Here's a great report from Albert Acisuan on how things have been going at the Chicago International Film Festival... Let's get right to it....
Albert Acisuan here with the first part of what will probably be a two or three-part report from the Chicago Film Festival.
Thursday and Friday fate conspired against me, but Saturday I was rarin' to go. So, I got $100 in my wallet, took the train downtown, and promptly got lost. I don't pride myself on my navigational skills, especially in a place I've seldom been, like the area around the 600 N. Michigan Cineplex Odeon.
Now, I love downtown Chicago - the wonderful landscaping and sidewalk design coupled with the beautiful highrises, so I don't mind getting lost in it all that much. In fact, I heartily recommend a walk down Michigan Avenue to anyone who has some free time. But there were films to be seen! Fortunately, just as I was feeling pressed for time, I happened upon the Viacom Store and picked up my pass.
From there, I got back to the station and went up to the Music Box - made it about 20 minutes early for my first festival screening.
THE INTERVIEW
The Plot: Police grab a guy in the early morning hours, interrogate him, and wind up with more than they bargained for.
The opening worried me. The volume was up way too high and the film was amateurishly stylish - misplaced slow motion sequences abounded. It was fairly slow-moving at the outset too, but it was obviously director Craig Monahan's intention that it be that way.
Performances were rather flat all around; Hugo Weaving (the interrogatee) was the only actor who showed any real emotion, and he tended to over-emote at times.
The slowness, though, serves to evoke the real feel of police interrogations, and, although I've never been to one myself, Monahan's version is the most believable I've seen.
David Hirschfelder's score got to me. It was really not much more than a short piano melody, repeated over and over in the few scenes that had musical accompaniment, but it was a beautiful melody, and it contributed greatly to the atmosphere of the film.
The ending was wonderful. Monahan got his style together, and the camerawork and slow-motion began to contribute to the film instead of detracting. There are three wonderful twists, any one of which could have stood alone.
So, after the film was over, I had an hour to get downtown to the next screening I wanted to see at the Cineplex. I got there right on the nose.
Then I had to stand in line for 15 minutes to get a ticket.
Well, I suppose the director/writer/star had come out and talked before the film, so I got in just as they were showing the fest trailer. I found my seat fast, although I had to sit closer to the screen than I liked, and the film began.
THE 92 MINUTES OF MR. BAUM
The Plot: A man comes in to hear the results of a routine physical, and he is told that he has between 90 and 92 minutes to live.
First of all - why was the film only 80 minutes? Why not shoot and edit it in "real time?"
Anyway, the film was darkly comic at times, wonderfully poignant at others. The fantasies Baum constructs of what will happen after his death are alternately sad, moving, and hilariously funny.
This is one of those films where the advertising will give away the premise. Rather than just taking it, though, director/writer/star Assi Dayan uses it to fashion a superb opening in which the audience knows what is going on but Baum doesn't.
Finally, Dayan manages to create real sympathy for Baum. He's slime, that's obvious; but I felt genuinely sorry for him. And when the appointed time came, I felt a lump in my throat, and I prayed that the doctor would turn out to be wrong and Baum would be fine. That's the real beauty of this film.
It's a well-made film overall, and it does a great job of portraying the difference between what we plan and what happens. It's not extreme; it won't have you sobbing into your pillow that night or laughing uproariously; but there are some chuckles, and I know you'll leave with tears in your eyes.
Dayan also emerged for some Q&A after the film; the two moments that stuck in my mind were his lamenting that his other films would probably never be screened in the U.S., only to be informed by an audience member that they already had; and his explanation of why he stars in his movies ("I'm not a good actor, I'm a cheap director.")
After Mr. Baum, I went back home for dinner, then I hopped in the car for the Music Box with my sister, only to find that Unlucky Monkey was sold out. I thought about sticking around for the Mondo Bizarro shorts, but I wound up going back home and to bed.
Sunday, I got up, had breakfast, and went down to the Cineplex for the second showing of Unlucky Monkey. My sister was off at church, good Christian that she is, so she didn't join me. There were starting to be some actual crowds down there, but I was a good 45 minutes early (taking no chances this time) so most of the people there were getting their tickets for other screenings. Since there was no one else there yet, I went over to the Viacom store and browsed for 20 minutes, then went back and took my seat.
UNLUCKY MONKEY
The Plot: A would-be bank robber and three yakuza members accidentally kill people and have otherwise terrible luck.
The festival description made this sound like light, silly comedy. It's not; while it's funny in many places, it's very heavy-handed. A lot of psychological drama is there, especially in the plight of Yamasaki (Shinichi Tsutsumi) whose guilt drives him crazy. A great idea if Tsutsumi could have shown us a realistic performance, but he didn't pull it off.
Another big flaw was the film's tendency to jump between unrelated plotlines. I didn't have time to connect with sny characters - I was busy enough trying to keep track of them all. By the ending, the film dissolved into incoherence.
This is not to say that there was nothing good about Unlucky Monkey. In this case, it was the opening, which I really enjoyed. Before the film dissolved into subplots and bad actors screaming a lot, it was wonderfully offbeat. The jazzy soundtrack and cheap, Power-Rangers-like camerawork were hilarious in themselves and worked wonderfully. Yamasaki's initial flight and some of the things he does to avoid the police were also great. If the entire film could have been like that, it would have been fantastic.
After Monkey, it was back home for dinner and down to the Music Box for Brave New Shorts, the program of experimental shorts. (If for no other reason, shorts are great because you can see a whole bunch in rapid succession.) Of course, my sister decided that she wanted to come along, so I wound up waiting 10 minutes for her and as a result I was only 15 minutes or so early. I got worried there for a minute because the program was in Music Box screen 2, a tiny theater that sells out fast, but we did manage to get in.
BRAVE NEW SHORTS
An Open Movie to Film Audiences
Really trippy. A guy expounds his worldview to discordant images and music. There were some laughs, but it didn't strike me as very good.
Relative Strangers
This had some fascinating camera tricks, but the story was pretty predictable. I was surprised by its similarity to "An Open Movie," but that might have been just because they both used long voiceover monologues.
Boxed
This film was made using stick puppets. Now, normally, you would expect to eventually become so absorbed in the film that you forgot that the characters were puppets, but "Boxed" intentionally reminds you of that. The sticks are highly visible (sometimes you can even see the hands manipulating them in the background) and several times the characters do things only puppets could do.
Grace Eternal
Presents a new wrinkle in technology and automation, one I had never really thought about. It's beautiful, touching, frightening - everything a good ghost story should be.
24 Girls
What can I say? I was in awe. Although I don't usually like wild montages, these really worked. The soundtrack did a lot too, and the auditions by young girls - clearly unscripted and unrehearsed, and far better for it.
The Rocking Horse Winner
This is a very interesting look at childhood. What would happen if we treated kids like adults - and what if they acted like adults? It sort of dragged, though.
Rubber Gloves
Really funny, although the screen images added nothing. They were just _there._ It would have been just as good audio only.
So then, Monday, after a day of school with absolutely no homework done, I dropped by the Music Box and got two tickets for "Welcome Back, Mr. McDonald." Strangely enough, my sister decided to hang on to hers instead of letting me have it, and of course she left it behind when we went to see the film. I got in line while she went home, and fortunately she got back just as they started to let us in.
The movie was preceded by a 7 minute short, "Phil Touches Flo." It's a generally cornball piece, funny albeit with a predictable style. It got the audience laughing, though, and did a good job of setting the mood.
WELCOME BACK, MR. McDONALD
YES!! This is what comedies should be. Not only did I laugh harder than I can remember laughing in my life, I came out feeling like I had learned something.
You have to see this film, Harry, and so does anyone else who has ever complained about the studio line destroying a film. It's a film for all the writers, actors and directors who have a vision but aren't allowed to realize it, and all of us filmgoers who aren't allowed to see it. For 103 glorious minutes, we can forget our anger and revel in the sheer hilarity of a production gone horribly wrong in the hands of an overbearing studio and capricious actors.
Not even in the second half - where most screwball comedies die - does this one drop off. Yes, emotional speeches are made, and yes, we move to a happy ending, but even then it never loses its ridiculous character. Some of the funniest moments come in the director's desperate attempts to return even a tiny bit of the original vision to the mutilated script. And the longest, most emotional, and most moving speeches come from the studio men explaining why the script could not possibly have remained as it was.
How can I say this? See it. Do whatever is neccesary - fly out to a film fest in another city if you have to. Though I hope with all my heart that it's much, much easier. I will be horrified if this doesn't get picked up for distribution. It's a guaranteed hit here in America, especially with its hundreds of Western cultural references. Besides, I want to see it again. Many, many times. I just hope the rest of the festival won't seem worse by comparison.
