hunt for the Wilderpeople

A surprisingly sad buddy/coming-of-age comedy from Taika Waititi. The tragedy and lightheartedness play off each other well, keeping the sweetness from becoming too strong while depression never gets a chance to settle in. The plot drags in the final act, and an over-the-top car chase scene feels tacked on from another movie, but overall this is that rare example of a "family" movie that doesn't feel dumbed-down.

Author: The JT LeRoy Story

Author documents the complex saga of JT LeRoy, who gained a literary following in the late 90s and early 00s before being unmasked as a "hoax". Investigating whether that word applies here is, in large part, the film's preoccupation. Nearly all of what's shown to the audience is direct from the mouth of Laura Albert, the woman who penned JT's literary output and embodied him in countless telephone calls with psychiatrists, authors, film makers, and musicians. Under normal circumstances, such an unreliable subject would doom a project like this, but given the nature of the underlying story it only enhances the resulting film. What we get is a dive into questions of what constitutes authenticity, authorship, and above all, identity.

Paths of the Soul

Featuring non-actors engaged in a religious pilgrimage, this Chinese-made, filmed-in-Tibet feature is at its best when it evokes the sense of overwhelming devotion its subjects seem to be experiencing. They travel 1200km from their homes (where they are subsistence farmers or builders) to the religious center of Lhasa. Not content merely to walk that long distance, they only take a few steps at a time before kowtowing, falling to the ground and touching their forehead to it (they equip themselves with leather aprons and wooden mitts to make this at all possible over such a long distance). Only when the action becomes more scripted, such as in an encounter with another pilgrim along the road, does the film flag a bit (though one could argue that the entire point of such scenes is to bring a sense of normalcy to the matter at hand).

Five Nights in Maine

A drama about grief, featuring an ideal cast and a restrained script: David Oyelowo is flawless, and and Diane Wiest presents a multi-layered performance that could have been a cardboard cutout of a mother-in-law. Yet the end result is strangely inert.

Chevalier

The biggest disappointment on my schedule so far, what promises to be an insightful comedy of manners (six friends on a boating vacation decide to compete to see who's "the best in general") degenerates quickly into improvised, poorly-edited not-much-happening.

Very Big Shot

Billed as a comedy, the story follows three brothers in Beirut as they try to make it in the world. The youngest plays it straight, running their family's pizza shop. But the eldest has bigger plans, first as a criminal and then, improbably, as a film producer. This is where the comedy element properly kicks in, after a rather violent first act. Unlike Wilderpeople, the elements aren't tightly woven together, but the structure still works, building the film into a proper satire by its climax.

Blood of My Blood

A story told in two intertwined parts, set hundreds of years apart, this is one of those international films for which I'm lacking the proper cultural context (in this case, Roman Catholic Italy), yet which I nevertheless found enthralling. The first part is a detective story of sorts, where the mystery is whether one character is in cahoots with Satan. The second part involves a "vampire" (whether that designation is literally accurate remains up in the air) now inhabiting the same chambers explored in the first. Altogether enjoyable, and something I'd see again at my earliest opportunity.

Counting

A documentary not about anything in particular, separated into 15 parts that, more than anything else, documents the filmmaker's home town of New York and his travels to attend film festivals around the world. But this is not a travelogue, but instead a piece of extended observation. The thing that impressed me most was that I was never bored, despite the relative formlessness of the endeavor, and the shots are not only engrossing but frequently beautiful.

All These Sleepless Nights

Billed as a documentary/fiction crossover, "documentary" here mostly seems to mean using real locations, and the actors' names, but the extent to which the story matches reality is of course impossible for a viewer to derive. Krzysztof and Michal wander from party to party, club to club, often until the morning light. There's a *Jules and Jim*-esque interlude in which Krzysztof enters into a relationship with Eva, an ex of Michal, but the narrative, such as it is, is not the focal point of the endeavor. This hit the same sweet spot of post-adolescent reminiscence (and late night electronic music) that Eden touched last year, and was a great way to close out the opening weekend.

The Rest, Two Weeks Late

The festival ended two weeks ago tonight, but I haven't finished my blogging duties for the year. Here are the rest of the feature films I saw at SFIFF 56.

Helsinki, Forever
Another documentary made nearly entirely of existing footage (though in this case with much narration added), this film was part of an afternoon honoring Finnish film historian, preservationist, educator, director, etc. Peter von Bagh. It's at once a history of Finnish film and an introduction to the city of Helsinki. Not a great movie, but a refreshingly unfamiliar slice-of-the-20th-century.

The Mattei Affair
The one archival presentation I attended this year, The Mattei Affair is a sort of mix between Citizen Kane and The Parallax View: a biography mixed with a paranoid thriller. Based on a true story, it follows Enrico Mattei, the head of the Italian state-owned oil company after WWII as he grows his power and tries to set Italy off on a different path than the rest of the West when it comes to dealing with oil-rich states. All of this is told in flash-back, as the film opens with Mattei dying in a plane crash, under mysterious circumstances. Highly recommended, a gem.

The Kill Team
This chilling documentary about US soldiers in Afghanistan who killed innocent citizens (for no better reason than to have killed someone while at war) looks at first to be straightforward, cinematically. Each of the soldiers involved has their standard "talking head" interview, while the family of the would-be whistleblower tries to get prove their son innocent in a military court.

Yet the soldier interviews, especially those of a particularly unrepentant individual, show how powerful the "talking head" format can be with a sufficiently captivating storyteller. Several directors at the festival (of both documentaries and fiction) talked about how important the human face is to film. It seems that the talking head-based documentary may be coming back in fashion. And maybe that's right.

The Strange Little Cat
This well-oiled machine of a film, about one day in the life of a German family, is shot almost entirely within an apartment. It's hard to describe the joys of this piece, but perhaps that's because I can't find much to compare it to. There's almost no story (it seems that the whole family, including grandma, some aunts and uncles, cousins) are coming to dinner. And the preparations for that nearly push the mother over the edge. But nothing explodes.

Hard to describe, but easy to like. And the music, adapted from a piece by a Bay Area native (who happened to be attending my screening), was lovely as well.

Il Futuro
Based on a novel by Chilean author Roberto Bolaño (sadly, it's not been translated to English), the film follows a pair of teenage orphans as they try to find their way in the world. In Rome, more particularly, whose ruined ruins and derelict Cinecitta studios both point to past glories. Also pointing to past glories is Rutger Hauer, as a one-time film star who's first seen as a mark for a scheme by our protagonist and her brother, but who becomes the voice for the ruins of the city.

Before Midnight
The most recent in what some might call a Richard Linklater's trilogy, but which I suspect is only the third installment of an ongoing franchise, this film catches up with Jesse and Celine nine years after Before Sunset. It takes this one awhile to find its footing: too self-conscious for the first half hour (needing to add exposition about what's happened to our characters in the long time between encounters), the climax, a half hour argument in a hotel room, is pure gold. Painful, of course. But brilliant.

Weekend Two: Fiction

Youth, Me and You, They'll Come Back
Not only are the next set of films in my weekend wrap all fiction, but they are all coming-of-age films. Unusually for coming of age stories, though, only one (Youth) had sex as its major theme (and even then it has to share the stage with mortality).

Youth, directed by Justine Malle (daughter to director Louis Malle), hit the closest to home. The story centers on Juliette (a stand-in for the director) who spends most of her time attending college in Paris and living with her mother while her father's health deteriorates at his country estate, with a stepmother attending him.

Juliette's reaction to her father's decline is denial. She talks to her father as if everything were fine, suggesting the travel to India together. Meanwhile, she's trying to define herself as a sexual person: after being rebuffed by a guy in her class for her virginity, she does what she can to eliminate that as a barrier, picking up guys in bars. Malle tries to keep this threads tied together, as they clearly are for her personally, but they are really two separate stories (though that's clearly part of the point, too).

They'll Come Back, from Brazil, also features a female protagonist wandering out into the world. But this one is only 12 years old. Left on the side of the road by her family, she travels through a variety of episodes in socioeconomic classes she's not used to. The social awakening this inspires in her is, to my tastes, a little too easy: being among the service class, she realizes for the first time that the servants her family employs have their own lives. But the director referred to his film as a "fable", so like Youth, it's likely unfair of me to fault it for this directness.

The last of these is the most traditional: Bernardo Bertolucci's newest film, Me and You, features a 14-year-old male lead who decides he'd rather not go on the school field trip so instead hides out for a week in the storage closet in the basement of his mother's apartment building. The awakening here is provided by his junkie half sister, who he helps through her DTs and thus becomes a better personal. Forgettable, though I did appreciate the double shot of Bowie's 'Space Oddity' at the end, once with totally different Italian lyrics.