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Thread: Fiftieth Anniversary SFIFF 2007

  1. #76
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    CARLOS SORIN: THE ROAD TO SAN DIEGO (2006)

    Innocent pilgrimage to a soccer god.


    CARLOS SORIN: THE ROAD TO SAN DIEGO (2006)


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  2. #77
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    PASCALE FERRAN: LADY CHATTERLEY (2006)

    Conventional, and yet revolutionary .


    PASCALE FERRAN: LADY CHATTERLEY (2006)


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  3. #78
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    Island histrionics make for a slow, whimsical ramble



    TAKUSHI TSUBOKAWA: ARIA[ (2006)


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  4. #79
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    FINAL ROUNDUP

    HIGHLIGHTS OF THE SAN FRANCISCO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 50 (2007)

    Though nothing I saw except maybe Lady Chatterley was really magical this year at the 50th SFIFF, the general quality was high, and I can think of six that are worth singling out, and quite a few more worth mentioning. . .


    HIGHLIGHTS OF SFIFF 2007


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    Last edited by Chris Knipp; 05-19-2007 at 03:55 PM.

  5. #80
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    Originally posted by Chris Knipp
    Though nothing I saw except maybe Lady Chatterley was really magical this year at the 50th SFIFF, the general quality was high

    What impressed me most about Lady Chatterley is how cinematic it is. The emphasis is on the characters' actions rather than what they say. Ms. Ferran and her collaborators apparently gave a lot of thought to conveying the narrative, and the development of the central relationship in visual terms. There's a focus on the the interaction between character and environment, both indoor and outdoor spaces. Ferran seems to know exactly when to cut to a nature shot, for instance, and how long to hold it. Every close-up of hands or faces appears to have an implied purpose. The actors merit the close scrutiny. I haven't read any interviews of Ms. Ferran or the actors but the approach seems to be to excise any line of dialogue which can be "covered" by a gesture or a body movement or the placing of the actors within the frame. I love how the progression of the affair between the Lady and her gamekeeper feels so organic and how the film addresses so convincingly the implications of their class differences.

    What's puzzling is that Ferran directed two features in the mid 90s which won prestigious awards (including the Camera d'Or at Cannes) then did not direct for 11 years.

    Kudos to Kino International for releasing the uncut, 168-minute theatrical version.

  6. #81
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    Well, words and gestures are both important, but the scenes of the gamekeeper and Lady C. are very organic and the physicality is the essential element of the story. It's also of considerable importance that a different version of the novel was used rather than the usual one. The use of French without altering any of the English names and settings creates an odd but not unpleasing effect. I don't know the exact answer to your question about the apparent lacuna in Ferran's directing career, but in 1997 she was involved in political activity (she was an leftist activist and feminist from her high school days), and also wrote the scendario for Matthieu Almaric's Mange ta soupe, and she also was director of photography for Valérie Nadjar-Vignaux's Mille livres. She was involved with the national theater in Strasbourg, I think . In 2000 she made a documentary in Florida, Quatre jours Ã* Ocoee, about the making of a recording by jazz artists Sam Rivers (sax) and Rony Hymas (piano). She was also in charge of the dubbing into french of Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut. Then in 2003 to her great regret after months of preparation she was forced to abandon shooting a big budget film called Paratonnerre based on a fantastic tale with Pierre Chevalier. Still, it does seem a bit strange that she went a decade or so without a big project, when she was capable of something as good as this.

    Source: French Wikipedia: http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascale_Ferran.
    Last edited by Chris Knipp; 09-08-2007 at 08:37 PM.

  7. #82
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    Joachim Trier's Reprise was among the SFIFF '07 films Chris listed as "commercially viable". Accordingly, it has been released commercially in 2008. The dvd will be released in the fall and will likely include Trier's 18-minute English-language Procter. Chris Knipp's review

    Reprise (Norway)

    Only one of Reprise's protagonists is psychotic (Phillip) but both are writers pondering the implications of isolation: Philip's doctor apparently claims his obsessive love for Karin "triggered" the psychosis and recommends separation; Erik doesn't know whether to believe a friend's exhortation to break up with his girlfriend as he believes that settling down kills artistic creativity (this is mirrored by the self-imposed alienation of the duo's much-admired middle-aged writer). While Erik's ambivalence about romance results in neglect, Phillip attempts to recapture the glory days of a Parisian vacation with his girlfriend Kari.

    Reprise is brimming with style and effervescent interplay of cinematic and narrative devices: omniscient and detached voice-over, freeze-frames, cut-to-blacks, memory-fueled flashbacks, scenes set in a hypothetical future tense, and much more. Trier mentions Alain Resnais' explorations of memory and identity as being particularly influential but Reprise includes less obvious, specifically Norwegian references, including one about the Oscar-nominated film Elling (about two mentally ill guys who become best friends at an institution and take a stab at independent living).

    Use of songs by Joy Division and New Order is anachronistic but congruent with the characters' emotional states. Complex party scene scored to buoyant Le Tigre tune "Deceptacon", with lots of movement and action unfolding in different rooms, is perhaps Reprise's technical tour de force. Overall, an auspicious feature debut for Joachim "distant cousin of Lars" Trier. Is it too greedy of me to wish he had managed to integrate some of Phillip and Erik's fictionalized worlds?
    Last edited by oscar jubis; 08-12-2008 at 08:06 PM.

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    I rarely get the pop or rock musical details so that's interesting as a comment that Joy Division etc. are not the right period. I think this is a smart and lively film, almost too clever in its opening segment, very watchable in the rest. I hope we get to see more from Joachim Trier in US theaters in future.

    I didn't know Reprise was still showing and wonder if you just saw it. I re-published my review of it May 22nd. When did it open in FLA?

    Since you mention Elling I wonder if you've seen Petter Naess' US-made Aspie romance Mozart and the whale?

  9. #84
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    Some films on limited release come first to Miami, others like Reprise get to Fort Lauderdale first. Economically, it doesn't make sense anymore for me to drive 30+ miles to watch a film. I just wait until it comes to Miami. Reprise finally turned up in South Beach last week.

    I haven't seen Mozart and the Whale. Very few have, despite famous actors in the lead roles.

    Additional comment regarding the music: Kommune, the fictional band that appears in the film singing a song called "Finger-fucked by the Prime Minister", sounds like a punk band circa 1977-1984 but the hairstyles and clothes worn by the band and the audience are contemporary. Trier says it's just an "homage to political punk".

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    Mozart and the Whale is something I just watched on DVD. I found from responses by "Aspies," as I learned they call themselves (people with Asperger's Syndrome), that while some were disparaging of it, a majority seemed to be grateful for it and approving of how it depicts them, with some reservations. Asperger's Syndrome people may be over-dramatized in the film, and since Hartnett and Mitchell are beautiful people, glamorized, but the movies does show that they can function and most importantly love and marry. It apparently never really got a distributor. I guess Dustin Hoffman's character in Rainman is autistic but not Asperger's, I don't know, but despite the greater effectiveness of that (by the same screenwriter) as a movie dramatically, I never liked Hoffman in it. His performance seems just a shtick, and if I was an Aspie, I sure wouldn't want that to be people's picture of me. He comes off as a freak. I wouldn't be at all qualified to judge either film for its accuracy but Rain Man just seemed to me simplistic and gimmicky, and Mozart and the Whale not a great movie but much more sympathetic and possible to relate to.

    I guess the decade is specified in Reprise but I don't remember and since I don't mention it in my review I may not have been very aware of it. Familiarity with the musical styles would make you much more conscious of that aspect but that leaves up in the air the question of whether Trier considered the period a key factor.

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    I watched Rocket Science recently by Jeffrey Blitz, the director of Spellbound, the documentary about the National Spelling Bee. I must say that I really enjoyed Rocket Science and I was not surprised to find out that it has a high metacritic score. I don't remember putting this movie on my Netflix queue, probably a long time ago, but I'm glad to have seen it. The casting of the teenagers in the film is spot-on, and the performances don't disappoint. Blitz is no Baumbach but who is?(I hope I posted in the correct thread)
    Last edited by oscar jubis; 08-05-2013 at 12:13 AM.

  12. #87
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    Jeffrey Blitz: ROCKET SCIENCE


    Yes, this is the right thread; there's no separate one because it was part of the 2007 SFIFF. And here is my review of ROCKET SCIENCE , and I enjoyed it too. I remember going over to San Francisco on BART to see a press screening of it and pouring over the fairly thick press kit on the train coming back to the East Bay. For some reason I didn't mention it among the fest highlights, giving instead LADY CHATTERLEY, AGUA, DARATT, REPRISE, MURCH, and ROAD TO SAN DIEGO. I don't remember AGUA and MURCH very well now... I also mentioned good films I'd already seen at Lincoln Center "and elsewhere" (Paris), BAMAKO, DANS PARIS, LA VIE EN ROSE, AD LIB NIGHT, and Kim Rossi Stewart's directing debut ALONG THE RIDGE (ANCHE LIBERO VA BENE). So there was strong competition, and there are a lot of coming of age movies. Have you seen THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER? I liked that too -- I like coming of age movies (some cinephiles seem to hate them or to be fed up with them) -- and Logan Lerman is amazing in it. And boing back a year or two, did you see the period Brit coming of age movie SUBMARINE? So witty.

  13. #88
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    I liked "Perks" and will definitely put Submarine on my to-watch list.

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    Great. I think you will like SUBMARINE. One of my faves of that year.

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