Father Geek reporting with 4 reviews from The Seattle International Film Festival. I've yet to see any of these four soooo I'll just turn you over to the man who has, Harold Hellman...
Harold Hellman here, with SIFF coverage of day 14 and day 15.
Oh, and a word in advance: I'll be sending in today or tomorrow my review of Takashi Miike's "The Happiness of the Katakuris," which I saw yesterday, but if you have any opportunity at all to check it out, you shouldn't waste a single second. Utterly amazing; it'd be a mind-blowing addition, for example, to the next Butt-Numb-A-Thon. Trust me.
WAR LIVE - written by Nikola Pejakovic; directed by Darko Bajic
Haphazardly plotted and occasionally amateurish in its presentation, "War Live" is nonetheless fascinating for its perspective, and its insights into humanity from a very different point of view. It's not particularly challenging as a piece of cinema, but it does make you think about how the same events can be perceived by different people and different cultures.
The setting is Belgrade, on the eve of NATO's bombing campaign to force a Serbian withdrawal from Kosovo. Sergej is a film producer overseeing the shooting of a typically frothy romantic drama, juggling the demands of creditors, financiers, and his director and cast, not to mention coping with the frequent visits of a propaganda supervisor whose job is to ensure that the project is artistically -- i.e., politically -- correct. But when the bombs begin to fall, Sergej is forced to shift gears: The current production is halted, and a new film, designed to take advantage of the raging conflict, is conceived to replace it. To placate the authorities, a vague anti-American veneer is invented, which includes putting their American moneyman -- a tampon executive, of all things -- in the cast. Otherwise, though, their film is basically a lark, pretending that the Serbs aren't getting their asses handed to them and blithely forecasting an American defeat. Real life begins to intrude on this idyllic fantasy, of course, setting the stage for a very dramatic final half-hour.
The most fascinating aspect of the movie is the casual nationalism of the characters. Everybody curses the NATO bombers crossing their skies, tells lies about their history and situation to make one another feel better, and complains bitterly that nobody outside Serbia is aware of the tragedy that their lives have become. The point of view isn't that simple, though; one member of the film crew is called by the military and dispatched to Kosovo, a development thick with unspoken meaning, and any time anyone seems to be close to discussing the reasons for the bombing, the conversation drifts in other directions rather than attract the attention of state security. And all the Serbian flag-waving seems habitual more than heartfelt, more obligatory than honest; even the political agent recognizes the glibly patriotic film as the deceptive fluff that it is.
The film's presentation, however, is fairly rudimentary, despite the complex philosophical underpinnings. The performances are fine, but the actor playing the American is obviously inexperienced (which of course wouldn't matter for the movie's original non-English-speaking audience). Some of the humor is predictable and obvious, such as the discussion of whether the director minds that the lead actress will be doing love scenes with the American, or the fact that the sound man is hard of hearing. And while some of the scenes are powerfully dramatic (e.g., trying to convince the American to burn the stars and stripes for one shot), others, in particular the very end, fall flat.
This isn't the kind of movie you see every day, though, and that alone makes it an interesting experience. Until the last few scenes, the movie is pretty funny, like the absurdism of "M*A*S*H" mixed with the setting of "Living in Oblivion." And regardless of your politics, it's fascinating to see how the average Serb in the street, as a somewhat willing participant in the government's manipulation of fact, reacted to the NATO campaign. "War Live" isn't as well-constructed or powerful -- or, it should be said, as carefully objective -- as the recent Oscar-winning war satire "No Man's Land," but it's still an interesting look at something we hardly ever get to see. ---
GIGANTIC: A TALE OF TWO JOHNS - documentary, directed by A.J. Schnack
"Gigantic: A Tale of Two Johns" has pretty much everything you could ask for in a rock-n-roll documentary. Recounting the history of indie-rock pioneers They Might Be Giants, the film features lots of concert footage, talking-heads interviews with a variety of interesting people, rare archival video, some fun stylistic flourishes, and more.
Actually, I should amend that: The one thing missing from "Gigantic" is any hint of strife or scandal. This is a worship piece, an unabashedly reverential paean to the duo and their work, and strives to convince the viewer that the heartfelt devotion of legions of hardcore fans is more than deserved. If you like rock documentaries in the "Behind the Music" vein, with squabbling and drug abuse, you won't find anything like that here. Whether this is because the subject has been sanitized, or, as is more likely, this type of conflict simply never arose for the pair, is impossible to determine from the film.
What this documentary is, though, is hugely entertaining and very, very funny. They Might Be Giants is, of course, an extremely esoteric act, having decided at the outset not to write love songs, which, as one band member describes, immediately eliminated ninety-nine percent of typical pop-tune subjects. Instead, TMBG's songs are about Dutch painters, physics, U.S. presidents, and all sorts of other topics, all set to infectiously peppy beats. "Gigantic" examines the oddball nature of the duo, and moreover takes a design cue from them, using all sorts of quirky devices to capture their unique energy. For example, one talking head, counterculture musician Syd Straw, is shown aggressively (and hilariously) quizzing the filmmakers about what kind of documentary this is going to be and what kind of comments they want from her, footage that would have been excised in a more conventional film. The lead-in to discussion of TMBG's James K. Polk material is presented as a note-perfect parody of a Ken Burns historical documentary, and there's even a brief animated sequence that uses underground comic character Drinky Crow to introduce another segment.
Director A.J. Schnack knows that TMBG is about more than silliness and games, though; some of their lyrics are quite dark indeed, and achieve their subversive effect by being set against relentlessly upbeat music. To explore this in the film, several celebrity guests have been recruited to do dramatic readings of TMBG lyrics, a device that seems bizarrely precious but that, as interpreted by Janeane Garofalo, Michael McKean, Andy Richter, etc., works remarkably well. The comments from interviewees as diverse as rock journalist Michael Azzerad, television host Joe Franklin, and lovably sardonic writer Sarah Vowell are perceptive and insightful, and the editing and pacing is quick and sharp.
If you're a hardcore TMBG junkie, you probably already know a lot of what the movie talks about (e.g., you're aware they did the theme to Jon Stewart's "Daily Show"), but it's still fun to see the two Johns of the title, TMBG founders John Linnell and John Flansburgh, reflecting on their work and history. And if you're a novice, or have only a passing familiarity with the group (the only Giants song you know is the chorus to "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)," for example), this is a pretty good introduction. "Gigantic" is fun, smart, and packed with detail, and is a worthy treatment of its subject.
LAST KISS - written and directed by Gabriele Muccino
"Last Kiss" is a fun and briskly paced look at the romantic trials of two generations of an Italian family and their friends. Even if it isn't especially deep, and if it overstays its welcome by five or ten minutes, these flaws can be forgiven, as it gives us recognizable characters struggling with emotional dilemmas we can identify with, and it does so with wit and style.
The film is very Italian, which is to say the characters are governed by their passions, and all have their emotional dials set to eleven. The film's thesis seems to be that we're all wired for unhappiness, and that no matter what our situations, we wonder if maybe there isn't a better alternative available elsewhere. These characters chafe and complain about their lives, and constantly look over the fence at the other guy's grass; and even when they know, during the brief moments they actually stop to think, that they're probably making a mistake, they're apparently powerless to stop themselves.
The story in brief: Carlo (Stefano Accorsi) seems to have it made, with a good job, beautiful girlfriend Giulia (Giovanna Mezzogiorno, giving the film's best performance), and a baby on the way. But Giulia is starting to talk about marriage and buying a house, major life-changing decisions he worries he's not ready for yet. His friend Adriano (Giorgio Pasotti) is a few months ahead of him and sets a bad example, constantly fighting with his wife (Sabrina Impacciatore) and threatening to break up; meanwhile Paolo (Claudia Santamaria), who *has* broken up with his girlfriend (Regina Orioli), wants nothing more than to be back with her. And further meanwhile, Giulia's parents are apparently stuck in a loveless marriage, with her mother (Stefania Sandrelli) just trying to get up the courage to walk out.
All of this is generally pretty funny, as much for the characters' inability to avoid argument and conflict as anything else. Some of the melodramatic gestures do get a little tiring, it's true; when the mother angrily interrupts her psychologist husband while he has an appointment with a patient, you roll your eyes at her immaturity and selfishness. And when Carlo starts to flirt with a much younger woman (Martina Stella) he meets at a wedding, concealing the dalliance from his girlfriend, you just want to reach up and slap some sense into him. Is Prozac not available in Italy?
The movie also spins its wheels dramatically in the last third, going over established territory without adding anything really new to it, and the humor and pace flags quite a bit. Still, the point of view is consistent, if bittersweet and cynical; notice the wicked twist in the closing minute that undermines the superficially happy ending. The performers are all attractive, the interplay is mostly funny, and the cinematography is polished and assured (the highly mobile camera often brings P.T. Anderson's "Magnolia" to mind). "Last Kiss" may not be a great movie, but it's fun, and it has interesting things to say about the human condition.
AGITATOR - written by Yasunori Takechi; directed by Takashi Miike
Maybe I've seen too many yakuza movies recently, but "Agitator" didn't really do that much for me. It's not that there's nothing going on, and it's certainly stylish, but I still found myself checking my watch more than once.
Don't get me wrong; I'm not saying it's a bad movie. Director Takashi Miike is apparently incapable of putting an uninteresting shot onscreen; his camera is always in exactly the right place, and several of the film's images are instantly iconic (e.g., the spreading of out-of-focus red over an assassin's face as blood runs down a window in the foreground, or two men sitting side-by-side in a spa, their backs elaborately tattooed). And the film has interesting things to say about the generation gap in Japan's criminal underworld, as the younger men look for any excuse to raise senseless hell while their elder superiors engage in solemn diplomatic ceremonies and sit quietly at home carving model ships.
But this is the hyperstylized world of the yakuza film, as seen in the work of Beat Takeshi and others. It's a world where stoic men silently regard one another and carefully appraise their options before exploding into brief but brutal orgies of violence and anger. The labyrinthine plot of "Agitator," concerning high-level manipulations of loyalty and ambition by duplicitous leaders and the young soldiers who discover the scheme and start throwing monkey wrenches into it, demands a lot of attention from the viewer, work that eventually becomes tiring. And when the movie seems just about ready to wrap itself up with an atypical but satisfyingly ambiguous climax, having clearly made its points, it suddenly spins off into a whole new sequence -- and laboriously makes all of the same points over again from a different angle.
The festival presenter introduced this as Takashi's "Godfather," and it's easy to see the comparison. There's an important difference, though; while "The Godfather" came out of nowhere to reinvent and reinvigorate a previously lowbrow and moribund genre, the yakuza film has been explored and developed fairly extensively in recent years. "Agitator" does distill many of its predecessors' themes and ideas into a solid package, and is a superior yakuza film, but it isn't such a leap over its forebears as to merit such a lofty label.
But the impossibly prolific Takashi (38 movies in eight years) is quickly turning into a must-see director, and "Agitator" is a worthy addition to his filmography. He has a tremendous eye for behavior, and for sketching characters quickly with the simplest of strokes. See, for example, how one man expresses frustration by whacking golf balls on an office putting strip, or how another man has plucked small bald spots on the sides of his head out of anxiety. And Takashi's taste for offbeat and disturbing violence remains intact; the unexpectedly vile application of a karaoke microphone, for example, made me squirm in my seat.
"Agitator" sees Takashi working in a very different vein from the chilling perversity of "Audition" or the candy-colored insanity of "Happiness of the Katakuris" (which I'll get to shortly). It's brooding, deliberate, and totally assured, and if I hadn't seen this style so much so recently, I probably would have liked it more than I did.
Harold Hellman
