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Thread: SAN FRANCISCO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2005

  1. #46
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    To me Saraband was a bit of a dissapointment. I found what I expected, but also saw that Bergman decided to break one of the key rules of cinema. Show not tell. Film is a visual art, and the scene in which Marianne decides to tell you her indecision really left me with a sour feeling for the rest of the film.

  2. #47
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    I agree, Oscar, that what gut reaction I felt came in response to Henryk's suffering, Henryk being the problem child and the most in pain. I see Karin as central because she's represents hope and keeps the film from being the totally bleak thing some see it as. Marianne is the least involved and is more a device to bring people together and begin and end the story. Unfortunately as Fan of Kubrick points out, such devices as Marianne almost totally represents are part of the telling not showing element that mars the film. It seems to me that Sarbande has less punch than Faithful; though the latter also is lagely in the nature of reporting rather than acting out, yet it has more meat in it.

  3. #48
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    Our opinions on Saraband keep diverging more and more with every post. For me, Marianne's prologue and epilogue are the icing on the cake. They provide commentary on the action and amplify the film's themes by incorporating Marianne's relationship with her two daughters into Saraband's universe. Faithless is a trifle when compared with the resonant, opulent Saraband.

  4. #49
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    I don't think our opinions "are diverging more and more." They are simply divergent and we are merely clarifying what we already said. On IMDb I gave this film an 8/10. I would not rate this up with Bergman's best and I've tried to say why. But as I said it's a "fine film" by a "great director."

  5. #50
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    Sebastián Cordéro: Crónicas (2004)

    (San Francisco Film Festival showing, May 3, 2005)

    Nice try

    Young Ecuadorian director Sebastián Cordéro's Crónicas begins and mostly sustains itself as good intense fictional coverage of what can happen when corrupt, sensationalistic journalists in Latin America cover a crime wave far from home base and encounter what even for them are obvious moral conflicts when they attempt to exploit it.

    A Mexican news team out of Miami goes to cover the search for "the Monster of Babahoyo," a pedophile serial killer in the province of Los Rios in a remote part of Ecuador. A violent incident in the street when the team arrives in Babahoyo puts their reporter in contact with somebody who may be a victim of public hysteria, or may be the killer. Crónicas never gives you time to think and screws up its suspenseful situation into a tight knot and then lets go and drops you. Somewhat ironically the result feels very like the first episode of a sensational TV miniseries. The film would have been better if it had stepped back occasionally and let us and the story breathe. A haunting opening sequence of a man alone bathing and washing clothes gives a hint of how that might have happened.

    The news people are serviceable stereotypes: photogenic lead reporter Manolo Bonilla (John Leguizamo); his sexy female producer Marisa (Leonore Watling), who soon hops into bed with him; his raunchy, substance-abusing cameraman Ivan (José María Yazpik), who has to keep pointing out that they're all supposed to be a team. To lend cred and support to the movie and give them a boss there's Alfred Molina in the background phoning in as Miami anchorman Victor of a fictitious news show, "Una Hora con la Verdad," seen and heard only on tiny TV screens and ever-present cells. Haunting the news team as it prances around and threatening a confrontation that never really materializes is "the only honest cop in Latin America," who happens to be the local police captain and seems to have a lot of time on his hands which he spends tracking the news team and reminding them they're not following the rules. Such reminders are feeble since they're free to fly out whenever they want and have plenty of money to bribe low level cops. Besides that Manolo is asked for his autograph constantly and greeted as a hero for things he now wishes he hadn't done.

    Director Sebastián Cordéro's best move in Crónicas is to try to build a serial killer who's not a spooky Hannibal Lector type super-villain but a human being whom his victims trust and other people like. Cordéro makes real headway at achieving that goal by choosing the pitiful, sweet-faced Damián Alcázar to play Vinicio Cepeda, the "witness" in prison who may be the suspect. Where Vinicio fits in winds up being too clearly telegraphed, but the best scenes are still the ones where Vinicio gives creepy, insinuating testimony to Manolo (away from Ivan's camera) and bargains for his life.

    What also makes Crónicas worth watching, if you can stomach the theme and don't mind the simplifications and lack of modulation in the sequences, are the grittily authentic local backgrounds: messy hotel rooms, grungy prison cells, chaotic streets, shantytown dwellings. These give the in-your-face story a sense of authenticity that isn't entirely undercut by the stereotypes and the pumped-up action. What doesn't quite work is a screenplay that gets everything going full speed from the first reel and never lets up till it just walks away leaving you waiting for the next gripping episode.

    Posted on Chris Knipp website.
    Last edited by Chris Knipp; 07-24-2005 at 02:56 PM.

  6. #51
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    Last SFIFF viewing: Sumiko Haneda: Into the Picture Scroll: The Tale of Yamanaka Tokiwa

    This I won't comment on it detail now. It is an "art documentary" using landscape shots, some limited live action, and a lot of filmed closeups of a series of 17th-century Japanese scroll paintings to illustrate and tell the famous tale and puppet theater story of a young samurai son who avenges the murder of his mother by bandits. Every effort is made to open up the images and bring them to life in an appropriate way, using a voice-over with background information and a classical ballad-singer with shamisen accompaniment. The scrolls themselves, all by one artist, believed to be Matabei Iwasa, who himself may have had a mother who was brutally murdered, are amazingly detailed and often beautiful, and some of the incidents are jaw-droppingly violent. Nonetheless for the average viewer or anyone looking for a samurai movie, this will be pretty dry stuff. While the introducers at the festival showing said Haneda had revolutionized the art documentary, there have been many art documentaries in the past that brought works of art to life equally well, even in the case of Clouzot's Le Mystère Picasso actually documenting the act of painting in process. Oscar in his journal noted the evocation of Hieronymous Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights (Bosch viewers may find Sin City tame).
    Last edited by Chris Knipp; 05-06-2005 at 01:31 PM.

  7. #52
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    Originally posted by Chris Knipp
    Sebastián Cordéro: Crónicas (2004)

    (San Francisco Film Festival showing, May 3, 2005)

    Nice try

    I think we're in agreement on Crónicas. I also enjoyed the sequences between Alcázar and Leguizamo with their subversive intensity. But eventually certain other aspects of this pot-boiler do take over. Still, all in all, it's not a bad effort

  8. #53
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    Tea-Horse Road Series: Delamu (2004)

    Tea-Horse Road Series: Delamu (2004)

    This is a documentary directed by Tian Zhuang Zhuang.
    He garnered the Best Director Award in the First Chinese Film Directors' Guild Awards in 2004.
    see
    http://p219.ezboard.com/fforeignfilm...picID=13.topic

    Although it has potential, I think it does not deliver (i.e., in my very humble opinion).

    (i) What is good? All the exterior scenes/landscape are very well shot ...
    -- BUT unfortunately, there are too few of these scenes ...
    -- The beginning and ending are especially cinematographic! ;)
    -- Likewise, there is a capture of the renowned "flying rocks and shifting sands". However, it is not exploited further to depict its perilous nature ...

    (ii) The 6 or 7 interviewees have interesting/ insightful/ realistic/ depressing stories to tell.
    -- However, they appear random and not coherent, without an overall structure or framework to tell a compelling story. Initially, you think it will be about the route, ... but then you start wondering whether it is about Christianity in Delamu ... then you suspect it may be about something else ... then you think it is probably about the kids and education, then you are transferred back to religion and Tibet Buddhism ...
    -- In essence, it does not have a compelling story!

    (iii) In addition, it may help the audience if the director traces the route for the audience. Sometimes, you think you have started travelling with the people, but at the end of the documentary, you think you are still at the same location all along ... I believe at the end of the documentary, a lot of audience still do not know the route that these people travel ...

    (iv) There is not much depiction of historical or cultural relics, if you are hoping to see some ...

    Conclusion:
    In sum, there are a few good scenery and a few good interviews, but as a whole, it is not very compelling ...


    My recommendation: "The Silk Road"

    If you really want to watch a FANTASTIC documentary, I HIGHLY recommend "The Silk Road" (a collaborative effort by China and Japan in the 1980s). It comprises 30 episodes, with really good cinematography and art direction. Its sountrack is DEFINITELY SUPERB!!! The music by KITARO is MESMERIZING! ;)

    After the 30 episodes, you will be impressed with the historical relics and cultural wealth of ancient days ... WOW ...
    ;)
    Last edited by hengcs; 05-07-2005 at 10:40 PM.

  9. #54
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    Re: Tea-Horse Road Series: Delamu (2004)

    Originally posted by hengcs
    My recommendation: "The Silk Road"

    Before anyone purchase the DVDs/VCDs, let me share a few words of caution:

    (1) As it is done in the 1980s (before the DVD era), a lot of sound/visual recordings may be considered "poor" by today's standard -- but great in those days!
    (2) It is a made for TV documentary, NOT cinema.
    (3) The information on the documentary may be outdated (because it is made in the 1970s and 1980s).
    e.g., currency, population, names of places, etc.


    According to this link
    http://www.nhk.or.jp/digitalmuseum/n...n/history/p20/

    -- NHK Tokushu broadcast this series over 10 years.
    -- From conception to completion, it took 17 years.
    -- The series was broadcast in 38 countries in Asia and Europe!
    -- 7 million records and CDs of the soundtrack have been sold;
    -- 3 million copies of the book have been sold;
    -- 0.66 million copies of the photo series;
    -- and 0.38million videos sold
    ;)

  10. #55
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