David Gessel
Into The Wild
Sean Penn’s Into the Wild is an excellent movie. It is the story of Christopher McCandless’ ill-fated coming of age journey. It was a story I followed as it was a news oddity about a kid who walked off into the Alaskan wilderness ill-prepared and died, and more fully explored (apparently) in Jon Krakauer’s book.
The movie showed a far more complex story of a young man who’s crisis of faith in the economic and political assumptions of suburban society drove him to seek a deeper meaning. Far from being ill-prepared he thrived for years in his adventures and met and influenced many people along the way, literally changing their lives by his own living example, apparently even more so than the movie had space to fully explain.
Emile Hirsch is really excellent as Alexander Supertramp, giving a believable and engaging performance all the way through. He is likable and compelling and goes through some pretty amazing physical changes during the course of his adventures.
Everything about the movie works, from the funny characters and light moments to the bitter and tragic end. The movie even succeeds as a nature film with extraordinary footage of the wild places he visited and particularly gorgeous footage of Alaska.
2007 Telluride Film Festival
Blind Mountain
Blind Mountain is a Chinese film about a college educated woman who is tricked into visiting a remote village on the pretense of looking for medicinal herbs and is instead sold into bondage as a slave-wife.
The film succeeds in sustaining a sense of danger and tension from the opening to the final frame, literally. The heroine is also well-treated, portrayed as respectable, strong, and intelligent she makes good and logical choices – that is despite the horror and tension of the situation, she is not reduced to being a horror movie victim. The film also explores the lack of overt malice and moral ambiguity of the captors, and makes a case for why previous victims might have chosen to accept their fate, adopting a tolerable life amidst the incredible beauty of the Western mountains of China.
2007 Telluride Film Festival
Great Expectations
Sunday morning we went to the Great Expectations short film series. This year they were all Mexican shorts.
- Fish Soup was fast and funny. A family gets visited by a bird.
- Distinguishing Features was a very sad short about a woman and her near-do-well son, and his disappearance.
- End of the Line was an interesting story about a romance on a bus line outside of Mexico City, but didn’t really pay off in the end.
- Coco Y Nico was a sort of avant guard animation/live action mix about a woman and her lover (who was animated scratchies). The technique was more interesting than the story.
- A Small Death was funny and a pleasure to watch. A boy steals a purse and ends up delivering a running commentary on the people around him and his life as he paid the price for doing so.
- If I Die Far From You was amazingly powerful for a short. It felt like a difficult (in a good way) feature and really stuck long after seeing it.
- Venus was a sort of odd short nominally from the perspective of a Virgin Mary Icon. It was a little slow….
- Ver Llover was a touching short about a young couple in love and growing out of their village. Funny and touching.
Carolyn found the funniest short, I’ve seen (possibly ever) and posted the YouTube link to Spider (2007).
https://vimeo.com/13070194
2007 Telluride Film Festival
The diving bell and the Butterfly
Julian Schanbel introduced the late showing of the film in his pajamas. He was funny and earnest and very open about the emotions behind the movie with respect to the death of his own father. The introduction set the tone for the movie which is similarly inspiring, honest, and deeply moving, though perhaps not quite as much so as he promised. It’s a wonderful story of courage and strength and inner resolve and tragedy. And moments of great levity. Mathieu Amalric is brilliant.
We had a bit of discussion about the translation of scaphandre to “diving bell,” it’s not quite apropos to the movie and is not the literal apparatus shown in the movie, but far more euphonious than “The Hardsuit and the Butterly”
2007 Telluride Film Festival
Die Falscher
The Counterfeiters tells the story of a Jewish counterfeiter who’s artistic skills protected him when he was arrested by the Nazis, and how he led a band of skilled printers protected under a Machiavellian Schindler-like SS officer as they embarked on the largest counterfeiting operation in history.
The movie was very well done, engaging, fun, with good acting and a very compelling story. The character conflicts seemed a bit rote and the character types played a little too close to standards, but overall a very worthwhile film to see and enjoyable.
2007 Telluride Film Festival
Persepolis
We saw this really amazing film by an Iranian film maker, based on the graphic novel Persepolis. The film was the best we’ve seen so far. I really wonderful relief from some fairly indulgent films. A tribute to Pierre Ressient that was technically rough and really only engaging for the extended family. More of a home movie tribute than a film, though Pierre himself is quite amazing and his nebulous yet defining influence on the film industry is astonishing.
We also saw Werner Herzog’s travelogue of his vacation to Antarctica as a resident artist at McMurdo, Encounters at the End of the World. He’s a brilliant enough that his travelogue is interesting, but primarily just beautiful and occasionally funny.
Persepolis is a brilliant film. The characters are engaging and fun and adorable; more compelling and human than any animated film I’ve seen, and more so than most live action films. The story is tragic and painful and challenging and yet very real and despite being a devastating critique of Muslim rule in Iran, and a painfully honest indictment of the Shah, of British meddling, of the US influence in the Iran/Iraq war, and a sharp social critique of expat life, it was intimately apolitical.
Marjane Satrapi spoke after the film and is as quick-witted and funny as her characters. She was an absolute delight to listen to.
2007 Telluride Film Festival
Cargo 200
I saw Cargo 200 tonight. My first full film (I had to leave the very first one, Shyam Benegal’s Trikal, for a call), and the second was a tribute to Daniel Day Lewis. As Mr. Lewis was being interviewed by someone who’s favorite film ever was The Unbearable Lightness of Being. He said he was miserable the whole time. She said, shocked, “but it doesn’t seem like it in the film.” To which he replied, “well, that is my job isn’t it?”
Cargo 200 is amazing. Intense doesn’t even begin to describe it. A young girl takes an ill-fated ride with a bad boy, and things go down hill from there… Really, really badly downhill. But not knowing how enhances the suspense. It is best not to know. You might wish you didn’t once you do.
The film was introduced with the caveat that it was called fascist and it was rejected from several festivals, including Cannes with the statement that it would never show in France. We’ll have to dig into that label a bit, it’s hard to see how it applies. It is certainly tortuous and violent, but hardly more so than Baise Moi and certainly not endorsing the action presented in the movie.
We also saw a short called “The Pearce Sisters” by Aardman animation. It was apropos to Cargo 200, but a lot funnier. More along the lines of Angry Kid than Wallace and Gromit. Not a Saturday morning sort of animation… But very funny in a black way.
2007 Telluride Film Festival
Greetings from Omaha
Fuel stop on the way to Telluride.
