Well, here we go with a report from the CHICAGO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL... Luckily we have the Minority Reporter there... though... I'm sure... somewhere there, Capone is wandering about... Capone? You there? Well... onto Minority Reporter...
Hello Harry,
This is Minority Reporter from Chicago. I have contributed some reports on the Film Festivals in Chicago before to your site. This time, I decided to do a regular series of reports on the 30 odd movies I am gong to be watching at this year's festival. Hope you find them interesting to put them up on your site (and while I am at it, I have to say I am waiting for Pee Wee Herman to disappear!)
The movies I watch are an eclectic lot- I base my selections on newspaper reports/reviews, buzz from regular festival attendees, talking to ticket sellers and gut instinct. To give you an idea of what kind of movies I like, my top three movies for 1998 were Shakespeare in love, Pleasantville and Celebration. That is quite a range.
I started the Festival with An evening with Ray Harryhausen. He introduced a new print of "Jason and the Argonauts". Really Cool!! I will not review the movie, for it is too well known. It was a pleasure to watch it on big screen with a lot of hard-core fans.
Below are reviews of three movies which I saw over the weekend. The buzz for "American Movie" was the loudest. It should be released pretty soon.
The Personals (Zhengun Qishi -Taiwan) Grade: A
(Dir: Chen Kuo-fu)
Mandarin Chinese with English sub-titles
The Personals is told almost entirely in the form of dates, or meetings with people who responded to a personal advertisement put in the paper by Du, a young eye doctor. The 'dates' are interspersed with scenes of the girl traveling, lounging in her apartment and calling up an ex (with whom she is still in love with). As you expect in a movie about dates you meet through a newspaper ad, many of the people who turn up are oddball characters. And the movie is frequently hilarious. But, these laughs are well earned- the director never goes in for the cheap laughs. However, you slowly realize that the movie is about her and not about the dates, even though for the most part, she is just reacting to the other people around her. Rene Liu, the actress who portrays Du has a wonderful quality- she can convey a lot of her character by simple reactions. Even though you do not know much about her until quite late in the movie, you feel as if you can understand her. In some ways, she reminded me of Hope Davis, who pulled off a similar feat in the less successful, but lovely Next Stop Wonderland. The climactic scene where Ms. Liu reacts to a revelation is one of the supreme moments of acting I have ever seen. Yes, I cried! What adds to the movie is the luminous camera work. The film starts with an almost ethereal shot of the city with a lake in the foreground and a reflection of a full moon. Even though it is mostly shot indoors with a lot of close-ups, the camera seems to love every face it portrays so that many characters who barely get one scene manage to convey a sense of being fully fleshed-out character.
This movie is in the competitive section of the Film Festival. Hopefully, it will be picked up for distribution in the art film circuit.
American Movie (US) Rating : B +
(Dir: Chris Smith)
Everyone who is ever though of making an indie movie should rush to see this movie- a hysterically funny and touching look at a Midwestern film-maker who set out to make a horror flick. Mark Borchardt has a dream -to make a feature film. He has a script called Northwestern, but no money. He somehow convinced his thrifty Uncle Bill to loan him $3000 to make a 30 minute short called Coven, which he plans to sell on the internet and make enough money to pursue his dream. American Movie is the documenation of his efforts. Chris Smith and his small crew followed Mark Borchardt and his small crew while they attempted to film, edit and process Coven. Mark Borchardt is a highly interesting individual with a very Midwestern way of talking. He is hilariously profane and is never at a loss for words. His music director Mike Shank, is a compulsive gambler (his reasoning: you can sometimes win with gambling; with drugs and alcohol, you always lose; thus, it is better to gamble) and his producer Uncle Bill is an old man with one foot in his grave. Together, they form a very entertaining trio and you are with them all the way. There will be people who will complain that the movie is making fun of these characters- afterall, they sometimes come across as assholes. To this Mark (who was present for the Q & A afterwards) had one telling comment. " This is what happened- I am responsible for my actions. And I can laugh at myself and use this to improve myself". I did not find the movie to be exploitative. Rather, like an excellent documentarian, Chris Smith keeps a good distance between the camera and the subject keeping it neutral. The movie has been picked up for distribution by Sony Pictures Classics and will be released in November. The screening at the Chicago Film festival was its Midwestern premiere and there was a huge contingent from Milwaukee, where this documentary was filmed.
Minazuki (Japan) Rating : B-
Dir: Mochizuki Rokuro
Japanese with English subtitles
'Everyone was moon, I can't take it anymore, farewell'. That is the strange message Suwa, a middle aged man finds when he returns home after work. His wife has left him with this note and disappeared with 10 million yen. He does not know what to do and asks a friend for help. The friend introduces him to a prostitute and also gets him a new job. And so begins a tale of a man's redemption. It is strange, quixotic, obsessed with bodily functions and somehow quite compelling when it is not off-putting.
There is plenty of sex, quite integral to the story. And violence: more suggestive than actual, but still integral to the story. There are lots of stylistic flourishes and some of themes are borrowed from Takeshi Kitano (go see Fireworks, if you can), yet there is sufficient depth to the story to make it work. I had some problems with a secondary story-line and a surprise revelation at the end (it feels very arbitrary), but the main relationship between Suwa and the prostitute is handled very well. This movie was presented in the International Section and no US distributor has been found so far. look for it on the festival circuit.
Future movies I will be reviewing (and movies I am really looking forward to) include "Boys Don't cry", the movie Roger Ebert called one of the best of the year; "The Letter", a Cannes Jury Prize winner by legendary filmmaker Manoel de Oliveira; "Moloch", the controversial movie about one day in the life of Adolf Hitler and "East is East" starring the incomparable Indian actor Om Puri.
Minority Reporter signing off.
