SIFF Update #1--plus some video suggestions

5/26/08

Four days down, 21 to go.

TVOR liked most of what she saw the first few days of SIFF 2008.

She enjoyed the Russian film Mermaid (but don't go in thinking it's all that Amelie-like, no matter what you hear).

She also liked The Pope's Toilet (maybe the best title in the fest), the story of a poor Uruguayan village's attempt to profit from the visit of the pope.

Ballast, an American indie, is another winner, about the aftermath of a suicide.

Boy A is an excellent film from the U.K. about a juvenile offender after his release from prison.

In Elegy, Ben Kingsley is very good as a man resisting falling in love. Dennis Hopper plays his friend, and it's nice to see him playing a character that's not a psycho.

And Up the Yangtze is a fascinating, sort of sad, sort of horrifying, sort of amazing documentary about the effects of the Three Gorges dam on the people who live in the area. The director described it as Love Boat meets Apocalypse Now. Now that's a snappy tag line.

She was less impressed with The Last Mistress by the French director Catherine Breillat, the queen of graphic sex and dysfunctional love. The Last Mistress is a period piece, with great costumes, less sex, and all of the dysfunction we have come to expect.

Transsiberian was a waste of talent and interesting locations, with unbelievably stupid characters. Don't be lured by the cast.

Video Notes:

For those not in film festival mode right now, here are some films from recent months now available on video. TVOR thought these were all worth checking out, and she blogged about them on the dates shown.

4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (2/15/08)
Caramel (2/2/08)
Starting Out in the Evening (1/5/08)
King Corn (2/20/08)
There Will Be Blood (1/20/08)
Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (1/5/08)
Charlie Wilson's War (12/20/07)
Juno (1/8/08)

Also check out My Life Without Me, an earlier film by Isabel Coixet, the director of Elegy. Sarah Polley plays a young mother with terminal cancer, a subject that may make you want to run screaming from the room. Don't--the film is very nicely done.