Well gosh, it seems the coverage from that Chicago fest just never stops, and boy am I glad. We've been getting some wonderful reports coming in. And this last one from Capone is no exception. 15 films covered here, so put a thimble on your down arrow key and click click click away.
Hey, Harry. Capone here again with the conclusion of my Chicago Film Festival Report. This is definitely one of the best years of the last seven or so that I've been to this festival. God and Monsters, Happiness, and Pleasantville were my favorites of the more commercial releases. I also heard really great things about the new Holly Hunter-Danny Devito film, Living Out Loud, which also premiered here, but I couldn't make it. There were a couple years not that long ago that the Chicago Fest looked like it had lost its punch, but this year showed a true return to form. On with the second-half reviews:
God Said, "Ha!"
--Julia Sweeney's one-woman stage show brought to the big screen. It's a small film to say the least, but she is charming in a non-annoying way. The art of the monologue isn't in any way redefined by this film and the subject matter doesn't break any new ground, but it's still moving because Sweeney is such a sweetie. It's pretty much just a filmed stage performance. She's no Spalding Gray or John Leguizamo (I just saw Freak on HBO yesterday, and it rocked), but there is a charm and sincerity. Also, for all of you Tarantino completists (I know you're out there), QT does make a brief appearance after the credits; he's also the film's executive producer.
Foxy Brown
--A crappy, faded print, but the goddess currently known as Pam Grier spent about 10 minutes introducing this landmark blaxpoitation film. Man, did she look great. She discussed some of the political ramifications of the movie's release, in particular the way black female sexuality was portrayed after Foxy came out. It was a rare and unique experience. I think she just finished shooting Jane Campion's newest with Harvey Keitel and Kate Winslet; that should be cool.
Wind in the Willows
--Okay, technically, this doesn't belong in this round-up because it wasn't part of this festival, but I did see it as part of the Chicago International Children's Film Festival, which is running at the same time as the regular Film Fest. Director and star Terry Jones was there to answer questions afterwards. This is a landmark film because it reunites four of the living Monty Python cast (the exception being Terry Gilliam). It was a lot of fun and looked good considering how little money he had to spend; it was actually made and released in the UK about two years ago. Jones did not pull punches in the Q&A following about how upset he was that Paramount had really dropped the ball on a releasing this. I remember a year ago seeing an ad for it in a New York newspaper, but I've heard nothing about it since in this country. Disney owns the video rights; let's hope they promote the hell out of it. He also mentioned that the Python boys were planning a small concert tour (or maybe just one show) in 1999, which would be filmed for theatrical and/or video release.
The Hole
--From Taiwan, this film won the top prize at this year's festival. It was one of the more unique movie's I've seen all year if for no other reason than it marks the first time I've seen a film combine the theme's of a potentially population-threatening virus with fantasy musical sequences. It's jarring, but the total effect worked for me (and apparently the festival judges as well). The story focuses on a man who spies on his downstairs female neighbor through a hole in his floor. She's usually aware when he's watching, and the two form an odd relationship without any direct contact. The virus in question is spread by cockroaches and causes its victims to crawl around the floor like roaches and hide in dark places. The musical numbers are tossed in randomly and have nothing to do with the story, but they give you a break from the bleakness of the rest of the film. Not the best offering of the festival, however, especially when you consider that Gods and Monsters was also in competition.
Too Tired To Die
--Another weird one, but this one's weirdness isn't particularly thought-provoking. Mostly boring. A young, hip Japanese man living in New York keeps dreaming about Mira Sorvino chasing him. (Who among us hasn't?) But it turns out that Mira is Death (Jill Black?), so having her chase you would be a bad thing in this instance. When he finally meets her in the awake world, she informs him that he will die in 12 hours, but she wanted to give him advance notice to do fun stuff because she likes him. What will he do? Apparently some pretty boring stuff. He runs into Ben Gazzara and Jeffrey Wright, but their characters aren't very interesting. All in all, this movie made me too tired to care.
Happiness
--Director Todd Solondz was supposed to come to this, but didn't. Instead we got the film's star Lara Flynn Boyle. Oh, mama! She's as skinny as Calista, but she wears it better. I've seen this film discussed on this site before, but I will say that Lara told us "It's okay to laugh" and, man, did I laugh...most of the time. There are certain scenes, mostly involving the child molester (Dylan Baker), that made me so uncomfortable. And that was what set this one apart, the jarring effect that the story has. One minute you're laughing out of your mind; the next, you're cringing and looking away. Baker will never get nominated for this part, but it's the one of the best male performances I've seen all year.
Xiu Xiu: The Sent-Down Girl
--The directing debut by Joan Chen tells the story of a 15- or 16-year-old Chinese girl who is sent to a remote area in Tibet to learn horse training as part of China's Cultural Revolution. She is supposed to be sent for six months and ends up trapped there for more than two years due mostly to the unstable government. She lives in a tent with an older man, who has been rendered sexually harmless since he had his ween sliced off in a fight a few years earlier. He tries to protect her from a string of government men who visit her for sex and promise to get her the proper papers to return to her hometown in exchange. She ends up becoming a kind of free prostitute basically. This definitely wins the award for the most depressing film I've seen all year. Chen has a real eye though. Visually and emotionally, this one packs a major punch. The movie was shot illegally, without permits from the Chinese. Thus, this film can never be screened in China. The co-screenwriter was in attendance, and she told us that since the locations were so remote, no one even knew they were filming.
The Theory of Flight
--Felt like your basic sub-par, made-for-TV effort about a terminally ill, wheelchair-confined woman (Helena Bonham Carter) who is thrown into a situation with an unwilling careworker (Kenneth Brannagh). The story of how these two get put together is more complicated than it needs to be and their "adventures" are typical. The only interesting twist is that Carter's character is a virgin and she asks Brannagh to help her lose her virginity, not be having sex with her, but by finding somebody else to do it. There's also a ridiculous sub-plot about Brannagh building a plane from spare parts that was completely unnecessary and trite. It felt like nobody was trying very hard.
Waking Ned Devine
--Most of your probably already know the story of this one. I hope this one takes off the way The Full Monty did. It absolutely deserves to. Funny, charming, unsentimental, not a drop of sap to be found, and some wickedly morbid humor. About the population of a small Irish town that tries to deceive the national lottery board by lying about the identity of a lottery winner in the town. (The real winner dies upon realizing that he's won.) There's a funeral scene near the end that's one of the year's most hysterical moments. By the way, there's nothing funnier than a naked old man on a scooter. This one opens soon, so go see it.
Chances or Coincidences
--The latest from master French filmmaker Claude Lelouch. Some people find Lelouch too much of a drama queen, but I find a sophistication to his work that borders on regal. Once again, he casts his drop-dead-gorgeous wife in the lead role of a woman who suffers a great tragedy. The film tracks her process of dealing with it (or not dealing with it). Meanwhile, there's a seemingly unrelated second story of a man who teaches a class on "futurology," which I think is the study of predicting the future using logic (as opposed to using your psychic friends, I guess). The two stories finally come together in a fascinating way. The whole film may not work for some, but it did for me.
Aprile
--A few years ago, a really great Italian movie came out called Caro Diario, and critics hailed its writer/director as the Italian Woody Allen, which seemed true at the time. Aprile is his latest and unless you are well-versed in the intricacies of Italian politics (which I'm not), you probably won't even understand this film. There are some clever references to particular Hollywood big-budget movies from the mid-1990s, but this movie doesn't cut it. I laughed maybe three times; the whole experience was rather frustrating.
Left Luggage
--Marking the directing debut of actor Jeroen Krabbe (The Fugitive, Immortal Beloved, and most recently he played Drew Barrymore's father in Ever After for about five minutes). A Jewish Holocaust-themed film about a 1970's modern (hippie) Jewish college student who becomes a nanny for a Hasidic family in Antwerp. Isabella Rossellini and Krabbe play the parents of five children she takes care of. Maximilian Schell and Marianne Sagebrecht (who I believe was the German woman in Baghdad Cafe) play the young woman's parents. I could have done without the forced drama between the girl and her parents, who are both Holocaust survivors (and apparently modeled after Krabbe's own parents, or at least the mother was), but the relationship she forms with one of the children in particular is touching. But except for that, there's nothing new here.
In the Presence of a Clown
--To anyone who still follows Ingmar Bergman's career, you know that he hasn't just been sitting on his Swedish ass and doing nothing since 1984, when his last directed film was released. His typewriter has churned out several plays (many of which he directed in Sweden and at least one in New York) and screenplays, which were directed by the likes of Liv Ullman and Billie August. With Clown, however, he has returned to film directing (or more precisely TV directing using the digital beta video format). We see the return of many of Bergman's favorite recent "characters,", such as Bergman's mother played again by the always perfect Pernilla August; also Carl Akerblom returns, played again by Borji Ahlstedt, who has played this character (based on Bergman's uncle) in at least three other films. As you probably know, trying to describe a Bergman film is difficult; it just needs to be experienced. This was an utterly fulfilling experience-part faerie tale/part nightmare. I hope it gets a relatively wide release; the version we viewed was projected video, but it looked great.
Eternity and a Day
--The U.S. premiere of the Golden Palm winner at Cannes (by unanimous vote, which never happens). For anyone whose ever seen a film directed by Theo Angelopoulos, you know he's the king of the loooooong tracking shot. Not tracking shots like in Goodfellas or Boogie Nights; his camera moves slowly and gives you time to listen to the dialogue and take in the scenery, which is often more important than the dialogue. His last film, Ulysses' Gaze starred Harvey Keitel, but it took two or three years to open in this country. This one will definitely go down as one of the best I've seen all year. Wings of Desire's Bruno Ganz (Nicolas Cage was a pale imitation in City of Angels) stars as a dying Greek poet, who, on the eve of his death from an unnamed disease, meets a young immigrant boy from Albania. While attempting to take the boy back to Albania, Ganz has flashbacks to the happiest times in his life. In the flashbacks, everyone else is in period clothes, while Ganz maintains his modern dress and look. The effect is startling, and the entire film is a moving tribute to a life that the poet wonders, "Could I have lived it more fully?" His interaction with the boy brings out the best in him. I don't want to say too much more about this; I could never do it justice. If you are lucky enough to live in a city where this opens, go see it.
Central Station
--The closing night film of the festival was this inspirational offering. The way-past-middle-age Dora works at a Rio de Janeiro train station writing letters for illiterate customers. While doing this, she meets Josue is a 9-year-old boy whose lifelong goal is to meet his drunkard father. His mother is sending letters to his father through Dora. When she dies in a car accident, Dora takes Josue and takes a trip through Brazil's countryside with him to find his father. The film lays on the sentimentality pretty thick sometimes, but not often enough to ruin this otherwise wholly entertaining film. The young actor who plays Josue was apparently discovered by director Walter Salles shining shoes in Rio's airport and he flew into Chicago to take his bows after the film. This film most reminded me of The Bicycle Thief, with a bit of Sayles' Men With Guns (without the politics). The story is quite different, but the use of almost entirely non-actors and the way it examines the various pockets of Brazil's culture made it educational (I'm sure you're all excited about that) as well as engrossing.
Man, what a great selection at this year's festival. The number of contributors to your site about this festival and the fact that there were very few overlapping reviews among the three or four of us are testaments to the fact that the variety and quality of the films was top notch this year. I saw 31 films in 14 days. Damn my ass hurts, and I can't wait to do it again next year.
Signing off,
Capone
