Between working late nights and rehearsals, D and I managed to catch a few films at the Mill Valley Film Festival, which concluded over the weekend.
A Touch Of Spice (Greece, 2003. Dir: Tassos Boulmetis)
El Perro Negro: Stories Of The Spanish Civil War (Hungary, 2005. Dir: Peter Forgacs)
My Tiny Universe (USA, 2004. Dir: Glen Scantlebury, Lucy Phillips)
Round Trip (Italy, 2003. Dir: Marco Ponti)
My general rule when picking films to see at the festival is to try and see those films that will probably not have a commercial release - otherwise it becomes little more than an opportunity for bragging rights, "I saw that film months ago". This does mean of course that your chances of seeing a real steaming pile of a film are higher, although this time we dodged that bullet.
One of my favourite things about the Mill Valley Film Festival is their program of children's films from around the world. Although just about everyone else in the non-English speaking world sees US films dubbed into their own language, the practice is all but unheard of in the US, so children's films that are a huge hit in, say, Norway, would never see the light of day in the USA. They show them at the festival with subtitles, and also headphones with someone reading the lines in English in synch with the picture so children can go and not be put off by having to read anything. In this way I saw 'Emil And The Detectives' a couple of years ago, which was a big hit in Germany, and one of my favourite books as a child.
This year we couldn't co-ordinate things to be able to see any of the kid's movies, so the ones we ended up going to happened somewhat by accident.
A Touch Of Spice
This film, the blurb said, was the 'all time biggest box office movie' in Greece. It must have meant a lot more to a Greek person than it did to us, then. It wasn't bad, and I suppose I could see the draw - mingling family drama, a love story, a few key moments in modern Greek history, a dollop of whimsy and a couple interesting-but-not-quite-right special effects, and I think the Greek equivalent of Tom Cruise (minus the recent nuttiness). It was a very earnest and pleasant film, but not remarkable.
El Perro Negro: Stories From The Spanish Civil War
This was a documentary, taking photos and film footage from the time of Spanish Civil War from both sides, and mixing them together into something resembling a narrative about certain people and events of the time. It's not something I can review objectively - my grandfather fought for Franco, and it's a part of my family's history. It wasn't comprehensive nor was it trying to be. It was more like seeing someone's home movies from long ago, edited together well. I enjoyed seeing images of 'old Spain', the countryside, its people and lifestyles, which have barely changed. We also missed the first 20 minutes of the film because we went straight from 'A Touch Of Spice', and tried to squeeze in a sushi dinner in between the two. An overwhelmed sushi chef and several drinks of sake later, we weren't too worried about getting to the film on time.
My Tiny Universe
This is one of those 'quirky' films about people in and around the film industry that feels like a 'by the industry for the industry' type of endeavour. I thought it was ok but I think D enjoyed it more than I did. Ok, I admit it, I did fall asleep for, well, only a couple minutes, but in those couple minutes (I swear!) a major character re-appeared and I couldn't figure out how or when she had shown up when I woke up. It was well written and acted, attracting decent character actors like John Heard and Lesley Ann Warren. I don't mean to damn it with faint praise - it was a well put together piece. Reading the filmmaker bios I see that one of the directors has worked as an editor on a bunch of big movies, including one of my favourites, the amazingly underrated Joyride by John Dahl. Back to 'My Tiny Universe', it felt like a learning exercise for the people involved - their opportunity to try out a bunch of narrative situations, characters, directorial tricks, story structure, etc. Sort of an on-the-job film school. I'd like to see them take what they learned from this and make something 'for the rest of us', if that makes sense.
Round Trip
The best movie we saw, hands down, far and away, long shot, head and shoulders above everything. If it comes to a film festival or theatre near you - go see it!
It was shot in Turin and a little bit in Barcelona. The main characters were an Italian man, an artist/bike messenger and Spanish woman, an airline flight attendant. Their stories are more or less separate for the first two thirds of the film, and after they meet and join forces, the film changes to a bit of a caper. The tone throughout is relatively light and comical, with great visual gags, but most of the comedy came from the characters themselves. It's beautifully shot, with the most striking marriage of costumes, set design, lighting, composition, music and editing styles that I've seen in a long time. What I couldn't get over was how none of these technical and stylistic elements ever threatened to overwhelm the basic story and the characters. The director also introduced a great number of supporting characters, mostly the male protagonist's local neighbourhood friends, all of whom have moments to shine.
It's also rare that I'm struck by the visual presence of an actress, but from the first moment she appeared I couldn't get over how beautiful she was. And she has a lot of freckles, which proves that you do not have to have so-called flawless skin to be a movie star, as seems to be the belief here in the USA. Well, I can't say enough good things about this film, I found it a delight, and I can't wait to see it again.
Here's one more pic of Vanessa Incontrada, for good measure.
