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Before starting my reviews of this year's Philadelphia Film Festival crop, I would like to point your attention back to last Fall's New York Film Festival. More precisely to my review of Aleksandr Sokurov's The Sun. The film is playing in this year's Philly Fest also, so I wanted to begin with my review of that film.
With that said, we can now commence with the 2006 Philadelphia Film Festival. All films are listed in order, from my favourite to my least favourite (by the way, Sokurov's The Sun would top that list if it were added in here). Actually there were no "bad" films at this year's festival (at least none from the few I managed to screen - due to a prior commitment I was unable to make it to the first half of this year's festival) but - at the other end - I saw no great films either (with the possible exception of the aforemented Sokurov film). But enough of my ramblings...on with the show.
But first, in case you are interested... LAST YEAR'S FESTIVAL REPORT
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The Proposition
(John Hillcoat, Australia)
[78 out of 100]
Blood-soaked with the blatant audacity of an obvious disciple of Peckinpah, John Hillcoat weaves a more than symbolic tale of good versus evil. Lean and mean, The Proposition tells the 1880's set story of the Burns Gang, an amoral trio of Irish outlaw brothers hiding out in the wilds of the Australian Outback, and the British officer employed with the task of bringing these killers to justice.
Perhaps trying a bit too hard to be the revisionist western it so dearly desires to be, The Proposition showcases some grandiose - and sometimes completely over-the-top, but joyfully so - performances from Ray Winstone as the reluctant British officer trying to do good in an unwinnable situation, Danny Huston as the most blood-thirstiest - and rather Kurtzian - Burns brother, and bounty hunter John Hurt at his scene-chewing craziest. With obvious allusions to Conrad's Heart of Darkness and the films of Peckinpah and Leone, John Hillcoat manages a fun - if not frivolous (and sometimes seemingly unnecessary) - romp in the blood-drenched hands of thg revisionist western (not to mention the obvious but deliciously mordant finale). Nothing new here - although the score by Nick Cave (who also wrote the screenplay) is a refreshing sidestep - but the old is done well enough to matter.
* Opens May 5th 2006 in New York
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La Petite Jerusalem
(Karin Albou, France)
[71 out of 100]
Filmed with such a lyrical beauty, Karin Albou's film about the nearly emotionally unbearable religious convictions of a family of Parisian Jews, manages to break free of any pedestrian clothing it may be wearing, and exert itself with an almost-to-boiling-point sexual awakening of both character and its own philosophy.
The subterfugically arcane story of two sisters - one, married and frigid with the very fear of God, the other a student of philosophy who tries with a Kantian exuberance to sink down deep her desires for a taboo trist with a Muslim co-worker - La Petite Jérusalem winds its way through an otherwise predictability of intersections and outcomes (especially the film's inevitably choreographed finale) with the seeming eye of a mystic poet. Beautiful and melodic - even with its obvious faults - and strolling along with an almost Jacqotian pace, as well as being centerpieced with a pair of astonishing performances from Fanny Valette and Elsa Zylberstein, La Petite Jérusalem ends up probably seeming like a much better film than it deserves to be - but I suppose a back-handed compliment is better than none at all.
* Opened January 2006 in New York
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The King
(James Marsh, USA/UK)
[70 out of 100]
With the obvious allusions to Malick's Badlands, documentarian James Marsh makes his feature debut with this rather gothic tale of American fundamentalism and religious fervor gone way way awry.
The sensational Mexican actor, Gael Garcia Bernal, trumps even his performance in Y Tu Mama Tambien with this portrayal of Elvis (no, not that Elvis), a young man just discharged from the Navy, in search of the long lost father he has only heard about in stories. His genetic father, David Sandow, now a Jesus Freak Texas minister - played with the strength of conviction one would expect from the always enigmatic William Hurt - wants nothing to do with the young man and tosses him aside (even threatening him) without any forthought to what his almighty might think. Elvis - of whom you are never quite sure if his intentions are good or bad - follows this second abandonment by his father, by taking up with the good reverend's sixteen year old daughter (yes, his half sister), played with a naive charm and sexually disquisitive nature - not unlike Sissy Spacek's in the aforementioned Badlands - by Pell James, an actress on the very verge of breaking through with both this and the highly anticipated serial killer film from David Fincher, Zodiac, both being released in 2006.
A quiet, intense and brooding film, as one might suspect from the synopsis, The King is a veritable smorgasbord of unspoken familial angst; a quiet tale of loss and redemption. Indeed, there are many more quiet moments in this film than in a typical American film, giving it an almost European or Japanese feel, yet leaving it with a deeply rich American undercurrent of impending violence, and it is this quietness that allows the actors so much breathing room to work with, and it is this quietness that makes this film work on so many levels - even while it is failing on others. Filled to the very boiling point rim with frustration and a tormented questioning of spirituality and forgiveness, The King plays out as the most ambiguous of morality tales, and although the rather predictable forshadowing leaves no stone unturned, and it seems at times that Marsh doesn't go quite far enough (not near as far as Malick dared go back in 1973), the film does work, for the most part - or are we just fooled into believing so just as the Sandow's are fooled by the charm of young Elvis.
* Opens May 5th 2006 in New York
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Wordplay
(Patrick Creadon, USA)
[68 out of 100]
There is a certain subculture of humanity that everyday opens up The New York Times, tosses aside the vast majority of all the news that's fit to print (sometimes for later perusal, sometimes not) and zeroes in on that one magical page - the one with all those alluring black and white squares, all those tempting clues (and possibly frustrating clues as well, depending on how far along in the week it may be).
These crossword obsessives - of whom I proudly count myself one of - are the subject of the rather piquant Wordplay - doing for the National Crossword Championships what the even more engrossing Spellbound did for the National Spelling Bee a few year's back; and just like in Spellbound, you find yourself rooting for your favourite puzzler to win that climactic championship match.
Filled with a slew of celebrity crossword aficionados, such as President Bill Clinton, Documentarian Ken Burns, New York Yankee Mike Mussina, The Indigo Girls and Jon Stewart - proving once again with his sarcastic boasts of beating the NY Times crossword (he can do it with a sharpie, no wait...a glue stick even), that he is indeed the funniest person on Earth.
But it is more than just the celebrity endorsements, it is theose crossword obsessives all across the land - some able to do a puzzle in just over two minutes - that make this film as fun as it is. Characters all, we get to meet not just the men and women that create these puzzles, but the champions as well, from the annual nationals in Stamford Connecticut - and beyond all that we get to meet Will Shortz himself, NY Times Crossword Editor extraordinaire.
A look into both the history of the crossword puzzle and those multitudes of puzzlers that need their daily crossword fix in order to survive - a group of people I gladly call myself a member of.
* No US release date at press time
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Hard Candy
(David Slade, USA)
[57 out of 100]
Nearly capable but ultimately implausable and ridiculous to a... well, to a ridiculous degree, but still with a strangely joyful glee worthy of Russ Meyer and/or John Waters, which may or may not be some sort of hybrid of half compliment and half insult, which may also be exactly what this film is to our collective intellegence. Full of holes and unbelievable scenarios and photographed with the frenetic (read: annoying) energy one might expect from a filmmaker known mostly for his TV commercials and music videos, that ends up making the whole thing seem even more immature than it already seems from the beginning (although I must admit to having my hopes piqued by the very Hitchcockian opening credits - alas).
As I alluded to in my opening salvo, Hard Candy is a nearly capable film that goes way way way off course with each and every beat. You can see every supposed twist and turn coming a mile and a half away - even those that make no sense thematically. The figurative - and possibly literal - telling of Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf turned on its head, this nearly ridiculous film ends up going nowhere it needs to go - except for the possibly campish road it seems to be taking.
* April 14, 2006 US release date
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Douche Froides (Cold Showers)
(Antony Cordier, France)
[51 out of 100]
When a film treads familiar territory - which Doche Froides indeed does - there had better be a higher than average aesthetic to go along with its otherwise tired old story - in order for it not to be such a been-there-seen-that kind of experience. Well, I'll tell you what - Douche Froides does not have that higher than average aesthetic - which ultimately leaves the film a much flatter work than it very well should be.
Even with such a quiet and introspective demeanor, a few overtly stunning scenes (the initial sexual awakening between the three main characters, with its close-ups of writhing arms and legs - never quite sure of who is who - gives a strainingly odd erotic feel to the rest of the film) and a performance from Salomé Stévenin as the female third of the central Ménage ŕ Trois, that is equally subtly brilliant and passionately sublime, Douche Froides still merely plays at what it searches for - instead of actually finding it.
Ultimately, with a theme that has been done far superiorly (Y Tu Mama Tambien) and far inferiorly (Threesome and Three to Tango), this film lies somewhere in between - both almost succeeding and nearly failing.
* No US release date at press time
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7 Virgins
(Alberto Rodríguez, Spain)
[53 out of 100]
Reminiscent of early Pasolini or Antonioni - before their eventual spiritual awakenings - 7 Virgins plays out as if it had no knowledge whatsoever of filmmaking after 1963. Playful and Rocco & his Brothers-esque, Rodríguez's film, if not unexpected, is certainly nothing to sneeze at. Lyrical and nostalgic - even though a bit too so sometimes - 7 Virgins is best when it plays off the two friends and leaves all else by the wayside.
* No US release date at press time
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Sympathy for Lady Vengeance
(Chan-wook Park, S. Korea)
[54 out of 100]
Sympathy for Lady Vengeance - or just plain Lady Vengeance as it is being called in the US - is the final installment in Korean enfant terrible Park Chan-wook's vengeance trilogy. Although I am ignorant to the charms (or lack thereof) of the first film, Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance - due mainly to my never having seen the damn thing - last year's Oldboy was quite an amazing little film - at least on a visceral gut level if nowhere else.
Lady Vengeance is a much weaker film though, perhaps due to a female protagonist this time around - not to allude or make any assumptions to the female gender being the weaker sex, but instead the more intellectual one, the more spiritual one, and in turn the less action oriented one. Going along at a much slower pace than Oldboy and in doing so, with a much more methodical disposition - an attribute I usually take a liking to in my cinematic tastes - Park still manages to let too many opportunities slip through his fingers - which admittedly he also did to a lesser extent in Oldboy. Not just methodical but melodical as well, but unfortunately for us, hitting a sour melody nearly as often as hitting a resonant one. It is almost as if Park placed notes beside each other that simply did not belong next to each other. Fluid and sometimes beautiful notes, but placed so haphazardly as to never accomplish the feats he accomplished in Oldboy - which too had its flaws, but a steady streaming melody of revenge was not among them.
Strong at times, weak at others, Lady Vengeance never quite knows what it wants from us or what it wants to give to us - and in being so, can never manage to rise above the level of a sporadic pulchritude of Tarantino-esque worship.
* May 2006 US release date
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The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes
(The Brothers Quay, UK/Germany/France)
[55 out of 100]
If you are of my generation - born 1967 - or a little younger, then you may very well remember a man by the name of Bob Ross. He was a seventies-afro'ed landscape artist with his own show on PBS for years (I believe it still runs in rerun syndication) and even did a few Mtv promos before he died in 1995. He is famous for his kitschy painting style - "happy little trees" and "fluffy little clouds" - on his The Joy of Painting show. He was a gentle soul with a melodic soothing voice and it is this exact style of laid back melancholy in the latest film from the Brothers Quay - The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes - that reminds me of a lazy Saturday afternoon lying on my couch listening to the soft, soothing tranquility of Bob Ross's voice explaining just how to make that happy little cloud smile with sheer delight.
The Brothers Quay (Philadelphia natives now working in the UK), along with their stylistic mentor (and subject of many an homage) Jan Svankmajer and the wildman of Winnipeg, Guy Maddin, have a certain aesthetic in their respective (and communal) filmmaking styles that give way to an assuagement of mythical slumber. Nothing of any import may happen - and the rather unnecassary use of stop-motion animation (what the Quays are most known for in their short films) may seem to interrupt where not really needed - but their is still a half sun lit quiet beauty to it all.
* No US release date at press time
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