Screenings, 01-17-08
In Bruges (dir. Martin McDonagh)
Headline: Two hit men hide out in Belgium; bond
Indie Type: "Criminals Are People Too," plus local color.
Soundtrack: Mournful orchestral music from Carter Burwell, plus indie-rock interludes courtesy of The Walkmen and Regina Spektor.
Report: After botching a job in London, mob enforcer Colin Farrell is ordered to lay low in the historic Belgian city of Bruges with his mentor, Brendan Gleeson. There they sightsee, talk about religion, interact with a dwarf and a drug dealer from a nearby movie shoot, and wait for the plot twist. It comes after an hour of screen time, courtesy of Ralph Fiennes (whom it's always a pleasure to see). In Bruges is a comedy with a heavy heart, and frankly, I didn't really go for the jokes or the emotional pull. I laughed a couple of times–probably loudest when Fiennes gets annoyed at his wife and hisses, "You're an inanimate fucking object!"–and I was never bored by Farrell and Gleeson's existential chatter, or the pretty scenery. But the filmmaking, while confident, is basically unexceptional, and the premise feels about eight years out of date. I would've liked to see less of people talking like colorful movie characters and more human touches, like when Farrell pauses to take out his contacts before going to bed. Everything else seemed clever-for-clever's-sake, right down to an ending that asks us to ponder purgatory, at least from a filmgoer's point-of-view. (Important note: Judging by the early review floating in from my colleagues, I seem to be in the minority here. Shades of Juno.)
Grade: C
Timecrimes (dir. Nacho Vigalando)
Headline: Ordinary Spanish schlub travels 90 minutes backwards in time; deals with consequences
Indie Type: Sci-fi mindfuck, with a healthy dollop of "Oh, the irony."
Soundtrack: Tense, post-Herrmann orchestral drone, and occasional Morricone twang.
Report: Time-travel movies are often predictable in their unpredictability. (For example, if the bad guy's wearing a mask, chances are…well, I'd better not spoil it, just in case you can't figure it out for yourself.) Yet even though it's not too hard to stay a step or two ahead of Nacho Vigalando's Timecrimes, it's still a nifty little genre piece, examining what happens when an ordinary middle-aged guy gets chased by a masked villain into the lair of a man who offers to hide him in his time machine, which then–whoops!–activates, sending our hero back into the very recent past. A few good twists follow–some of which are not-so-predictable–and while the film as a whole could be a little funnier and/or scarier, it really couldn't be much zippier. It's certainly a lot of fun to watch. Bonus points for the ending, and a final line which suggests the crushing weight of foreknowledge.
Grade: B+
Be Like Others (dir. Tanaz Eshaghian)
Headline: Homosexuality illegal in Iran; sex-changes encouraged
Indie Type: Social study doc
Soundtrack: Tinkling piano and doleful strings…although the screener I saw lacked the final sound mix, so that may not be what goes into theaters.
Report: Documentaries that deal with transgender issues typically raise all kinds of questions about the nature of human sexual attraction–whether it's physical or personal, for example–and this film about a recent wave of sex-change operations in Iran is no exception. The official Iranian government policy on homosexuality is that it's part of human nature yet against the will of Allah, and therefore should be treated medically if possible. Homosexuals are encouraged to see psychiatrists, who will officially confirm their sexual preference, and then provide them with a permit to wear the clothing of the opposite sex while they prepare for their operation. The process usually solves nothing, because these aren't men and women who necessarily wanted to change their sex, and neither they nor their pre-op boyfriends and girlfriends get a lot of pleasure out of the new arrangement. Tanaz Eshaghian's brief-but-thorough film captures the ambivalence of the patients' families and the well-meaning arrogance of their doctors, but its real coup is in catching up with a few of its subjects one year later. One is building up a dowry so that she can marry a decidedly skeptical boyfriend; another has become a prostitute, while still adhering to Islamic law by participating in one-hour "marriages." They're all right with the state, but everything else about their lives has gone wrong. (Important note: The screener I watched was also not color-corrected, and contains a few instances of voice-over narration reportedly replaced in the final version by on-screen text…I didn't find any of this to be a distraction.)
Grade: B+
Man On Wire (dir. James Marsh)
Headline: Man walks tightrope between WTC towers (in 1974)
Indie Type: "A look back" documentary, with talking head interviews, archival footage and somewhat corny re-enactments.
Soundtrack: Minimalist classical, heavy on strings and horns–typical Michael Nyman.
Report: The photographs and films of Philippe Petit's various late '60s/early '70s tightrope stunts–which included traversing the spires of Notre Dame and the pylons of the Sydney Harbor Bridge–are suitably breathtaking, and the very idea of walking between the World Trade Center buildings definitely stirs the imagination, and evokes nostalgia for the days when crimes of trespassing and disorderly conduct were more benign. But James Marsh's film lacks a certain broader scope–or necessary contrast. Marsh could've picked any number of counter-stories to put Petit's feat in context: the building of the towers, the history of Houdini-like public stunts, the relative letdown of Petit's post-WTC life, what-have-you. Instead, Man On Wire mainly focuses on the logistics of the plot so intensely that the details of shooting the rope across the chasm and hiding out from the security guards eventually start to lose their sense of wonder, and become as mundane as listening to an ex-jock describe how he once caught the winning pass in the state championship. It's a story worth telling, yes–but maybe not for an hour-and-a-half.
Grade: B-
Mermaid (dir. Anna Melikyan)
Headline: Young Russian woman makes wishes come true, falls in love
Indie Type: Euro-quirk
Soundtrack: Flute- and celesta-driven art-disco.
Report: When Mermaid opens, I fully expect it to become one of those beloved foreign films that people I know gush over while I bite my tongue. It's the kind of movie that opens with images of animated fish, which then dissolve into a fish-pattern on the ass of an enormous bathing suit, worn by a waddling obese woman. It's the kind of movie where the heroine–the bastard daughter of said fish-suit woman–takes a vow of silence at age 6, then is shipped off to be educated an institution for the mentally retarded, and later moves to Moscow, where she gets a job shilling for cel phones from inside an oversized cel phone costume. In an abstract sense, I can respect writer-director Anna Melikyan's broad, allusive explication of how it feels to be a hick in the big city, but the relentless wackiness is, well, relentless. Did I mention that our protagonist (played by Mariya Shalayeva) thinks she can make whatever she wishes for come true? And that her look and personality is like a combination of Lola (from Run Lola Run) and Amelie (from Amelie)? She's like every whimsical late-teenager I spent my college years avoiding.
Grade: C
Festival Notes…
So far, one major difference between Sundance and other festivals I've been to is that there's really nothing else to do but watch movies. All right, maybe if I was a skier, or liked going to parties, I'd be tempted away from theaters (or, as was the case for most of day one, screening cubicles) and out into the wider world. But unlike Toronto in September, where the pleasant weather and the plethora of delicious ethnic food makes it tempting to take a long, noodle-bowl-punctuated walk rather than wait out some wan indie drama, in Park City the prospect of stepping back out into 10 degree weather tends to keep me conscientious. I mean, I saw five movies today…and Sundance only officially screened one.