The 2007 Miami International Film Festival

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Johann:
Chris- no replies allowed anymore on your website?

I wanted to reply to your dead-on "Sorceror's Apprentice" piece.

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(Johann is referring to a political not a film piece.]
I figured it's not really a discussion site, and I had got spooked by the hackers, so...but why don't we have a discussion of this here on the LOUNGE section-- I started a thread there with my "Masters of Terror" AKA Sorcerer's Apprentice piece, and you can have at it.

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Oscar:
For Colossal Youth, I probably will use quotes from 2 or 3 different critics who have written quite insightfully about Pedro Costa. It's the only festival review in which I feel inclined to do that.

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It always makes sense if they say interesting things and a lot of critics have already had a go at a film before you get a chance to write about it. You can say where you stand in relation to them.

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It took years to finally get to watch one of his films. There are two more available in Europe on dvd. Having dvds shipped from Europe is too expensive though.

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Maybe so but it's a bit cheaper than going over there to get them.

Now that's way beyond my budget nowadays. I'm glad I traveled a lot in the 80s and 90s. Foreign movies are like a vicarious form of travel, aren't they? Well, here's an American one:

IRA & ABBY

I realize after checking just now with a friend who's used that service that shipping by Amazon.fr or FNAC of DVD's or books from France is quite expensive. So one would do it only in extreme cases where one had a dire need for something. If you need a couple DVDs from France ask me and next fall if I go there as I very well may I can get it for you. I think the shipping charges via those businesses are a bit inflated; one can ship cheaper from a local French P.O. via surface, which really seems to go air nowadays and which is always faster than they say it will be from the UK, France, or Italy.

IRA & ABBY (USA)

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It's an "indie" picture that could perform like a "major" at the box office if handled properly.. . .Ira & Abby moves like a sitcom but the material is a notch above. . .

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I'm afraid an indie performing like a major if handled properly and something a notch above a sitcom doesn't sound particularly exciting, and this film will probably turn up in Berkeley's Landmark theaters. I hope you found some more interesting new US work in the whole Miami festival.

Thanks for your offer. FNAC has the better prices but the shipping is outrageous. They have outlets in Spain, France, Portugal,etc. I have bought some UK dvds from Bensons and the shipping is only 1.25 pounds per. But the Costa dvds have not been released in the UK. I could ask my father-in-law to send me the discs from Spain, but the Costas are not available in Spain yet. There are some American sites that sell dvd-r of Euro dvds but it's been a while since I checked what's available.

The MIFF screened 7 "Amerindies". "Bella" and "Full Grown Men" were bad. "Padre Nuestro" (same title as a Chilean film I reviewed already) won Sundance '07 but got slammed by Variety. I skipped the press screening of "Thanks To Gravity" and I was told by colleagues I made a wise decision. "Ira & Abby" is a NY comedy for adults that's better than most studio comedies and still not "particularly exciting" as you correctly inferred from my review. "First Snow", starring Guy Pearce and opening soon, looks promising. And Choking Man which is good and I hope gets released.

You'll know when I'm headed for France and can put in an order. The big FNAC stores in Paris do seem to havepretty good DVD selections.

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There are some American sites that sell dvd-r of Euro dvds but it's been a while since I checked what's available.

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Can you tell me more about those sites? I'd like to check them out.

Thanks for the rundown on the English stuff--Miami seems to have been weak in that area but I'll have to read the rest of your reviews. I did read the Choking Man one.

Originally posted by Chris Knipp
Can you tell me more about those sites? I'd like to check them out.
This American site sells dvds from all over the world:
xploitedcinema
This site sells much cheaper conversions (dvd-r) of import dvds and vhs:
Superhappyfun
There are others.

Thanks for the rundown on the English stuff
You're welcome. That's the American stuff.

I meant in English. I'll look at those sites, thank you very much indeed.

There were other fiction films in English: Jindabyne and Cate Shortland's The Silence from Australia, Red Road from Scotland and Nick Broomfield's Ghosts.

The Page Turner

MORE THAN ANYTHING IN THE WORLD (Mexico)

Sonja and Fraulein sound real good.

Your reviews remind me of the press screenings in Van.

The new foreign and obscure films unfolding before your eyes that have a long shot at a decent release.
Some are outstanding, extremely well made.

The sad reality is most of these films won't be seen by anybody in the mass public unless you attend a festival or seek them out.

A lot of these movies won't even make it to DVD.

DENIS DERCOURT: THE PAGE TURNER/LA TOURNEUSE DE PAGES.

As you may remember this was in the Rendez-Vous series this year and I reviewed it in that Festival Coverage thread. One small correction: since the Césars are already over, we have to say that Frot and Francois were nominated. And they didn't win and Frot for Best Actress lost to the young Marina Hinds for the much admired Lady Chatterley (which hasn't been shown at a venue I've been to yet, it made a splash at the Berlinale) and Most Prosmising Actress (Meilleur espoir féininin) went to Mélanie Laurent of Rendez-Vous film Don't Worry, I'm Fine/Je vais bien, ne t'en fais pas (another good entry in the Rendez-Vous, though I prefer The Page Turner), rather than to Francois. There's one thing in your review that puzzles me: "Jean tells Melanie that his wife is emotionally fragile and afflicted by stage fright since she was hit by an unidentified driver (was it our young protagonist?). " There's no indication our young protagonist even has a car, and Frot's presence in Greggory's household appears to be a complete surprise, but maybe we shouldn't even go into these details since the suspense rests on slow revelations. The comparison with Chabrol is inevitable, but I don't really agree with you if you're comparing this unfavorably with Chabrol, who has been very uneven, with high and low points. It's different, not inferior. In a way, due to the command of the musical milieu, Dercourt's work carries more conviction and at times is more subtle than much of Chabrol's, even though Chabrol is the greater, more productive, destined to be the more remembered, director. And hence I remain convinced that this was one of the best of the Rendez-Vous this year -- which contained much else of interest and high artistic accomplishment-- and will probably do well critically with art house distribution here. However it is an extremely dry and wooden kind of story, the storytelling to some extent partakes of that dry woodenness, and I might not disagree with the Film Freak Central writer on the Toronto Festival who wrote

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I question whether Denis Dercourt's Chabrolian The Page Turner (La Tourneuse de pages)--which more than earns its presumptuous double entendre of a title--actually has anything of consequence to say, but I sure got a charge out of it.

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A pretty strong charge, too, thanks in no small part to the excellence of the principals.

P.s. It's a lucky thing that somewhat by chance I bought a DVD of Dercourt's previous MY CHILDREN ARE NOT LILKE THE OTHERS (or whatever it's called in English)/MES ENFANTS NE SONT PAS COMME LES AUTRES in France two years ago, because the comparison is very interesting and enriches my understanding of what Dercourt's doing considerably--but I don't think you can get that title here, or through those two sites you gave me, which seem to lean toward the dark and backroom kinds of titles rather than the host of good more mainstream stuff from France that we never get access to.

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johann:

The new foreign and obscure films unfolding before your eyes that have a long shot at a decent release.

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Yes, but my observation from my slightly closer scrutiny of current French cinema lately indicates that it's not just the obsucre ones that have a long shot, but some excellent fairly mainstream French ones. We just don't have universal inter-national distribution, and wouldn't it be nice if we did. But maybe download technology eventually will bring us that, and they'll come through the air, computer bank to computer, in a cyberwonderland. Trouble with that: money's involved. Competition. Which means "free enterprise," which means really restricted enterprise.

Originally posted by Johann
Sonja and Fraulein sound real good.
Good movies. I think Fraulein has a better chance at distribution because of winning the top prize at Locarno, one of the top 10 European Festivals.

The new foreign and obscure films unfolding before your eyes that have a long shot at a decent release.
Some are outstanding, extremely well made.
Indeed. Often there's no rhyme or reason as to why some films get picked up for distribution and others don't. The British film A Way of Life (a BAFTA winner) and 2005 MIFF audience fave Accused (from Denmark) didn't get distribution, but New Yorker Films picked up the very downbeat "difficult" The Forsaken Land from Sri Lanka. These are films from the past two festivals. It's going to take a year or two to find out whether some of the films at 2007 MIFF will get distributed. I forgot to say in my review that Tartan USA will release iThe Page Turner a week from tomorrow. Also, the Brazilian films Antonia and Alice's House and the Colombian A Ton of Luck were purchased at the fest and will be distributed. There are films that don't have distribution and, sadly, won't get picked up, and a few of of them probably shouldn't, no matter how brilliant they are. I mean Hamaca Paraguaya (reviewed), Life Can Be So Wonderful (reviewed) and Colossal Youth (not reviewed yet) are not meant for commercial theatres. These amazing films belong at festivals, cinematheques and art museums.

The sad reality is most of these films won't be seen by anybody in the mass public unless you attend a festival or seek them out.
I didn't realize to what extent we have access to only a small portion of what's good until I looked into the "World Poll" at Senses of Cinema a couple of years ago. Here's the 2006 Poll: http://www.sensesofcinema.com/

Originally posted by Chris Knipp
There's one thing in your review that puzzles me: "Jean tells Melanie that his wife is emotionally fragile and afflicted by stage fright since she was hit by an unidentified driver (was it our young protagonist?). " There's no indication our young protagonist even has a car
True, but that doesn't rule out the possibility that the hit 'n run driver was Melanie. I think it's a little "tease" by Dercourt. I'm convinced I'm not the only one who thought about it.

...and Frot's presence in Greggory's household appears to be a complete surprise
I don't know what you mean. Do you mean Melanie coming to work as an au pair there? If so, that doesn't rule out her being the driver either. Dercourt simply throws this possibility into the mix. Not a major plot point or anything.

The comparison with Chabrol is inevitable, but I don't really agree with you if you're comparing this unfavorably with Chabrol, who has been very uneven, with high and low points.
I mean exactly this: "The Page Turner recalls Claude Chabrol's suspense thrillers, particularly La Ceremonie for its locale, This Man Must Die for its theme of obssesive revenge, and Merci Pour Le Chocolat for its classical music milieu. Dercourt's film lacks the irony, humor and sharp social commentary of Chabrol's best films."
If you actually agree with the comment you quoted then we're not far apart re: The Page Turner.

I'm in agreement with the line I quoted, but not with your apparent inference that I'd agree with you seeing Dercourt somehow as a Chabrol manqué. "Dercourt's film lacks the irony, humor and sharp social commentary of Chabrol's best films." Yes but so do the films of Bruno Dumont. No, Dercourt is no Chabrol, but one can say approvingly that he creates a Chabrolian atmosphere in his latest film. I don't see how your listing three Chabrol films that have elements in The Page Turner makes an interesting or useful comparison. What's the value? In his own more limited vein of a specialist in classical music (Dercourt is a conservatory music teacher and musician as well as writer-director), Dercourt goes deeper than Chabrol, and a look at Merci Pour le Chocolat shows that. Dercourt has something unique to say. He takes us into a less severe, more subtle, and more specialzed realm than Chabrol's. Other names also come up, Hitchcock, Dominick Moll, even Maupassant, but Dercourt, however limited is also unique and in this case I think very effective in a vein we can relate to classic thrillers.

I think you ought to give up the idea about Mélanie's hypothetical role in the car accident. Such a plot element would be jarringly out of keeping with both Dercourt's methods and Mélanie's.