MOVIESCOPE—Vol. 2, Issue 1

My collaboration with the British magazine movieScope continues as it launches into its second year. Editor Eric Lilleør accepted my interview with The Band's Visit director Eran Kolirin for the current issue. Canadian and American distribution of movieScope will go into effect in the near future. Until then, subscriptions are encouraged.

SFIFF51—South American Cinema

With two films from Argentina, two from Brazil, one from Chile, and a short from Colombia, the sampling of South American cinema in this year's SFIFF line-up is considerably less ample than in past years. Notwithstanding, the sextet warrants mention.

Brazil wins out with Philippe Barcinksi's impressive debut feature Não Por Acaso (Not By Chance, 2007), wherein a tenuous balance between risk and control is played out in the lives of two domineering men who suffer unavoidable and comparable loss. Uruguayan author Eduardo Galeano has written that in the automotive age the term "accident" is a misleading misnomer and should more appropriately be termed "consequence"; a theme Not By Chance suggests when—as Joni Mitchell sings—"change comes at you like a broadside accident." Though change might be more the consequence of life, some changes (as the film's title attests) are not by chance and only by surrendering to serendipity can one risk the insecure hazard of love.

Bound by hold review policy, I can't say much more; but, Variety has given Robert Koehler considerable more leeway. He recognizes the film's ambitious promise even as he acknowledges some first film fumbles that Barcinksi commendably overcomes.

Seemingly more quiet but no less absorbing is Sandra Kogut's first narrative feature Mutum, a heart-hewn portrait of Thiago, an introverted 10-year-old boy (Thiago Da Silva Mariz) growing up in Brazil's sertão. "Mutum" means "mute" and likewise refers to a black bird that sings at night, which is exactly when Thiago opens up and voices his fearful concerns to his brother Felipe (Wallison Felipe Leal Barroso) as they lie in their beds before sleep. During the day Thiago's childhood is characterized by its limited vision and comprehension of the world of adults, whose rules appear capricious and self-serving. This is the noteworthy achievement of Kogut's film; she captures the child's gaze in its vulnerable and wide-eyed myopia. As Kogut explains, "Myopia corresponds to a manner of situating oneself in the world that is specific to childhood. When one is Thiago's age, the world of adults seems hazy—one feels emotions and sensations but can't put a name to them." Kogut enforces this feeling of sensate comprehension with an amplified soundscape of the sertão, which frequently leans into the alarming, all the more so for being heard and not seen.

Though Thiago adores his mother and siblings, and bestows his affection on his dogs and parrots, he is mistreated by his stern father ("Pai"), played by Evening Class favorite João Miguel (Cinema, Aspirin & Vultures, Suely in the Sky). Pai—who believes God is closing all doors to him that lead to the future—reads Thiago's quiet nature as unvoiced contempt and punishes him accordingly, both verbally and physically. Thiago bears his father's frustrated vengeance on his shoulders, much like the actor Thiago bears the bulk of the film on his pitch-perfect heartbreaking performance. Thiago's final survey of childhood's realm is poignant and powerful. As Kogut further explains, "Thiago only actually sees the reality of [the] place that he lives in at the moment when he must leave it. All of sudden, everything falls into place. That's what the film is about." The film's simple narrative belies its complex emotional depth.

Chile scores high as well with the compelling documentary The Judge and the General by Elizabeth Farnsworth and Patricio Lanfranco, which sees its world premiere at SFIFF51. Primarily a document of the course of conscience undertaken by Chilean judge Juan Guzmán when—in random rotation—he's assigned the first criminal cases against Chile's ex-dictator General Augusto Pinochet, the film maneuvers Guzmán away from his initial ivory tower support of Pinochet through a gradual awakening of the atrocities committed against the Chilean people, and his judicial responsibility to redress same.

Errol Morris' Standard Operating Procedure could take some notes here on how human rights violations can be depicted on their own terms without sensationalized reenactments. The horrid facts speak for themselves without exploitive aggrandizement. The Judge and the General is likewise inspiring for reminding that remedy can be fought for and won, no matter how belatedly. It holds equal interest as we approach the 40th anniversary of the May 1968 "revolution", whose arc of cultural influence many feel ended with the coup d'état death of Salvador Allende. As Acquarello has observed elsewhere: "[T]he collapse of the Allende government was really the nail in the coffin of a kind of 'palatable' socialist movement that the public could embrace."

From Argentina comes Fernando "Pino" Solanas' Latent Argentina, the third entry in his proposed tetralogy on what Evening Class cohort Michael Hawley calls "the maddening economic realities of that country." I interviewed Solanas when he brought Dignity of the Nobodies to SFIFF49. Where Dignity of the Nobodies focused on the plight of the victimized—with generous heart I might add—Solanas's most recent documentary Latent Argentina is considerably drier. Latent Argentina serves more as an intended rallying cry for its domestic audience to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, which Solanas assures them they can do, citing all the industrial resources they have at their disposal, and an ongoing historical tradition of ingenuity and perseverance. In other words, Solanas continues his commendable task of rescuing memory from oblivion. For American audiences, however, it might prove more an exercise in requisite solidarity than compelling viewing (though I admit to feeling guilty about saying that, especially since in our conversation Solanas mentioned that most Americans don't know what's going on with Argentina, don't recognize the accomplishments that are being made, and seem essentially disinterested).

Ana Katz's Una Novia Errante (A Stray Girlfriend, 2007) arrives as a festival darling, having won the Films In Progress Award at the San Sebastián Film Festival; Best Actress and Best Film at the Lima Latin American Film Festival; the FIPRESCI prize at the Havana Film Festival; a nomination for Best Picture at the Cartagena Film Festival; and a nomination for the Silver Condor at the Argentinean Film Critics Association Awards. Likewise selected as part of the 2007 Cannes Un Certain Regard section, I nonetheless found my appreciation for this film—admittedly competent by half—dampened by its neurotic protagonist, which I must begrudgingly admit attests to the merit of Katz's performance.

Inés (Katz) and her fiancé are on their way to spend a holiday at the off season Mar de las Pampas. On the bus while he's trying to sleep, she's badgering him about why he won't communicate with her. When she gets off the bus with her luggage, she's startled to watch the bus take off with her fiancé still on board. Quite frankly, I would have done the same in his shoes. Basta, as they say.

Weepy Inés proceeds to phone her now-ex-fiancé at all hours of the night, spitefully erasing messages on his answering machine, deleting emails, and selfishly deflecting and downright disrespecting the tolerant and patient efforts of the employees and full year residents of Mar de las Pampas to comfort her abandonment. It's hard to gain empathy for her when she acts so heedlessly. Though she accuses her ex-fiancé of being cruel and cowardly, he doesn't stick around long enough for us to determine if her accusations are founded or simply further self-denials. A Stray Girlfriend is a respectable study of a woman in crisis but left me quite cold towards its protagonist.

Last but not least is Amanda Micheli's Oscar-nominated Sundance favorite La Corona, which The Evening Class covered at its previous Doc Film Institute Sundance Kabuki screening, and which is part of SFIFF51's "Feminine Mystique" shorts program.

Cross-published on Twitch.

SFIFF51—Still Life (Sanxia haoren) In 75 "Words" Or Less

What is that strange structure in Jia Zheng-ke's Still Life (2006)? I won't tell. Besides, I don't have enough word count to get into it. Despite the fact that Still Life has been on the circuit for nearly two years, it's tethered to a 75 words or less hold review for SFIFF51 press; the rationale being that it hasn't opened theatrically in San Francisco yet.

Okay….

Ever respectful of such tethers, I offer my write-up on Still Life in 75 "words" or less:

Acquarello
An, Tony
Anderson, Jason
Bradshaw, Peter
Braun, Liz
Brussat, Frederic & Maryann
Cabin, Chris
Campbell, Zach
Croce, Fernando
Daniel, Rob
Dargis, Manohla
Dawson, Thomas
Denby, David
Elley, Derek
Erickson, Steve
Fox, Ken
Goldsmith, Leo
Hoberman, J.
Hoover, Travis McKenzie
Kasman, Daniel
Kaufman, Anthony
Koresky, Michael
Kraicer, Shelly
Lim, Dennis
Nelson, Dustin
O'Hehir, Andrew
Parks, J. Robert
Peary, Gerald
Rapold, Nicolas
Rayns, Tony
Riviera, Matt
Rizov, Vadim
Rosenbaum, Jonathan
Sallitt, Dan
Shambu, Girish
Strong, Benjamin
Tsai, Martin

Phew! I'd best stop before I go over the limit. As a pertinent aside, however, Joel Shepard—who wrote the capsule for the SFIFF51 program—has advised that he's bringing Jia Zheng-ke's related documentary Dong (2006), as well as his most recent film Wuyong (Useless, 2007) to the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts June 26-29, 2008. Finally, San Franciscans will be caught up!

SFIFF51—Michael Hawley Previews The Lineup

Citing last year's 50th anniversary festival as a "fantastic benchmark" and "a gateway to a brighter future," SF Film Society Executive Director Graham Legatt and his programming team revealed this year's equally impressive line-up at a press conference last week. In a recent Evening Class write-up, I summarized all the special events that had been announced prior to the press conference, to which we can now add the following:

* Errol Morris will receive this year's Persistence of Vision Award, with an on-stage interview and a screening of his latest work, Standard Operating Procedure.

* The Maurice Kanbar Award for screenwriting will go to Robert Towne, who will be interviewed on stage by Eddie Muller prior to a screening of Shampoo.

* This year's State of Cinema Address will be given by Kevin Kelly, founding executive editor of Wired magazine and former editor/publisher of the Whole Earth Catalog.

* Rose McGowen and Jason Lee are to be the recipients of this year's (2nd annual) Midnight Awards, presented to an actor and actress "entering the prime of their careers."

That same pre-press conference write-up contained the Cinema by the Bay and Castro Theater roster of films. We now know what the other 80-plus programs worth of narrative and documentary features will be, and it's quite something—full of movies I'd been hoping the festival would bring our way. I've had a week to digest the line-up and now offer this overview of what I personally find exciting about SFIFF51.

I'll begin, as I'm wont to do, by looking at the French selections. Here in the Bay Area, where we have film festivals exclusively dedicated to German, Italian, Latino, South Asian, Irish, Arab and Armenian cinema (to name a few), it baffles me why there isn't one exclusively dedicated to new French films. By default, the SFIFF is our Rendez-Vous with French Cinema and City of Lights/City of Angels. This year they came through with the three films at the top of my French wish list, Catherine Breillat's opening nighter The Last Mistress, Claude Chabrol's A Girl Cut in Two and Abdellatif Kechiche's The Secret of the Grain. The latter swept this year's César Awards, winning Best Film, Director, Original Screenplay and Most Promising Actress. (Back in 2004, SFIFF was one of the first festivals to show Kechiche's L’esquive (aka Games of Love and Chance), which also went on to win four César Awards and was my favorite film of that year). I'm also pretty excited about Céline Sciamma's Cannes-fave Water Lilies, set in the world of adolescent synchronized swimming, and I'm always happy to have a look at any new Eric Rohmer concoction (The Romance of Astrea and Celadon). The inclusion of Marseilles auteur Robert Guédiguian's Lady Jane is a surprise, given that it just premiered in Berlin, and unfortunately, received mostly unkind reviews. But I'm enough of a fan of both the director (The Town is Quiet, The Last Mitterrand) and his actress-wife Ariane Ascaride, to make this film a personal must-see. Rounding out the French selection are Serge Bozon's La France (which I saw at Palm Springs) and Mia Hansen-Løve's All is Forgiven, about which I know nothing except that Cahiers du Cinema named it best film of the year—testimonial enough for me. As far as the films that didn't make it into the festival (Jalil Lespert's 24 Measures, François Ozon's Angel, Gäel Morel's Après lui, Jacques Nolot's Before I Forget, Claude LeLouch's Roman de Gare, Michelange Quay's Eat, For This is My Body, Erick Zonca's Julia, Cedric Klapisch's Paris, Claude Miller's Un secret, Christophe Honoré's Love Songs), I'll just have to hope I cross paths with them somewhere else down the line.

From elsewhere in Europe, I would direct everyone's attention to Jaime Rosales' Solitary Fragments, one of my two favorite films from this year's Palm Springs festival. At the recent Goya Awards, Rosales' stunning, intimate family drama mopped the floor with blockbuster The Orphanage, winning Best Film, Best Director and Best New Actor. I can't recommend it highly enough.

Although not a European film per se, Abel Ferrara's Go Go Tales is an Italian/French co-production that was filmed in Rome's Cinecittà studios. I've been salivating over this NYC strip club comedy ever since Asia Argento's Rottweiler kiss sent tongues wagging at Cannes. Toss in a supporting role by rarely-seen-these-days Sylvia Miles and boy, am I ever there. In addition to Go Go Tales (and The Last Mistress), Argento also stars in her daddy Dario's latest horror film, The Mother of Tears. Both of these are part of the festival's The Late Show series, along with Hitoshi Matsumoto's Big Man Japan and Nacho Vigalondo's Timecrimes. Finally, Italian master Ermanno Olmi's latest, One Hundred Nails screens at this year's festival. To the best of my knowledge, this is the first time a new Olmi film has been shown in the Bay Area since his 1978 art-house hit, The Tree of Wooden Clogs. I won't miss it if I can help it.

From Eastern Europe come two films that were high atop my festival wish list, Bela Tarr's The Man From London and Alexandr Sokurov's Alexandra. SFIFF has been a steadfast supporter of both directors over the years, and it's reassuring to see this tradition continued. From veteran Russian director Sergei Bodrov comes Mongol, a sprawling Genghis Khan epic starring Japanese actor Tadanobu Asano. I've read good things about Vera Storozheva's Traveling With Pets, which won the top prize at last year's Moscow Film Festival. Lastly, I'm looking forward to Czech virtuoso Jirí Menzel's I Served the King of England. This was one of the very few Best Foreign Language Oscar submissions that did not appear at Palm Springs this year.

Two other European films of possible interest are Just Like Home, which is the latest from Danish director Lone Scherflg (Italian For Beginners, Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself), and Valse Sentimentale, from Greek director Constantina Voulgaris. The latter, like eight other titles in the festival, was recently shown in NYC as part of the MOMA's New Directors/New Films series. Nick Schager's blistering review of the film at Slant has me convinced this is something I've got to see.

There's not a lot in the way of African narrative features in this year's festival—Maghrebi or sub-Saharan—but I'm very excited about two that are. The first is renowned Egyptian director Yousry Nasrallah's The Aquarium, which I'm impressed the festival has snagged so soon after its Berlin premiere (the film only opened in Egypt two weeks ago). The other is Ezra, Newton I. Aduaka's tale of an African child-soldier which won the Grand Prize at last year's FESPACO (Africa's main film festival). I might also want to take a look at French-Algerian director Philippe Faucon's Two Ladies. The director's two previous films, Samia (which I liked) and The Betrayal (which I didn't), were shown at the festival in 2001 and 2006 respectively.

The Asian line-up is a complete mystery to me, with the exception of two films. Twenty long months after winning the Golden Lion at Venice in 2006, local audiences will finally have the chance to see Jia Zheng-ke's Still Life. I recently saw it on DVD and it's stunning—can't wait to see it on a big screen. The other Asian film I'm anticipating is Aditya Assarat's Wonderful Town, a melancholy romance set in a Thai seaside town affected by the 2004 tsunami. The film won the Tiger Award at Rotterdam earlier this year.

Festival Director Legatt admitted that Latin America is underrepresented in the festival—his programmers having perceived it an off year for the region. Try telling that to Mexico, which is experiencing somewhat of a cinematic renacimiento. There are four recent Mexican films I've been anxious to see, and the festival's got three of them. Alex Rivera's neo-sci-fi take on globalization, Sleep Dealer, recently won several prizes at Sundance and Berlin. La Zona, Rodrigo Plá's tale of vigilante justice in a wealthy Mexico City gated community, took the FIPRESCI prize at last year's Toronto Film Festival. Winning the Discovery Award at Toronto was Israel Cárdenas and Laura Amelia Guzmán's Cochochi, which Michael Guillén enthusiastically wrote up here. (The fourth, missing film would be Lake Tahoe, Fernando Eimbcke's follow up to Duck Season.)

I've yet to take a close look at the festival's dizzying line-up of documentaries because frankly, I'm feeling somewhat docked-out these days. But a casual glance through the program turns up three of immediate interest, all of which come from or relate to Latin America. Latent Argentina is Fernando E. Solanas' (The Dignity of the Nobodies) latest look at the maddening economic realities of that country. Theodore Thomas' Walt & El Grupo remembers a goodwill/research trip to South America taken by Walt Disney and several of his artists in 1941. Gonzalo Arijon's Stranded: I've Come From a Plane That Crashed in the Mountains recounts in interviews and recreated footage the tale of how 16 Uruguayan rugby players survived a 1972 Andean plane crash. (I watched Stranded on screener this weekend and I think it's probably one of the best documentary films I've ever seen. More later).

Finally, from north of the border comes a trio of films I'm keen on seeing. Lance Hammer's rural Mississippi-set Ballast has been compared to the work of Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne, and won Best Director and Best Cinematography prizes at Sundance. The Toe Tactic is the animated/live action feature debut of Emily Hubley, daughter of illustrious film animator Faith Hubley and sister of Yo La Tengo singer/drummer Georgia Hubley (who provides the film's music). Last, but certainly not least, is Guy Maddin's My Winnipeg. The SFIFF is getting to be a habit for Maddin, who received the festival's Persistence of Vision Award is 2006 and then presented Brand Upon the Brain! with live narration and on-stage foley effects in 2007. It is expected that Maddin will be here to present My Winnipeg, but he will not be narrating it live as he did last year in Toronto.

So there it all is … nearly three dozen films in which I have a strong interest. I'm happy to say that between press screenings, DVD screeners and the 24 programs I've purchased tickets for, I'll be seeing them all but one (Craig Baldwin's Mock Up On Mu ... I hope to see you at the San Francisco Cinematheque or Pacific Film Archive some day). Of course for every one of these films, there are one or two more on my radar that didn't make it into the festival, for whatever reason. I should probably be thankful they didn't. Hopefully many will turn up in theatrical release, at some other festival or at an alternative venue such as the always surprising Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.

Which brings me to the exciting announcement that was made by Legatt at the festival press conference. Starting June 13, the Film Society is completely taking over one of the screens at the Sundance Kabuki Cinemas. Dubbed the SFFS Screen, it will feature daily showings of foreign, independent and documentary feature films with limited distribution. The plan is to start out with one or two week runs of single films, or split runs. Then in the fall they hope to start programming themed series, such as surveys of national cinemas and retrospectives. This is truly great news. Bravo to the SFFS for its efforts to make the festival experience last year long.

Cross-published on Twitch.

PFA: HEINZ EMIGHOLZ—Architecture As Autobiography

"Architecture projects space into this world. Cinematography translates that space into pictures projected in time. Cinema then is used in a completely new way: as a space to meditate on buildings."—Heinz Emigholz

I thought I was going to have my work cut out for me when I decided to preview the Pacific Film Archive's Heinz Emigholz retrospective—"Architecture As Autobiography"—which broke ground with the April 1st screening of his "salvaging study" Goff In the Desert (2002-2003), and continues through April 17 with screenings of Schindler's Houses (2007), Sullivan's Banks (1993-2000), Maillart's Bridges (2001) and his latest Loos Ornamental (2006-2007). Emigholz is scheduled to attend all upcoming screenings.

Making my self-appointed assignment much easier is the fact that the retrospective is currently in progress—in an enviably expanded itinerary—at multiple venues in Los Angeles, with thorough previews already in place by the likes of Doug Cummings for Film Journey, Scott Foundas for the L.A. Weekly, and Shana Ting Lipton for the Los Angeles Times. Here in the Bay Area, Maria Komodore (San Francisco Bay Guardian) and Max Goldberg (Flavorpill) have likewise already weighed in.

As PFA program curator Kathy Gertiz writes: Since 1984, German filmmaker Heinz Emigholz has been working on an acclaimed series, Photography and Beyond, which consists of formally rigorous, revelatory films that examine artistic creativity. Through his films focused on the work of architects, Emigholz states, he "looks at architectural spaces that I believe have been sorely neglected by 'architectural history.' " We present five of these salvaging studies. Three trace a history of direct influences: Rudolph M. Schindler (1887–1953) studied with Adolf Loos (1870–1933), who was influenced by Louis H. Sullivan (1856–1924). Emigholz's cinematic "archives" of these architects' existing buildings, with minimal commentary, provide a rare opportunity for careful contemplation and study of the space, light, and materials of architecture. "I believe that everyone perceives space differently and that art and structure arise out of the perception of these nuances," Emigholz says. "The world reveals itself to us, and we show each other the world—not just different facets, but our different views. During peacetime, this is an endless process that deserves to be loved."

Emigholz might as well have been quoting Louis Sullivan who wrote in his 1906 essay What Is Architecture: "In everything that men do they leave an indelible imprint of their minds. If this suggestion be followed out, it will become surprisingly clear how each and every building reveals itself naked to the eye; how its every aspect, to the smallest detail, to the lightest move of the hand, reveals the workings of the mind of the man who made it, and who is responsible to us for it." Elsewhere, in his wry critique of King Vidor's The Fountainhead for Cinema Scope, Emigholz does quote Sullivan: "It is the pervading law of all things organic, and inorganic, of all things physical and metaphysical, of all things human and all things superhuman, of all true manifestations of the head, of the heart, of the soul, that the life is recognizable in its expression, that form ever follows function."

Along with the opportune fortune of watching Emigholz's rarely-seen films, is the anticipated pleasure of hearing him speak. In his Cinema Scope essay, Emigholz amusingly details the conflict between "the arrogant European values" of Austrian rivals Josef von Sternberg and Richard Neutra on one hand and their "robust American theories about imagined spaces" on the other. The house that Neutra built for von Sternberg—"From the air, [it] looked rather like an aircraft carrier [that] later became a popular landmark for American Marine test pilots"—eventually sold to novelist Ayn Rand. In gist, this real estate transaction establishes the foundation for Emigholz's profile of Rand and his survey of King Vidor's 1949 cinematic adaptation of her bestselling novel The Fountainhead—"a thriller set in the world of architecture." If his Cinema Scope essay is any indication, Emigholz promises to be an intriguing and entertaining speaker.

Likewise, in his conversations with Siegfried Zielinski, Marc Ries, and Stefanie Schulte Strathaus, Emigholz reveals a remarkable, observant, nearly difficult intelligence whose perspective will clearly enrichen those willing to watch and listen. I'll be all eyes and ears. How about you?

GIFF08—Sergio de la Mora's Festival Report, Part One

The Evening Class sent Sergio de la Mora to the Guadalajara Film Festival this year and our man-in-the-know has returned with his first report. Take it away, Sergio!

* * *

The 23rd edition of the Guadalajara International Film Festival closed March 14 after having screened 247 films from 38 countries across 9 days that were attended by an estimated 81,000 spectators. The festival's director, Jorge Sánchez Sosa, a veteran film producer (Danzón, Cronos, El evangelio de las maravillas [Divine]), affirms that it is now the most important film event in Iberoamerica. This opinion probably has much to do with the funding awarded to films in competition, totaling this year at $782,000, the well attended film market which this year offered 579 titles seeking distribution, the number of celebrities, international industry and film festival representatives, and journalists in attendance as well as the number of parallel events.

No doubt the overall quantity, quality and breath of films exhibited was among the festival's best. Especially exciting was the retrospective on Argentine cinema that in large part is due to the leadership and vision of programmer Lucy Virgen. However, the festival could use more programming focused on new cutting edge work in addition to honoring pioneers such as this year's focus on such luminaries as Argentine directors Fernando Birri and Fernando Solanas, the Mexican producer Bertha Navarro and classic period Mexican comedian Germán Valdes "Tin Tán."

If one were to judge the state of narrative Mexican cinema by the quality of the 12 films in competition this year, the scene would not be promising. Perhaps an omen of the less then vibrant Mexican film selection was the withdrawal of the incredibly prolific Julián Hernández's fourth feature Rabioso sol, rabioso cielo (Enraged Sun, Enraged Sky) because it was not completed on time but may well have been pulled in order to be considered for Cannes. I should know after so many visits to this festival that what gets shown in Guadalajara is not the best of new Mexican cinema but simply what is not committed to other festivals in early spring. This is a festival where independent films are often short changed while films co-produced by IMCINE, the government-funded film agency, are featured prominently. Oftentimes the most interesting work is made outside of official structures, in the independent sectors. Notable cases would be the films of Carlos Reygadas, Amat Escalante (Sangre [Blood] 2005), Rubén Imaz (La familia tortuga [The Turtle Family] 2006), Pedro Aguilera (La influencia [Influences] 2007), Alan Coton (Soba [Beaten] 2004), and Carlos Armella and Pedro González-Rubio (Toro negro [Black Bull] 2005).

The two outstanding films were Fernando Eimbcke's ¿Te acuerdas de Lake Tahoe? (Lake Tahoe) and Rodrigo Plá's Desierto adentro (The Desert Within). These two films were also awarded the major prizes, the first earning best director while the second swept best film, script, actor, actress, cinematography, and audience prize.

Desierto adentro, a gripping work about religious fanaticism patterned after the life of Soren Kierkegaard, is set during the 1926-1929 Cristero War, a backlash to the anti-clerical elements of the Mexican Revolution, which saw Catholics (mostly poor) taking arms in defense of the Church, its privileges and their beliefs. It may well be the best fiction film about this still controversial and tragic episode in Mexican history. Elías (Mario Zaragoza), a peasant, is convinced that since he contributed to the death of a priest and refused to fight against the government, his entire family will be punished. The curse begins with the death of his wife (Dolores Heredia) while given birth to their last child, Aureliano. After the war, he sets out with all his children to build a church in the middle of a desert-like region in order to honor God and wait for a sign from Him indicating forgiveness.



Desierto adentro uses a voice-over narration by the youngest child Aureliano, played by Diego Catano (a lead in both Temporada de patos and Lake Tahoe), who spends his childhood imprisoned in the family home because he is supposedly ill. This film is far superior to Plá's Venice International Film Festival winner La zona (The Zone, 2007) in terms of his capacity to sustain narrative suspense, create a vivid atmosphere, imagine a highly inventive use of animation in the form of retablos (religious folk portraits), and its critique of religious authoritarianism. (Plá filmed Desierto adentro before La zona but did not finish it until recently). Not since Arturo Ripstein's El castillo de la pureza (The Castle of Purity, 1972) has a Mexican film so effectively taken on the self-destruction of a family as a result of the patriarch's blind piety.

This year the Mexican narrative film competition was especially heavy with second features. Certainly, one of the most anticipated was Eimbcke's Lake Tahoe that premiered at this year at the Berlin International Film Festival where it was awarded two major prizes. To his credit Eimbcke lives up to the expectations of his debut feature, Temporada de patos. Like the latter, Lake Tahoe is a minimalist deadpan comedy in terms of narrative scope and aesthetics. On the outskirts of a quiet city on the Yucatán Peninsula, the teenage Juan (played by Diego Cataño) crashes his car into a telegraph pole on an empty street and spends the majority of the film looking for the necessary spare part. In the process he meets a number of eccentric characters, all spare parts workers including a distrustful and grumpy old man, don Heber (Héctor Herrera) and his dog Sica; Lucía (Daniela Valentine), a spunky and young punk rock single mother who chain smokes and is smitten by Juan; as well as David (Juan Carlos Lara), a skinny youth into martial arts philosophy and a Bruce Lee fanatic.

Halfway through the film, we find out about the recent death of Juan's father, so it's no wonder that Juan spends a good deal of the film running around in an attempt to evade this loss and flee from the desolation of his home where his mother has locked herself in the bathroom to cry and smoke and his younger brother prefers to camp out in tent in the front yard rather than stay in the house. Alexis Sabé's color cinematography, predominantly long stationary shots with wide angle lens, and black screen dividers eloquently illustrate a narrative that is spare in dialogue. The long widescreen shots emphasize Juan's sadness, vulnerability and his being lost. The film is genuinely engaging, the characters are ingratiating and memorable. A story told through images, Eimbcke is triumphantly successful in creating "pure cinema," as he intended. Both Lake Tahoe and Desierto adentro are intensely personal, auteur films that represent among the most vibrant tendencies within Mexican cinema.

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For alternate coverage from GIFF08, I highly recommend GIFF's YouTube CineFEST coverage and Robert Koehler's first and second dispatches to Film Journey.

Cross-published on Twitch.

THE GREENCINE INTERVIEW WITH PEDRO COSTA

My interview with Pedro Costa is up at Greencine's main site, where Dave Hudson has graciously excused the fact that neither Pedro nor I "are in any rush to move on from one topic to the next."

Cross-published on Twitch.

04/06/08 UPDATE: If you're not already a subscriber to the Canadian publication Cinema Scope, now might be the time to consider becoming one. Commencing with their Summer 2008 issue, Cinema Scope subscribers will be receiving free DVDs courtesy of Filmswelike. The first DVD in this special Cinema Scope Presents series, featuring extra features developed in partnership with Cinema Scope, will be Pedro Costa’s Colossal Youth.