Day 7: September 14

I frankly can't remember a festival day this bad in years. Sure, I've become more knowledgeable about more obscure directors, usually able to eek out a good screening in favour of bad. Today stymied me, films that I thought might actually be pretty good ended up being, well, crap. Back to back failures I think is a new low, and Jackie Chan couldn't even lift the day in the end. It's rainy, it's humid, and but one great film today. Not to complain, but I've already got the pangs for all the flicks that have seemed to slip through my fingers, while I'm left with drek like those I suffered through today.

Dear Wendy
Directed by: Thomas Vinterberg

Grade: A-

Leave it to the Dogme brothers to do a strange, darkly comedic tale about a posse of dandies that fall in love with their guns. With a script by Von Trier and directed by The Celebration's Vinterberg, I went in with pretty high expectations that were once again fulfilled. If you look a bit closely at the flick you'll no doubt find a scathing critique of the American fetishization of firearms, or a retelling of the classic Western gun battle. Or, if you prefer, it's a Revenge of the Nerds meets High Noon. The film is quirky and intelligent enough to be interesting, but accessible enough to appeal to casual festival goers.

I found a bit of similarity with the theatrical conceit found in Dogville and Manderlay, with the main square of the coal mining town a microcosm of an entire society, complete with map providing a top view to orient the viewer. The surreal compression of setting sets up interesting dichotomies. Scenes are set above ground in the town or below in the caverns of the closed mine, where the group creates their own set of rules and practices, with results that spill into their above-ground lives.

Years after they set forth an ideology that wished to avoid the use of such obvious props as guns, the Vinterberg/Trier team has crafted a film that demonstrates their reaction to the "gun culture" pervasive in contemporary American society, complete with many (named) versions of these plot devices. And once again they prove that they continue to be masters of the form, wether they ignore the precepts of Dogme 95 or not.

L'Enfant
Directed by: Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne

Grade: B-

So, this is the film that won Palme D'Or. Whatever.

If I try really hard I can sort of see why people who'll love this film will find - twisted plot, street urchins, naturalistic storytelling, the stuff of a French cinema fetishist dreams, neverminding that the film's actually Belgian. Stylistically, linguistically, this is a French film through and through.

For me it was nothing exceptional. I do take it that the child of the film's title could both refer to the infant who's sold by the baby's father, or the father himself, one who refuses to work or take on any responsibility save his own selfish and immediate needs. Regardless, it's hard to like any of these characters, hard to see what it takes so much for the mother to see that this guys is a nutbar, hard to see that any potential reformation at the end is far too little, far too late. It's regurgitated nouvelle vague with the scooters and handheld camera work, but without the kinetic editing and with a form of happy ending. Adequate, to be sure, but far from extraordinary. Put me on the Jury, folks, and I'll find you some D'or worthy flicks, promise.

Festival
Directed by: Annie Griffin

Grade: FAIL

Here's a tip: when making a film about the comedy portion of the Fringe Festival of Edinburgh, made it funny. Pathetic recreations of the awful shite that populates such fests, littered with one-person plays and silly surrealism does little to prop up this film's meagre attempt at satire. Mix in some awkward relationship elements and you've got a real mess. I should mention that a puppet comedian gets fisted by the burly bartender, complete with closeup shot of his lubricated hand with bits of a corn-like substance coating his clenched hand. If you think that's bad, wait 'till you see the act by the stoned/stupid/bizarrely accented Canadians from some mythical place named Halifax. Awful.

John and Jane
Directed by: Ashim Ahluwalia

Grade: FAIL

Tip number two (see above): when making a documentary that settles into the Reel-to-Reel program of the fest, try to, you know, document something. If you're making a fiction film with documentary elements, don't mix the fiction with the truth unless you're really dextrous with your moviemaking.

Promoted as a look into the bizarre world of the call center, we're instead introduced to a number of uninteresting characters as they come to grip with their new employment reality. From the opening shot where we crosscut from inside a car to one following it (not seeing the camera that should be in the back seat), it's setup as a conventional fiction film, complete with the editing techniques we've been accustomed to. One does not hear narration in a fiction film and confuse it with an interview, see staged scenes of characters interacting and expect that they haven't been prepared in someway.

If the attempt of voiceover was to relate the disembodied voice to their job as call centre employees, it fails entirely when the stories sound as forced as their pitch lines. It comes across as an extremely boring narrative film, with no more verisimilitude than a zombie flick. Never for a second did I think that any of the shocking revelations (they all think they'll be rich someday! America's awesome and everyone who migrates there is a success!) actually came from the mind or experiences the film's "actors". If there's one saving grace, it is that at 83 minutes it was over reasonably quickly.

Myth
Directed by: Stanley Tong

Grade: C

Jackie Chan teams up with Tong for an epic spanning thousands of years. It's pretty, and some of the stunts are fun, but in this age of greenscreen and wire removal, let alone the repetition of certain key Chan "tricks", and you're left with a pretty mediocre flick. I can think of but one person stuck in Vancouver that might like a mix of Jackie Chan chop socky with a Raiders of the Lost Ark motif, but even he would think it's all just a bit old hat.