LAST DAY: Day Eleven at the FFM: Monday, September 4, 2006

A short and a feature length film to finish off the festival for us.

Left. Alexandre O. Phillipe. USA. 10 mins. No words. Alexandre is a french Swiss, as is the director of the feature. As he put it, the subject matter is about the loss of a loved one – not a nice subject at 10 am, and was filmed in Last Chance, Colorado, using only the sounds of this seemingly abandoned town. Shot in HD and 35 min film, I happened to be looking back for a late-joiner to our viewing, and saw the projectionist switch the lens on the projector mid-screening – I had meant to ask the director if that was part of the program, but forgot after the feature presentation. Apparently it was, since he was watching from the rear of the theatre and didn’t react. As for the film...interesting use of visuals, music and ambient sound.

La Vraie Vie Est Ailleurs (Real Life is Elsewhere). Frédéric Choffat. Switzerland. 84 mins. French with English subtitles. A train movie. What happens when you meet a stranger or sit next to one on a train – what are the possibilities of these chance meetings? Three stories of three different people happening to meet someone during a train voyage from Geneva. A man is returning to Berlin to see his pregnant girlfriend who is giving birth in a day or so. A woman is planning to move to Naples, Italy after growing up in Switzerland. A scientific researcher is on the way to Marseilles to present her research at a conference, hoping to secure continued funding. Each meets, unbidden, a stranger, who gets under their respective skins, and ends up changing their lives. There’s an element of danger that left me very anxious, particularly with the two women and the risk they seem to put themselves in, with the men that intrude on their trips. But ulimately (as much as this isn’t much of a spoiler), nothing violent ever happens. Instead, all three are seen to reach a crisis point in their lives, and the meetings carry them onwards, like the trains they ride.

My personal faves were:

Best comedy: Somoan Wedding

Best gentle comedy/drama with weird cultural interplay: Kamone Shokudo (Seagull Diner)

Best love story: Maria am Callas (Maria to Callas)

Best drama: Qué tan Lejos (How Much Futher?)

Best short: Un Filo Intorno al Mondo (A Wire Around the World)

Best film about a musician: Camarón

Best Documentary: hard choice! Fuck!, Jump, and Everest ER were all so good…

So that’s it for the FFM this year. Have no fear, though, there’s the Festival de Nouveau Cinema and the Adventure Film Festival in October, the Image+Nation LGBT film festival in November, and FIFA, the Festival Internationale de Films sur Art, in March. These are ones we’re planning to attend, wallets willing!

Day Ten at the FFM: Saturday, September 3, 2006

Four feature films (and one short) today: I saw three, and Jonathan saw three, but we each saw one that the other didn't. Jonathan wrote the review for film number two, as guest reviewer.

Maria am Callas (Maria to Callas). Petra Katharina Wagner. Germany. 95 minutes. In German with English subtitles. The internet makes it easy to pretend what you’re not. But what if you share a similar pain of loss and you both love each other – does that make up for any initial deception? Jost is a successful, product designer, who travels the world. His wife dies, and he discovers that she had kept up an internet correspondence with a woman, Anni, pretending to have Jost’s career and life. Unable to break the news to Anni, he continues the charade, and eventually falls in love with her. Anni had talked about losing her son and husband in a car crash she herself was spared from, but the rest of her life isn’t all what she made it out to be. What the two woman shared was a love of Maria Callas’s singing. Jost stays at the “Ritz Palace”, far from the five star hotel Maria described, but a small B & B. Anni starts to fall in love with Jost, but can the eventual revelation of he being Maria ruin things? Great acting, lovely locales on the northern German coast, and strong writing. What I expected to be merely cute actually ended up being a lot better, and we both liked it a lot.

Jonathan saw a different film than I thought he was going to see: En Soap (A Soap). Pernille Fischer Christensen. Denmark-Sweden. 105 mins. In Danish with English subtitles. A soap opera with supercilious narration. Charlotte is successful with her beauty salon, but bored with her life with Kristian, so she leaves him, and moves to a new apartment, just above Veronica (Ulrick) and her (his) dog, Miss Daisy. Veronica, a (lousy) would-be dominatrix by night, spends most of her (his) day watching soaps. She (He) has applied with the medical authority for a sex change and awaits the coveted letter. Meanwhile, Charlotte saves Veronica’s life, after she (Veronica) tries to commit suicide (yet again) and takes care of Miss Daisy. But when a drunken Kristian returns and starts beating Charlotte, it is Veronica who saves Charlotte’s life. In the end, after toying with the idea of getting back with Kristian, Charlotte reveals her secret to Veronica (who received permission to go ahead with her sex change, from the authorities, but definitely not her (his) parents). The story ends with some nose rubbing between Charlotte, the genetic woman, and Veronica, the soon-to-be generic woman. So we’ve seen adultery, drunkenness, verbal abuse, physical abuse, transexualism, abandonment, lesbianism, and some horny nose rubbing not performed by Inuits. Does the whole thing work? I can only say, I don’t like soap operas.

Strength and Honour: Cycling Canada Coast to Coast. Zaack Robichaud. Canada. 82 mins. In English. Nine amateur cyclists attempt to ride the country coast to coast. Starting in Vancouver, and heading to New Brunswick over seven weeks, this rough-around-the-edges video follows the team as they struggle with an assortment of road rash, flat tires, sore bodies, and frayed nerves, also how they grow from being just a group of individuals into a tight group, united in their quest. What was staggering to me was how little any of them had really trained for something so monumental as cycling 6000 km in seven weeks! That’s 130 km a day, day in and day out, with just a couple rest days en-route! I’ve wanted to bike the trip since I was first crazy about cycling in my teens, and now I’ve seen people (well, some in the team) that were about my age. That’s if my knee is up to it.

Un Filo Intorno al Mondo (A Wire Around the World). Sophie Chiarello. Italian. 15 mins. In Italian with English subtitles. A farmer and his old father get a letter from the son, who’s in the army…saying that it’s winter on the front, and his shoes have holes in them. The farmer gets an idea how he’s going to get his wedding shoes (which were his dad’s, also) to the son. A great little comedic, Italian short.

Per Non Dimenticarti (Forget You Not). Mariantonia Avati. Italy. 94 mins. In Italian with English subtitles. Rome, 1947. Shortages of everything still persists, two years after the war, including men. But babies are still being born. Nina is admitted to the maternity ward due to some complications. She quickly makes friends with the women on the ward, who come from every class. There’s the working class gal who’s having her fifth, the rich American gal who pretends not to speak Italian yet after six years in the country, a sad young woman who keeps getting pregnant and having stillbirths, a woman who’s due to have a black baby, and so on. With so many back stories in a lively ward of Italian expectant mothers, there’s never a dull moment. And while Nina is comforting to those around her, will she be able to handle the problems she will face? I won’t spoil it, but this very nicely made, sad film was high on my list so far for a historical slice-of-life drama.

One feature film and one short left for tomorrow, the last day of the festival.

Day Nine at the FFM: Saturday, September 2, 2006

Two feature films today.

Red Whale & White Snake. Yoshiko Senbon. Japan. 102 mins. In Japanese with English subtitles. Sort of a Japanese Joy Luck Club…made by a 78 year old self-described “rookie” director who’s made television dramas since the early 1950’s. Since her retirement from TV in 1999, she became an independent filmmaker. Five generations of Japanese women happen to meet in an old house in Tateyama. The grandmother, slowly losing her memory, is being taken by her youngest granddaughter from Tokyo to live with her son and daughter-in-law. The detour takes her to her childhood home, where she struggles to remember a promise made to a military officer friend of hers during the war. The granddaughter, a university graduate with ambitions of being a music producer, has her own issues with a boyfriend. The current owner of the old house wants to rip it down, as it reminds her too much of her husband who left her. Her barely pubescent daughter also has memories of her dad. And then there’s the previous tenant, the stock in trade comic character, a middle-aged alcoholic who hustles vitamin and engery supplements at inflated prices, who's on the lam from her customers, and her husband. Everyone wants to remember their past and have someone remember us, and the only way we have to do so is to tell stories, as the director told us before the screening. In a quiet way, everyone’s story gets told, and every story has a positive outlook (more or less). We liked it a lot more than the previous film (Midnight Sun), simply because it didn’t try to force your sympathy under emotional torture. Although, there’s still the clichéd musical score announcing poignant moments that seems to inhabit most Japanese films, albeit in this case, it was acoustical guitar, not violins (or worse, synthesizer). Also, the story developed quickly enough (with five main characters) that the 102 minutes went by at a nice clip. Nice country scenery in the southern part of Japan.

Qué tan Lejos (How Much Further?). Tania Hermida. Ecuador. 92 mins. In Spanish with English subtitles. Ms. Hermida’s first feature length film is a quirky, comedic take on learning that what’s in front of you doesn’t always match up with what your expectations, whether it’s a country, a boyfriend, or one’s life. A gentle road movie about two twenty-something women searching for an Ecuador and a life that isn’t really there. Esperanza is a tourist from Barcelona looking for a postcard reality, and is confronted with in-your-face ripoff taxi drivers, national strikes, and generally, everything but what she expected. Tristeza is a cynical university student on a mission to prevent her supposed boyfriend from marrying a village girl in his hometown of Cuenca. But the trip from Quito to Cuenca turns out to have more than its share of diversions and characters, and both women start to see beyond their initial assumptions. Tristeza starts out being the cocky, snide local, laughing at all of Esperanza’s dumb tourist ideas and problems, but soon enough, her cynicism are exposed for what they truly are – insecurity about where her life is going, and who it is going to be with. Jesus ends up coming along for the ride, and helps out with some straight from the hip talk well – he’s bringing his grandmother’s ashes home to Cuenca. As the director said, the film is not your usual Latin-American film about drugs or social violence.

Day Eight at the FFM: Friday, September 1st

One short and two feature films tonight.

A Quiet Spot. Ashley Fairfield. Australia. 7 mins. A professional high diver contemplates an event that has led her to her chosen path (from the FFM program). The director has a background in stunt acting (he worked on Superman Returns, The Matrix Reloaded, The Quiet American, Scooby Doo, and Moulin Rouge). A little girl’s panic at the water when her grandfather faces a crisis fishing becomes her motivation to dive. Well executed.

Jump. Peter Riddihough. Canada. 52 mins. In English. Base jumpers…those crazy people who parachute from buildings, antennas, spans, and earth – not from an aircraft. Or so we think they’re crazy. This documentary focuses on three guys from the Toronto area, and why they base jump. Aside from the adrenaline rush that they seek, like so many others from other sports, adventures, or activities, what’s apparent is that these guys are not risk takers, in the sense of wildly doing things without a lot of planning, assessment, and strategies. They also aren’t afraid to scrub a planned jump if conditions aren’t safe (winds too high, or changeable in direction, obstacles making a safe landing difficult). Most of the jumps the director filmed were night jumps, or early morning, to avoid security, police, and just too many people. All of the jumps were in the Toronto city area from almost-finished apartment and office buildings…and with helmet-cams and cameras filming from the jump point, there are some breath-taking moments. My only parachute jump a plane at 3,500 feet was perhaps one of the scariest things I’ve ever done, and watching the jump from barely 400 feet made it feel like a walk in park, but then, I could imagine how it feels to the base jumpers. Not for the height or vertigo challenged.

Everest E.R. Sean & Brad McLain. Nepal/US co-production. 51 min. In English. Doctor Luanne Freer, an high altitude ER doctor from Montana, sets up a small ER clinic tent at the Mount Everest base camp, located at 17, 500 feet above sea level. It’s 14 hours hiking down to the next, lower altitude, better-equipped medical clinic, and her ER brings a new level of medical care for the climbers. She founded the clinic to treat the Sherpa porters free of charge, since they rarely have medical coverage for the injuries they sustain working for the climbing expeditions, which for a few short months a year, provide most of their yearly income. However, all the expeditions benefit from her care, and many fund her with donations and supplies. Brad, who was at the premiere tonight, said that they edited 38 hours of footage down to one hour, choosing from among seven possible stories the one about Dr. Freer caring for a climber who is close to death with HAPE (high altitude pulmonary edema. Beautiful Himalayan scenery and a good medical rescue story.

Day Seven at the FFM: Thursday, August 31st

My mother, Lily, turned 80 years old today. I hope I'm as healthy as her when I get to her age (hope springs eternal!).

Taiyo no Uta (Midnight Sun). Norihuro Koizumi. Japan. 119 minutes. In Japanese with English subtitles. Xeroderma pigmentosum is a real medical condition that forces the sufferer to avoid any sunlight, as it causes burns, hives, and is eventually fatal. The base cause is a defective ability to repair damaged DNA "broken" by UV exposure. Sixteen year-old Kaoru Amane lives after dark, singing and playing the guitar in the town plaza, watching some boys arrive for surfing each early morning, just before sunrise and her bedtime. She’s never gone to high school, and aside from her supportive, but overly protective parents, has one female friend. She decides to purse Koji, one of the surfer boys she's seen from her window. How can a boy who lives during the day (like, most, but not all of us) have a meaningful relationship with a girl who lives a vampire-like existence? Koji doesn't abandon Kaoru when he finds out about her illness, despite her wanting to hide away and never love anyone. Instead, he wants her to continue to pursue her dream of recording a CD of her songs and music. Will she have time before her body starts to fail? Well, we got suckered into a Japanese teen-age Love Story. Nicely done, but a tad too saccharine, even for the genre, and Japanese films of this type tend to be massively sentimental on a level that seems almost naïve to Western sensibilities. The explanation often given is it’s the flip side to the constant pressure to conform and be stoic. I’m not complaining – really. It’s just…well, the story is a bit too predictable – the only new angle is the sun sensitivity. The singer (who was 19 at the time of filming, playing a 16 yr old girl) did a workable attempt at acting. Kleenex sellers will make a killing at this one.

Day Six at the FFM: Wednesday, August 30th

Fuck. Steve Anderson. USA. 91 minutes. In English. A documentary of more than just the word Fuck, this film takes an American-centric historical look at the whole debate on obscenity in the U.S., particularly focusing on contemporary attacks on free speech on the radio, television, and in the movies. Anderson nicely juxtaposes the two camps fighting the war of words. On the pro-free speech side, anti-censorship side, there’s noted news broadcasters, comedians, writers/producers to popular musicians. On the pro-censorship side, there's conservative politicians, tv/radio talk show hosts, self-proclaimed defenders of “decency” and civilization, including the religious right, parents and “morality” focused lobbying groups. There’s also the requisite mini-bio on Lenny Bruce, since his trials and tribulations were central to the obscenity/free speech arguments in the U.S.). Make no mistake, this documentary is squarely in the pro-free speech camp, but tries to be light-hearted and comical about it. The censorship advocates are allowed full license to place both feet as far as possible in their mouths. I was expecting just a treatise on the word “Fuck”, but the film goes a lot further. Although, fuck is used at least 682 times, if I remember the statistic at the end. Fucking-fantabulous!

Day Five at the FFM: Tuesday, August 29th

One full length film tonight (Tuesday).

The OH in Ohio. Billy Kent. USA. 88 minutes. In English. As Nathan Lee in the New York Times said, “…(this film) is the rare American sex comedy that doesn’t involve teenagers making love to pastry…” This indie film is about one woman’s quest for the only thing missing in her life..an orgasm. Parkey Posey is Priscilla Chase, a Cleveland business woman with a biology high school teacher husband Jack, whom she loves, but doesn’t come with. Jack can’t bear the fact that he can’t satisfy his wife, and the marriage falls apart. He’s off on an affair with a student of his, and Priscilla’s hell bent to find out how to come. Great lines, and Heather Graham as the vibrator store clerk (uncredited) is hilarious. A cameo by Liza Minelli doing a Shirley MacLaine-ish new age masturbation expert was perfect sardonic casting. And Danny Devito, as the Wayne the Pool Guy, brings everything to a satisfactory climax. You can groan now. We both laughed a lot.