San Francisco International Film Festival 2006 (20/4 - 4/5)

[hengcs]

The official website
http://fest06.sffs.org/
;)

I have watched a number of the films.
e.g., the opening film

I think my review is somewhere in this board too
hiaks hiaks

So, if any of you are watching,
maybe there can be a chat

hee hee

[oscar jubis]

Click on Festival Coverage and you'll access Chris Knipp's detailed reviews. Enjoy the fest!

[hengcs]

hey thnks

but believe me ...
i took a few min before i finally found where the link is ...

maybe the administrator can move it to somewhere more conspicuous ... (at least for these 2 weeks)
;)

rgds

PS: By the way, it seems like the rest of us (i.e., normal members) CANNOT add or post to that folder ... too bad ...

So, if you are keen on any of the following ... I can say sth abt them ...

- Adam’s Apples (Denmark)
- All About Love (HK)
- The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros (Philippines)
- The Giant Buddhas (Switzerland)
- Look Both Ways (Australia)
- Perhaps Love (HK)
- Three Times (Taiwan)
- The Wayward Cloud (Taiwan)
- The Wild Blue Yonder (Germany)
- Workingman’s Death (Australia)
- You Are My Sunshine (Korea)

rgds
hengcs

[oscar jubis]

We can discuss the films from the SFIFF here, if you'd like. I would certainly appreciate any comments/opinions you have about the films you watch.

Highly recommended:
PLAY (Chile) Reviews on MIFF thread and SFIFF thread
THE SUN (Russia) Sokurov. Review on NYFF thread
THREE TIMES (China) Hou
NEWS FROM AFAR (Mexico) Review on MIFF thread
REGULAR LOVERS (France) Garrel. Review on NYFF thread
HOUSE OF SAND (Brasil)

Recommended:
IN BED (Chile) Review coming to MIFF thread
LOWER CITY (Brasil) Review on MIFF thread
OBADA (Spain) Armendariz
THE GRONHOLM METHOD (Spain) Review on MIFF thread

Recommended (based on Chris Knipp's reviews):
THE PETIT LIEUTENANT Review on French Rendezvous thread
BROTHERS IN THE HEAD Review on SFIFF thread

Please Avoid
VIVA CUBA (Cuba) review on MIFF thread
SOLO DIOS SABE (Mexico)

*We've seen and discussed Tsai's film on its thread last year. Perhaps his worst and still quite interesting, in my opinion.
*I will watch THE BLOSSOMING OF MAXIMO OLIVEROS at the local Gay & Lesbian Festival next week and promise to post about it.

[Chris Knipp]

Oscar:

Obviously if you've read my San Francisco festival thread you know I would strongly second your recommendations of Scherson's Play and Benet's News from Afar, which have been my big discoveries so far. I loved both of them and have already seen Play twice!

Small corrections: it's "Le Petit Lieutenant" and "Brothers of the Head." The first would appeal to everybody, pretty much. The second to fans of rock docs who like something kind of weird.

From what I saw at the NYFF besides Regular Lovers and Three Times and The Sun, I would also recommend the austere, elegant, highly emotional Gabrielle from that eminent stager of operas in Europe, Patrice Chéreau... My favorite of all these would have to be The Sun. By far, actually. Though Regular Lovers kind of grows on you later, even if you might not want to sit through the whole three hours of it again, any time soon.

House of Sand and Lower City definitely sound worth seeing, but I can only see so many, due to my schedule. The documentaries Favela Rising and The Dignity of the Nobodies are very good. I was not so taken by Obada and think the mainstream US audience would find its lengthy flashbacks strange and static, but certainly The Gronholm Method is very good entertainment. One reason why it may not get US distribution is that it is very conventional, but in Spanish, and it is mostly dialogue--too many subtitles even for arthouse audiences, without that extra arthouse flair. But you're right that it is absorbing, and the actors first rate.

I have followed your warning and stayed away from Solo Dios Sabe and Viva Cuba with absolutely no regrets, even though I could have seen them in press screenings, which tend to be less hassle than the public ones at night.....Some people have been highly critical of En la Cama/In bed, and I stayed away from that, despite your recommendation.Michael Guillen, an online journalist covering the SFIFF like myself, discussed En la cama with me and has an interesting discussion of it and its critical reception plus his own response, and the vagaries of festival films, on his site The Evening Class. I didn't see it, so can't personally comment. Maybe some day I will, on DVD.

Your advice on Spanish-language flicks at the SFIFF has been extremely helpful, even if I haven't been able to follow it to the letter. I wish I could have had such detailed, knowledgeable advice on the Asian selections but I've had to fend more for my self in that area apart from following up on Peter's recommendation of Wakamatsu, whose Cycling Chronicles: What the Boy Saw I saw. But I can't cover them all anyway.


Hengcs:

Didn't think much of the slick, conventional All About Love. Will be seeing Wild Blue Yonder.

Couldn't get to Perhaps Love (press pass no good for special events) but reviews say it tries to do everything and succeeds at nothing, but some good words came in for my idol, the splendid (looking) Takeshi Kaneshiro, as being the one who succeeded in getting some emotion across.

Can't agree with those who think The Wayward Cloud a work of genius (I did watch it). That is one that can be debated endlessly, I guess and maybe it will be when more people see it. As for Three Times, I find Hou an uneven performer (blasphemy, I know) but the first "time" is perfection, and deeply touching.

[cinemabon]

I was intrigued by "The Sun" premiering tomorrow night at the festival and delighted in discovering your review Chris which you posted on IMDB last November.

That led to an exploration of Sokurov...

How I envy you...

Great posts

[Chris Knipp]

Thanks!

[oscar jubis]

*Count me among those interested in Brothers of the Head. I'm glad it's getting a mid-summer release. (IFC Films)

*It's Regular Lovers I'm worried about, as far as getting a chance to watch it properly in a theatre. Recent Garrels have come out on dvd in France with English subs. Maybe the local Alliance Francaise will show it. That'd be nice.

*So you got to Play twice. Good for you. It was second to Los Muertos (which you also liked and lamentably will probably never watch again) on my 2005 Undistributed list. Maybe News from Afar will eventually get a release here. After all, the 2004 Mexican film Duck Season finally got a US release in '06.

*All of Sokurov's recent films have gotten a US release so I expect to watch The Sun in theatres. Even his 5-hour doc Spiritual Voices is available on dvd in the good ol'.

*Guillen provides festival history and review of critical response for In Bed, besides providing his own opinions. Only Dargis and Slate's Ed Gonzalez are negative about it, and the latter is IMO not a good critic because he is seemingly unaware of his own prejudices.
What Guillen fails to mention concerns In Bed's highest recognition to date. Namely, being picked by a jury lead by Andre Techine as Best Film at Valladolid. The competition was strong: Deepa Mehta's Water, Trier's Manderlay, Haneke's Cache, Audience Fave and Miami winner Life in Color, Francois Ozon's Le Temps Qui Reste (apparently a return-to-form after the less than memorable 5x2), and a dozen others.

*The Wayward Cloud is not a work of genius in my opinion. There are folks who seem to overlook flaws just because it's Ming Liang and he IS a great filmmaker.

[Chris Knipp]

You're right, it would be better to see Regular Lovers on a big screen, and it is doubtful whether you will be able to, aside from a festival. I would think the dour-ness of The Sun might make distributors reluctant to pick it up, and Father and Son seemed to get only very limited showings here. However, it might work better on your home screen, being rather claustrophobic in conception.

I just reviewed two new-to-us documentaries (one was released on National Geographic in 2005 US and German TV; Beyond the Call, also short at 82 minutes, seems really new)--neither on IMDb, so I've tried to add them on there. Complicated to add titles.

I haven't read Dargis on In Bed. Anyway it is meaningless since I haven't seen it. Guillen said it was soft-core didn't he? The thing that's great about Before Sunrise and Before Sunset is that there isn't any sex at all. It doesn't sound like something a lot of people would like, but more would like it than Wayward Cloud if the filmbuffs weren't so crazy about Tsai Ming-liang. That movie is completely nutty. The "musical" sequences are a hoot. The word "genius" is being used. Whatever....

[oscar jubis]

Originally posted by Chris Knipp
Couldn't get to Perhaps Love (press pass no good for special events) but reviews say it tries to do everything and succeeds at nothing, but some good words came in for my idol, the splendid (looking) Takeshi Kaneshiro, as being the one who succeeded in getting some emotion across.

I wouldn't be so dismissive of Perhaps Love, being Peter Chan's return to the director's chair. I liked The Love Letter and I vividly remember the excellent Comrades: Almost a Love Story, one of the best romances of the 1990s. The new film is lenses by Peter Pau and Chris Doyle, a musical-within-a-musical, winner of 6 Hong Kong Film Awards, starring Xun Zhou (who was breathtaking in Suzhou River and Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress). Every review I found online has something good to say about several aspects of production. No one is calling it a masterpiece. That didn't stop me from importing the dvd in case it never plays at a theatre near me. Can't wait to watch it myself.

Can't agree with those who think The Wayward Cloud a work of genius (I did watch it). That is one that can be debated endlessly, I guess and maybe it will be when more people see it.

I wrote somewhere that it's my LEAST favorite film by TML and I wrote that some "overlook flaws just because it's Tsai Ming Liang". I have to add that perhaps it's understandable. It's hard to separate this film from the rest of the auteur's filmography because The Wayward Cloud is simply the last chapter in the story of Hsiao Kang, the director's "Antoine Doinel", so to speak. Those character associations from the earlier films in the series are brought into the viewing experience by those who've seen them (many times in some instances). Their appreciation of the new film is enriched by the character associations they bring from the preceding films.

[Chris Knipp]

Recent local reviews have suggested that Perhaps Love tries to do everything and succeeds at nothing, but obviously for musical fans it has much to offer in the way of romantic plot, star-studded cast, and high production values Moreover I would probably watch anything with the gorgeous (formerly just ultra-cute) Takeshi Kaneshiro in it and another local wrote that his performance is the one that has the most emotion in it, surprising for him. I wanted to go to the opening event (which this is) at the SFIFF and the closing one (Altman's Prairie Home Companion) but you have to be invited to these as press, you are not given passes, I didn't try to get invited, and they're both officially sold out. I can't say I enjoy mob scene, which the Werner Herzog special event was, but the people I went with were big fans of Herzog, and it lived up to expectations, both the man and his new movie. I suppose Kang is Tsai's Jean-Pierre Léaud, but would hope the relationship were more ironic in the former case, and wouldn't want to think Tsai wound up as a small-time porn actor. Whether that is a step up from selling watches on the street I don't know...

[Chris Knipp]

P.s. Remember as I stated at the beginning of my SFIFF reviews, my goal is to see (and of course recommend) the best new films not simply all the ones something good can be said about.

[oscar jubis]

I hear you brotha. Your mission is clear and I'd say: mission accomplished, as far as highlighting the best films. Nothing would give me more pleasure than to see Play and News from Afar become available in the US beyond the festival circuit. I'm convinced The Wayward Cloud is inferior to those, and Perhaps Love highly unlikely to reach those heights (even though I have not seen it).

My post intended to find an explanation behind the very positive opinions of The Wayward Cloud expressed by members here last year on that film's thread. Opinions that reflect those of many of Tsai Ming Liang's admirers. The character Hsiao Kang's porn acting is probably a step up from street vendor from a financial standpoint and a step down from a spiritual one. My interpretation of the film is that Hsiao Kang (played by Lee Kang-Sheng) wants to reciprocate Shiang-chyi's romantic/sexual advances but sex and affection have become something mechanical and meaningless to him. He's a tragic figure and a damaged spirit.

I think our recent posts provide a more balanced view of Chan's Perhaps Love than "succeeds at nothing". That is, based on the reviews I've read and my positive opinion about Chan's previous films, not based on my own viewing of the film.

[Chris Knipp]

Perhaps Love was the opening night special. That explains it.

Kang as a tragic figufre is a bit far-fetched.

Saw Gabrielle tonight, for the second time: cinematic grandeur.

[hengcs]

hey
sorry that i have been VERY busy ...
i will try to post some things soon ...
;)