Philadelphia Film Festival Diary - 2007

It’s back, folks. The 2007 Philadelphia Film Festival started last night. There are many films to see and I have quite a schedule lined up for myself. This is going to be a busy week, so I’ll dispense with the formalities. Below you will find short reviews daily on all the films I will see. To make this easy on myself, I’ll keep this same review going, and keep adding the most recent films on top. So keep checking back and you can read about the best (and the worst) of international and American independent cinema.

---

DAY 12

This is the last day! My reviews probably get less and less coherent as the days go on, so maybe you should read from Day 1 so you can see my mind degenerate. Stay tuned for a final Festival Wrap-up!

47) Ghosts of Cite-Soleil - Asger Leth, Milos Loncarevic

This is the only documentary that I have seen at the festival. It was a good one though. This film follows two brothers who are leaders of opposing gangs in one of the most dangerous places in the world. The slums of Port-au-Prince, Haiti: Cite Soleil. I can not believe how the filmmakers were able to get so close to these people, film them intimately, and then get out of the war-torn country alive.

It’s incredibly sad that there are places like this in the world today. This documentary does the right thing by telling the city and it’s people story. It does it with style, and heart. It’s filled with great music, amazing images and stories, and it is a very important film about our world today.

48) Woman on the Beach - Hong Sang-soo

Hong Sang-Soo is considered one of the greatest directors in the world. This film was excellent, but it wasn’t the best ever or even the best he’s done. It tells the story of the start and end of a relationship between a Korean film director and the girlfriend of a friend of his. It’s very subtle and sweet. It really plumbs the depths of human emotions without becoming overbearing and staying very accessible.

This is a good film to start appreciating Sang-Soon with. It’s also a good film about a simple relationship. The acting is great, and the direction and script are spot on. At over two hours, it doesn’t feel long, it feels more leisurely than anything. Just like a walk on the beach should be.

49) End of the Line - Maurice Devereaux

This film is a what I would call a fair horror film. No surprises. In fact, it would be (and it still almost is) complete forgettable if it was not for the interesting story hook. A bunch of people are trapped in a subway while a group of Jesus-freaks get the message from their leader to start “saving” people. Here, saving means to stab them to death with their cross-shaped daggers.

The characters are one-dimensional. The direction is standard. There is some gore, and some suspense, and some romance, and some twists. The ending is surprisingly interesting. All-in-all if you want to see a horror film where people stab each other screaming “Jesus is love!” then this is the film for you.

50) Triggerman - Ti West

This was produced by one of my favorite directors, Larry Fessenden. I had never seen a Ti West’s previous film, The Roost, but I had heard great things about it. The story of this film is also cool. A group of hunters start to get hunted themselves by some unseen snipers. With those three tidbits of information I had, I was pretty excited to see this film.

It let me down. The film is endless shots of people walking through the woods. The germ of a story idea is no where near enough to make a feature film, and Ti West sure stretches things out to make it happen. Eventually, the three hunting friends are picked off until there is only one left. He walks endlessly around even more until the pointless climax.

The opening was promising, but those shots of people walking get old real quick. I was very disappointed. It seemed like this film was made in a weekend for no other reason than to make a feature film. A horrible film to end the festival on.

---

DAY 11

42) Ten Canoes - Rolf de Heer

This is the first film made in the Australian Aboriginal language. It tells the story of a tribe going on their annual goose hunt in the swamps. While they are hunting, the elderly leader tells an ancient legend to his younger brother. The film shows both stories, with an unseen narrator. It is cute, folksy and wonderful to behold.

The legend is full of romance, humor, and action. The narration makes the whole thing feel like you are there with the tribe, happily going on this hunt and taking part in the groups camaraderie and the tribe’s history. It is very accessible, and doesn’t feel like a national geographic documentary. It feels very much like a real story, a true story, that was told to you by your own grandfather or grandmother.

It’s very interesting and different and it’s a movie that is fresh and fun and makes you feel warm and happy. Also, you will probably want to visit Australia.

43) Eagle vs. Shark - Taika Waititi

This quirky comedy from New Zealand was probably the funniest film at the festival. The story involves a young woman who falls in love with a very strange video-gaming weirdo. They have an interesting relationship that is strained by his mission of vengeance. He is travelling down to his home town where he was bullied at high school. There, he plans to have a fight to the death with the one who bullied him the most.

Everyone knows people like this from their life, or maybe you are a person like that. That is why this film is so endearing. The characters are over-the-top, but they are still real. The audience really got into this film, and were behind the characters all the way. This is going to get a nice US release, so check it out while you can. Its like Napoleon Dynamite, but better.

44) Away from Her - Sarah Polley

I saw the short film I Shout Love by Sarah Polley and it felt like I was punched in the face. In a good way. That film was incredibly powerful and emotional. I am happy to say that with her first feature, Sarah Polley was able to punch me in the face again. I am a twenty-six year old guy, and this story of an elderly couple coping with Alzheimer made me weep.

The wife has Alzheimer’s, and the husband just watches helplessly as she forgets all about him and falls in love with another man. This had a lot of potential to come out as a horrible melodrama, but the direction and performances are subtle. What it could have pounded in with a sledgehammer, it lightly tapped into you instead. An amazingly sure-handed effort from a woman is is going to be known as one the world’s great directors. You heard it here first!

45) American Fork - Chris Bowman

I wasn’t too impressed with this film from the producers of Napoleon Dynamite. It tells the story of an overweight supermarket clerk who wants to become an actor. At least that is in the first ten minutes. The film keeps changing directions and its attempts at being quirky and different succeed only rarely.

The script had major problems, but the lead performance by Hubbel Palmer is charming. That wasn’t enough to save the film, however. I would slowly be drawn in by him but then ripped right out as the story went in some other direction or the film tried and failed to do something funny. Stay away, but keep an eye out for this Hubbel Palmer guy.

46) Them - David Moreau, Xavier Palud

This French horror film is anything but scary. Boring yes, idiotic yes. The supposedly true story is about a young couple in this remote sprawling mansion, who are tormented and chased by a bunch of hooded figures. The film really only consists of the camera following people as the walk slowly through the house or through the woods, looking for danger.

The end is predictable, and then the revelation of who these hooded figures are was not as interesting the film-makers thought it would be. It was a low budget film that really feels low budget, and is made without any style or any feeling. Although a lot of people seemed to enjoy it, I was not impressed. Be warned.

---

DAY 10

37) Waiter - Alex van Warmerdam

This film from the Netherlands was released in exactly the same month there as Stranger Than Fiction was here. It is basically the same story, except this one is much darker. A waiter is a character in someone’s screenplay, and his life just keeps going from bad to worse. He can somehow barge in on the screenwriter, and so can some other minor characters. Together, they bother the writer and his wife and eventually things get out of hand. This film is very dark and very funny. It has a tight script with some supremely interesting set-pieces. Also, it definitely doesn’t have a Hollywood ending. It ends on a dark and funny note that some people might find jarring but I thought worked rather well. This film is a good one to watch back to back with the Will Ferrel vehicle, and see what the difference is between Hollywood movies and those that try to take some chances

38) The Untouchable - Benoît Jacquot

This French film tells the story of a young girl who goes to India to search for her birth father. Its a quiet, simple film. They is not any conflict in the film, and at the 80 minute runtime it just flies by. That is not a good thing, though. It left me feeling a bit empty.

It was well-directed and acted, but the lack of any sort of impacting events really make the film forgettable. It’s not bad by any means. But unlike Once, I didn’t feel anything while watching it, or after it was over. That’s why this review is so short. I can’t think of anything to say about it.

39) Viva - Anna Biller

This campy romp that parody’s the old Russ Meyer sexploitation films was more fun than it should have been. The story involves Bambi, a bored housewife, who sets out to rediscover her sexuality in the free-loving seventies. The women are naked, the men are uncouth, the acting is incredibly over-the-top, and the set design is amazing. Anna Billar wrote, directed, starred, and did the production design. She does a good job on the latter, the first three could use some work.

I would have given this film a much higher rating if it wasn’t 120 minutes long. As it stands, a movie like this has no business being longer than 90 minutes. A lot of scenes could have been cut out, and a lot of them shortened. But, saying that, the good stuff in the film was pretty good and pretty funny. As long as you know what you are getting into, you can enjoy this film. Just don’t take it seriously.

40) Time - Kim Ki-duk

Kim Ki-duk is a great director. His films are different than others coming from Korea or any country for that matter. This is the strongest film by him that I have seen. The story involves a young couple who have been in a relationship for two years. The woman thinks that the boyfriend is getting tired of her, so in an effort to save the relationship she gets an entirely new face through plastic surgery.

Things become a little creepy and disturbing as she disappears and then reappears as a new person, not telling her boyfriend what is going on. She makes him fall in love with her again and then realizes that he can’t forget his girlfriend that he thinks just disappeared. Drastic steps are taken by all of them in order to make things right again, but in the end you can see the error of their ways.

The film is wonderfully pseudo-realistic, until the enigmatic full circle ending. I was very impressed and after sleeping on this film, I love it more and more.

41) The Page Turner - Denis Dercourt

You can’t go wrong with this old-school thriller from France. A young girl goes to an extremely important piano audition. It is ruined when one of the judges, a famous female pianist, gives someone an autograph while she was playing. Years latter, still holding a grudge, she manages to secure a position as the woman’s nanny and then proceeds to slowly plot her revenge? Or does she?

The film is very subtle and the whole time you are just waiting for the other shoe to drop. It takes oh so long to actually drop, but the waiting is the best part. This film was smart, subtle, well-written and well-shot. It also feels very fresh in this world full of over-the-top thrillers. See it and you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

---

DAY 9

32) Slumming - Michael Glawogger

This Austrian film tells the story a practical joke gone wrong. Or right? It depends how you look at it. A rich trust-fund guy’s hobbies include taking candid pictures of women’s undergarments, and playing other cruel pranks on people. His path crosses with a drunken poet at the end of his rope who he finds passed out on a bench. He decides to put the unconscious man in the trunk of his car and drop him over the border. He thinks its funny to have him wake up in a different country. This leads to some unexpected consequences.This film had some major pacing issues, and I had a hard time understanding the characters motivations. There were a lot of good bits. The performances are great, and the film is really trying to show some good character development. Overall, it just doesn’t work. Too much is left open, and too many points of the films drag. Still, I give them big points for trying.

33) Cages - Olivier Masset-Depasse

This is an interesting Belgian film about a woman who was in a horrible car accident, and now has a mental block which is causing her to have trouble speaking. This puts a strain on her relationship with her husband. Together they run a bar, and also run the annual Animal Impersonation Contest. The latter allows for some really interesting set pieces.

When the husband is caught having an affair, she takes drastic measures to keep their relationship together, and in turn he takes drastic measures in order to try to cure her of her condition. It builds nicely into an almost surrealistic ending that is definitely something different. It was well-made, but ultimately I left the film without feeling I got anything new out of it.

34) A Dirty Carnival - You Ha

I am very impressed with this years Korean Gangster film line-up. This is the second one I’ve seen, and it was spectacular. The story involves a young man who is working his way up the chain of command trying to make enough of himself so he can take care of his family financially. Like Cruel Winter Blues, this film is more drama than action. But what action it has is perfectly executed. In fact, as this guy betrays everyone on his way up, the violence happens with such intense bursts that it stays shocking all the way through.

The good part of the film is the drama. We really feel the main character’s code of ethics, and how this still leaves room in his life for murder and betrayal. It’s an excellent study into how people will do anything they can to succeed in life. It’s directed well, and its 2 1/2 hour running time is nicely paced. Everything works to keep the story and the characters developing. One of the best films in the gangster genre I have ever seen.

35) Blood Ties - Paola Columba

This is a shot-on-video family drama from Italy that I think is vaguely like King Lear. Three brothers and a sister are fighting over the land that was left to them after their father died. Actually, the fighting mainly goes on between two brothers. The younger hotshot who was just released from jail, and the oldest who has been working that land from the day he was born. The other brother is mentally challenged, and the sister is caught in the middle of their antics.

For a video production, it doesn’t look bad. The nice scenery helps. The performances are decent, but the direction and script are really lacking. The story we have heard a million times before, and its tragic end feels very out of place. It seems like it was written more for the theatre, and the realistic filming style just couldn’t make it work. A nice effort, but ultimately the film just falls flat.

36) Taxidermia - György Pálfi

The latest effort from the director of Hukkle was advertised as the most disgusting film at the festival. It was the most disgusting I have seen, but unfortunately, it was also the worst. It tells three separate stories of three generations of the same family. The first segment was interesting, but ultimately pointless and pretentious. A young soldier tries to pleasure himself in several ways while stationed in a remote farm.

The second segment involves the child of another soldier who grows up to be a champion eater. He eats in competitions, and then pukes out the food between rounds. He falls in love with the female eating champion and together they have a son. The son grows up to be a taxidermist, and has to take care of his grossly overweight father. The ending comes out of nowhere, and is a cool idea but really has no point behind it.

Just like this film! There was no reason for anything, no character development, no story progression. The three segments weren’t even connected well. It was purely an attempt at grossing out the audience with puke and raw meat. Ultimately, it was a place for the director to concoct random shots he wanted to do and vaguely connect them into a film. Basically, he was artistically masturbating, and we got to see the results. Although he probably loves it, I cannot recommend this to anyone.

---

DAY 8

28) Grave Decisions - Marcus H. Rosenmüller

This film from Germany tells the story of a troublesome young boy. After accidentally killing a few rabbits, he is convinced by his brother that he was the one that killed his mother, who died while giving birth to him.The movie follows him as he tries to stop himself from going to hell for his sins by various means. They include becoming immortal, atoning for his sins, and trying to make peace with his family.

I loved this film. It treads the line between comedy and heart-felt drama without a miss-step. The direction is sure-handed, the script progression works perfectly, and keeps the crazy things that happen seem completely realistic. It’s hilarious and touching. One of the best films so far.

29) Once - John Carney

This movie floored me. An incredibly beautiful Irish film about a street musician that forms a relationship with a Czech immigrant. They start to play music together, and without conflict, the film floats along to a wonderful conclusion.

The film is largely just them playing music. The lead character is played by Glen Hansard, of the band The Frames. He also wrote the music, all of which is extremely heartfelt and fits into the film perfectly.

This is a rare film that succeeds with a simple story full of emotion and without any conflict, action, or tricks. Is it the best movie at the festival? I can’t decide between this or Day Night Day Night, both small, intimate and wonderful.

30) The Road - Zhang Jiarui

This sweeping Chinese drama tells the story of a young girl who works as a bus-driver’s assistant in the 1960’s, and is perfectly happy driving through the beautiful countryside and worshiping the wonderful Mao.

She falls in love, and out of love, and eventually marries another man to please her communist party. The movie spans 50 years, and the girl transforms from an impossibly bubbly teenager to a broken down old woman, who is finally given some peace in the beautifully filmed heart-rending ending.

This film I wasn’t really looking forward to, but it totally charmed me as it went along. If you want to see a sweeping Chinese drama, this is a good bet.

31) The Living and the Dead - Simon Rumley

This movie is so far the most disturbing film at the festival. It tells the story of a run-down aristocratic family who live in their crumbling old manor home. The father is trying to keep the family afloat financially, but the mother is very sick and bedridden, and the son has some sort of mental retardation, and needs constant medication to stay sane.

The father is forced to leave the house on business, and the son, stopping his medication, gets it in his head that he can take care of the mother by himself. He locks the nurse out of the mansion and goes about giving his mother his own breed of treatment, which includes way too much medication. This is when the film gets really creepy, when the two are alone and the mother is at the will of her insane son.

Unfortunately, the film doesn’t stay with this story line, and a lot of other things start happening. Some of them are interesting, but most are not. Still, the film does well to make you feel uneasy in its short running time. It’s an artsy horror film that isn’t bad at all. Besides that one segment in the middle, I just couldn’t connect with it.

---

DAY 7

24) Fair Play - Lionel Bailliu

The idea behind this film is brilliant. It’s a story of intrigue and back stabbing amongst a group of corporate up and comers. The twist is that none of it takes place in the office, or in a business environment. It all takes place outdoors, while the characters are participating in rustic adrenaline-inducing activities.The two opening set-pieces are great. Especially the squash game. The new promotee and his boss duke it out verbally and physically on the court, with the young guy’s job at stake. After that scene, the under-the-table dealings continue until it all culminates on an employee cannoneer trip.

Unfortunately, that is when this film turns too much into a standard action movie. The first half was very promising and intense, but it just turned too formulaic at the end. Still, it is a great attempt at something new, even if it doesn’t quite deliver.

25) The Bothersome Man - Jens Lien

This film from Norway tells the story of what happens after you commit suicide. The main character is a man who kills himself by jumping in front of a train. He then awakens on a bus headed for a strange city.

Once he arrives, he is given a job, and soon learns to accept life in this oh-so-perfect city with it’s oh-so-perfect inhabitants. Eventually the man realizes that something is wrong, and sets out to try to understand what is going on.

The movie is funny, and surrealistic, and just a little bit gory. The director keeps things moving until the enigmatic ending. I highly recommend this one is an off beat entry into the life after death “genre”. When I left the theatre, I heard some woman say that she had known from the beginning of the film what was going on: “They’re all robots!” Ha! Trust me, that’s very funny. Just watch the movie.

26) A Comedy of Power - Claude Chabrol

This movie was quite aggravating. Isabel Huppert stars as a prosecuting judge going after a group of rich CEOs who were stealing money through kickbacks and slush funds. This film seems like it couldn’t decide if it wanted to be a comedy, a drama, a thriller, or a mystery. Instead it decides to just tread the boring meaningless line between all of them.

Although the performances are good, while watching it I felt nothing for the characters or the story. There was also a very strange use of music that was almost laughable. Despite the talent behind it, I cannot recommend this film, even to fans of the director or the actress.

27) Sounds of Sand - Marion Hänsel

This film about an African family’s search for water is actually made by a french director. I could feel the European influence on its style, and although it was well made, this presented the viewer (me) with a few problems.

It’s hard to fell empathetic to a richly personal story of the region when you know that what is being shown may or may not be accurate. Normally, I try not to care too much about the accuracy in fictional films. A film like this, that is trying to appeal to your superego and tell a story that can actually be going on right now, needs to be realistic.

Not that it wasn’t. I don’t want to blame Hänsel for not doing her research. Its just that I could feel the strings being pulled by a director familiar with how to force people to feel bad for their characters. This forced drama took me right out of the film. If the touch was lighter, and the story less manipulative, then the film would have been much better. As it stands, it was just average.

---

DAY 6

20) Life Can Be So Wonderful - Osamu Minorikawa

This Japanese film “Poem” tells five separate stories about depressed people in the big cities of Japan. I couldn’t really get into this film at all. The stories are more like little mood pieces, with not-so-poetic narration on top.A film like this needs some good cinematography. Unfortunately, this one was shot on video or some horrible film stock, and apparently had no cinematographer. It looks horrible, and the badly translated sub-titles didn’t bring me into the film at all. I tried hard to like this film, but I just couldn’t. Luckily, at a 72 minute runtime, its over in a flash.

21) Princess - Anders Morgenthaler

This was a remarkable film. A strange mix of beautiful animation and shot on video live action footage, it tells the story of a priest that takes out his brutal revenge on the porn industry for corrupting his niece.

It is extremely violent, and shockingly beautiful. The script is tight, with the violence being offset by the priests obvious love of his sister and his niece. The villains are clearly defined, but it begs the question: Is revenge really worth it? Extremely well-made, moving, disturbing, and entertaining, this is one of the best films of the festival so far. Absolutely one of a kind.

22) Mainline - Mohsen Abdolvahab, Rakhshan Bani-Etemad

This small film from Iran tells the story of a drug-addicted girl, and the events that happen on the cross-country drive to a relative’s home. There is not much to it, just a druggie destroying her family in an attempt to get the next fix by any means. The plain script is buoyed by two wonderful performances by the lead characters.

I shows an interesting side of Iran that I have never seen before. It is somewhat comforting/depressing to see that Iranian youth are just as messed up as American youth. While watching it though, I couldn’t help thinking that if this movie was made in American, I wouldn’t have cared at all about it.

23) Cruel Winter Blues - Lee Jeong-beom

A Korean gangster film with a heart. Two gangsters are sent to a small town to exact revenge on a member of a rival family for killing one of their own. Unfortunately, he had killed the guy because that guy had mistakenly killed someone from his family. Still, honor runs deep and no one can seem to make up.

What elevates this film above others of the genre is that when the two gangsters arrive at the small town, the leader befriends an old woman who works at a restaurant. She happens to be the mother of the one they are trying to kill. Its a nice little twist, and the gangsters see themselves giving way to morality instead of honor. The climax wraps it all up nicely, and leaves you learning a lot about the mind of a gangster. A great addition to an overcrowded genre.

---

DAY 5

16) Salty Air - Alessandro Angelini

This small intimate film from Italy does everything right. The story involves a young man who works as a prison social worker. One day, he comes face to face with his estranged father, who is now an inmate. They haven’t seen each other in years, and there are a lot of old wounds that are opened up.There is also a sister in the picture, who wants nothing to do with the father. The majority of the film takes place between the two men, both of whom give great performances. There is some good tension between them, and some good character development along the way. This film is well made (especially for a first feature). It tells a small intimate story, without resorting too much to cliches. It is a good film that reaches for greatness, and almost makes it.

17) Rocket Science - Jeffrey Blitz

From the director of the documentary Spellbound comes this story of a high school student who joins the debate team in order to impress a girl. The twist is that the kid has a horrible stutter.

This film is hard not to like. It’s very charming. It has likeable characters, some truly funny moments, and an excellent rock and roll soundtrack. Also, it doesn’t use the obvious cheap trick at the end that other films would have. Still, the structure of the script is a little sloppy, and some of the characters are a bit over the top.

Those are small complaints. Although it is flawed, the film is entertaining. Jeffrey Blitz shows that he can successfully make the leap to narrative fiction, and I’m sure we’ll be seeing a lot more of him soon.

18) Diggers - Katherine Dieckmann

Written and performed by some of the same people in this years festival opener, The Ten, this film shows that they can make a good drama. Specifically Paul Rudd and Ken Marino. The both of them, including several other talented actors and actresses, make up a small town in the Hamptons that lives and dies by its clamming industry.

Unfortunately, things are not as easy as they used to be. A lot of the clamming water is now off limits due to a large clam company that has moved in. It is hard times for the characters, and their personal issues are also getting in the way. This is a nice little slice of life film that perfectly captures what things were like way back in the 1970s.

The performances were great, the script is solid, and Dieckmann manages to keep everything moving at the proper pace. This film is nothing new, but it is very well made. Recommended.

19) The Unseeable - Wisit Sasanatieng

God! This Thai horror film seemed to scare a lot of people in the theatre. I’m not sure why. It was the most completely predictable and laughable horror film I have seen in awhile. It takes the Japanese horror movie formula and holds on to it for dear life. People are always complaining about American remakes of Japanese horror films, and that is exactly what this felt like.

The story involves a young pregnant girl going to search for her missing husband in this strange plantation in the middle of the countryside. Of course, ghosts appear, and crazy things happen. The oldest trick in the book is used countless times: when in doubt, just make the soundtrack get louder and louder and then have something stupid happen.

Avoid at all costs. It’s strange to say that this film has absolutely nothing original about it, since it came from the director of Tears of the Black Tiger (a very original film). Worst film a the festival so far. The only thing worse than this movie was walking back to my brothers car at 1am only to find that I had gotten it towed. (Damn Philadelphia and your hard to read signs!)

---

DAY 4

11) I Don’t Want to Sleep Alone - Tsai Ming-Liang

Tsai Ming-Liang is not for everyone. This is the first film where I saw a bunch of legitimate walk-outs. This tells the story of a young man in Thailand who is beaten up, and then left on the side of the road. He is picked up and nursed back to health by another young man. During this time, he falls in love with a girl who takes care of her comatose brother.Nothing happens in this film, its like Wayward Cloud without the music and much less pornographic. The shots are long and lyrical. There is not much dialog, and the music is old vintage Thai, and only comes from radios and street performers. Its quite good, just not Liang’s best. Also, its just a bit tough for anyone who doesn’t know what they are getting into.

12) Life Support - Nelson George

If you want, you can turn on HBO On Demand and go watch this film right now. This tells the story of a Mother (Queen Latifah), who has HIV. She is heavily involved in an HIV awareness group, and has two daughters. She also has a mother who will never forgive her for the life of drugs her and her husband used to lead.

The story involves a friend of the teenage daughter who stops taking his HIV meds and then goes missing. Revolving around this are the usual domestic relationship stories that you can probably predict. The film is well-made, and the performances are great, especially Latifah. It does have the made for TV feel, but its positive outlook in the face of insurmountable odds will charm you. I’m sure you can tell exactly how this film will be, so if it interests you, then I recommend it.

13) Day Night Day Night - Julia Loktev

This surpasses After the Wedding as the best film at the fest up to this point. It tells the very small story of one suicide bomber, a young girl. She is sent to NJ, brought to a hotel under great secrecy, and then slowly gets prepared for the bombing. Three masked men are the leaders, and they usher her towards a solo run into the heart of NYC where she will ignite her backpack full of explosives.

During the film, we don’t learn much about why she is doing this, we just watch as the preparation happens and as she goes about the process with unwavering loyalty. It is tough to watch at times, because the direction and the lead performance are spot on. A lot of audience members were complaining that we never find out anything about her, but that is why I like this film. It doesn’t judge the characters, and lets us experience what type of mind set is needed in order to do something like that. Highly recommended.

14) Fay Grim - Hal Hartley

This was a surprisingly fun Hal Hartley film. Usually, his dialog sounds pretentious, and the weird style of his gives some people an awkward feeling. I still love his films, and this one, albeit light, was very accessible. It is a sort-of sequel to Henry Fool, but you don’t need to see that to appreciate it.

It turns out to be a spy-comedy, with secret agents from all over the world vying for the secret notebooks of Henry Fool’s confession that may or may not be a secret code containing all of the CIA’s secrets. Things get wacky very quickly, but the dialog and script a really solid and the whole thing manages to stay on its feet. Its a good Hartley film to see if you haven’t seen anything by him before.

15) Paprika - Satoshi Kon

I had high hopes for this one. Kon is my favorite anime director. His previous works were great (Perfect Blue, Millenium Actress, Tokyo Godfathers, Paranoia Agent), and the story of this new one seemed right up his alley.

A device called a DC Mini can allow a person access to someone else’s dreams. A few are stolen from a research facility, and someone is going around the characters dreams and implanting their own strange nightmare that causes them to go insane. The lead research scientist has an alter dream ego, Paprika, who she turns into when she enters someone’s dreams. It seems that Paprika is the only one that can save them.

Craziness happens as dreams start mixing with reality and vice-versa. The animation is spectacular, but the script is hard to get a hold of. I do recommend it though, but more as a visual feast than anything else.

---

DAY 3

6) Beauty in Trouble - Jan Hrebe

This Czeck film had a lot going for it. Good performances, confident direction, great cinematography, a nice script, etc. It is the story of a woman whose husband is a criminal. Eventually, she feels she has to take her two kids away and live with her mother. There, she and her children are harassed by a creepy, but oddly endearing step-father.Eventually, her husband is arrested and she meets up with a rich philanthropist who seems too good to be true. They develop a relationship, and he takes care of her and her family financially and emotionally. Eventually, the husband gets arrested and that throws a kink in her new found perfect life. All those things that it had going for it did not really help in the long run. The characters failed to develop and the script was marred by putting people in situations that were very easy to resolve. A well-made film, but it lacks substance.

7) The Guardian’s Son - Dimitris Koutsiabassako

My first greek film! (I think…) Unfortunately, it wasn’t that good. A young news reporter, doing a Candid Camera type show, looses his fathers gun. He tracks it down to the remote village his family came from. The titular son had taken it so he could blackmail the reporter to help save an abandoned house from destruction.

The good performances can’t help this film. The above premise seems a bit contrived, and the movie just gets more and more coincidental and eventually falls apart. I tried to like this film, but I just couldn’t.

8) 12:08 East of Bucharest - Corneliu Porumboiu

This lighthearted comedy from Romania tells the story of a small town, its local talk show, and the effort of this talk show o see if the town had any involvement in the 1989 revolution. The film slowly builds to the very funny live TV broadcast. The talk show host interviews two guests. An old man who saw the protests in the streets, and a drunk teacher who supposedly had a part in the revolution before the protests started.

Unfortunately, after the latter tells his story, the calls start coming in accusing him of lying. It’s funny stuff for a while, but nothing ultimately the film left me feeling a bit empty. No answers are ever given, which is fine by me, but the film feels more like should have been a short rather than a feature. Still, it is entertaining.

9) After the Wedding - Susanne Bier

The best film at the fest up to this point. This Danish drama was tells the story of a man who runs an orphanage in India. He has to go to Denmark to meet with a man who is willing to donate a large sum of money to the facility. After their brief meeting, he is invited to the wedding of the man’s daughter. There, he comes face to face with the man’s wife, who he had known years previously.

The direction is very understated. Susanne Bier keeps the film from falling into melodrama. The script has a few twists that are very believable and expressed in such a way that the characters stay more important than anything else that is going on. This movie goes in directions that lesser films would have shied away from, instead using the “drama” formula. This film is great work that I highly recommend.

10) Hula Girls - Lee Sang-il

This film is exactly the opposite of After the Wedding. This is the formulaic, albeit mildly entertaining story of a Hawaiian center opening up in a run-down mining town in Japan. The story revolves around the young girls of the town, who defy the older folk by learning to Hula Dance in an effort to make something of themselves besides miners or miner’s wives.

A crowd-pleaser, to be sure, but there was absolutely nothing different about this film, right down to the usual happy ending. The film festival was good enough to arrange a performance before the film by real hula girls. They were very good at their dancing, and they threw lei’s into the audience. I was lucky enough to snag one. That, at least, made the screening worth it. If you look real hard you can see me wearing it in this picture.

---

DAY 2

2) White Palms - Szabolcs Hajdu

This Hungarian film tells the story of a young boy growing up as a gymnastics student under a sadistic trainer, and what happens as the boy becomes an adult. I am starting to see a pattern in Hungarian cinema. Slow, contemplative shots, montages that develop out of nowhere, and an incredible attention to detail when it comes to natural sound.This film has all of that, and most of it is masterfully done. The transitions between scenes are done nicely, with one set of sound effects carrying over, and the transitions between the boy’s story and his later story as an adult are great. This includes one incredible sequence at the end of the film towards the climax.

Even though I enjoyed all of the above, I couldn’t get much else out of the film. The first section was excellent: when the gymnast child was being brutalized by his coach, and then sent home to parents that treated him like a performing monkey. After that, the film lacked any sort of character development. What was shown was shallow and predictable. If it wasn’t for the technical skill in some of the scenes, the rest of the film would have been missable. As it stands, this film is entertaining, well-made, but ultimately doesn’t leave you with anything to hold on to.

3) Invisible Waves - Pen-Ak Ratanaruang

Pen-Ak is back at the festival with his most leisurely movie to date. Not to say he was going easy on himself. This quiet study of a yakuza (Todonabu Asano, of course!), who is sent to Thailand to live after fulfilling a job, has a lot to give to the audience. The trouble is finding it.

Things get surreal on the man’s boat ride to Thailand, and things stay that way when he gets there. It’s very well made and you can really feel his disorientation as the language barrier and loneliness just keep working against him. Things get complicated when he may or may not be set up by his boss.

The film is slow, and there aren’t really any scenes that explode like in Pen Ak’s previous films. That is not a complaint. Just a fact. This is a good film that shows Pen Ak in a very mature light, and Asano in a great performance as usual. I’m still processing it.

4) Monkey Warfare - Reg Harkema

Two retired Canadian Revolutionaries, living a life outside the system, have their world turned upside-down by the introduction of a young hot-head pot dealer. This muted comedy is more drama then comedy, but it is funny. The couple makes money by collecting valuable junk and selling it online for cash. To the government, they don’t exist, and that is just they way the want it.

They have lived their revolutionary days, and are content to talk the talk but no longer walk the walk. The movie lets us make the judgement if this way of life is a good or bad one. The young girl, who they meet, has her own view of things, and speedily moves the film along to its conclusion.

Fast script, great 60s revolutionary music, good performances, and a fresh outlook on the world, this film is an exploratory look at a the highs and lows of a life we all should be living.

5) The Flying Scotsman - Douglas Mackinnon

How could you not like this film? The inspirational and true story of a Graeme Obree, the Scottish cyclist who came out of nowhere and broke several world records with a bike of his own design. Not only that, but he did it with the world cycling federation trying to get him banned, and while overcoming severe depression.

Good direction, a great performance by Johnny Lee Miller, and a solid script leave not much else to be desired. If you are in the mood for a feel-good film, you can’t really go wrong with this one.

Johnny Lee Miller was on hand for a Q+A. He was a quiet, but entertaining individual, who seemed to really respect the Obree family. They had worked closely on the film. Best question: “You look familiar… were you in any films that we might have seen?” His answer, was to basically go check IMDB. Excellent.

---

DAY 1

1) The Ten - David Wain

The opening night film this year was David Wain’s (The State, Wet Hot American Summer, Stella) new comedic take on the ten commandments. All the familiar cast members are back: Paul Rudd, Michael Ian Black, Ken Marino, etc. The structure of the film is 10 short stories all revolving around the said commandments. The jokes come a mile a minute, and all of them are strange and wonderful. This is a film I could watch again right now and find jokes that I missed. David Wain is a great director, and he directs with such a serious confidence, that the oddness of the situations becomes that much more hilarious. If you like the previous work of these guys, then this is a must see.

David Wain and Paul Rudd were there to do a Q+A. They were both entertaining, especially when David Wain was asked if he was inspired by The Decalogue. His response: “The Decalogue? You mean the Kieslowski series? Ten one hour episodes, each inspired by one of the ten commandments? No, never heard of it.” Best part of the screening was seeing David Wain and Paul Rudd in the bathroom.