2009 SIFF Films Already Seen
For my actual journal of the 124 films I watched at the 2009 Seattle International Film Festival click here.

AMERICAN PRIMITIVE (d. Gwen Wynne)
Two schoolage sisters move to Cape Cod in the 1970s with their British father after their mother has died.  Turns out that the father has finally come out to himself and formed a closeted partnership with a younger man building American primitive furniture.  This is the story of how the girls come to knowledge about their father (an unconvincing Tate Donovan whose British accent comes and goes).  The film is diverting as a teen girl's story...but I hated the sexual politics and especially the depiction of their high school seemed quite unrealistic for the 1970s in Massachusetts.  The predominately gay male audience seemed to like the film, however, so I may be off base here.  ** 1/2

BABY LOVE (Commes les autres) (d. Vincent Garenq)
One pair of a gay couple, a successful pediatrician played by French actor Lambert Wilson, wants a child.  His lawyer partner doesn't.  When Spanish illegal young woman (the radiant Pilar Lopez de Ayala) makes a deal to surrogate mother in return for marriage (and a resident visa), much bittersweet comedy ensues.  This is a pleasant enough, slickly produced French farce with a good emotional payoff (although it skirts for a while with some really terrible sexual politics, ultimately not going there, happily; and this was one film where the straight actors playing gay didn't totally convince.)   I didn't know that France prohibits gay couples from adopting...amazing how regressive this is.  ***

CAPTIVE (Plennyy)  (d. Aleksei Uchitel)
Two Russian army soldiers, survivors of a convoy ambushed by Chechen revolutionaries, take a captive Chechen boy as an uncooperative guide through the difficult mountainous terrain.  This is a gritty war film with high production values; but not a whole lot of plot.  ** 3/4

CHEF'S SPECIAL  (d. Nacho Velilla)
A glossy Spanish farce about a gay chef who, when his ex-wife dies, is forced to cope with raising two children that he had deserted years before.   The farce revolves around the chef's love affair with a closeted soccer player and the zany doings of the staff of his gourmet restaurant in his quest for a Michelin star.  I thought the film was particularly unfunny and unlikely...but from the audience reaction, I am  probably in a minority.  ** 1/4

THE COUNTRY TEACHER (d. Bohdan Sláma)
Sláma's previous film Something Like Happiness marked him in my mind as a director to watch.  He has surpassed that film here and made an important, humanistic film on a subject so taboo that it hardly has been covered in films.  The great Czech actor Pavel Liska plays an elementary school teacher who, when the film starts, has left his job teaching upper class kids in a posh Prague academy for a country school with no such aspirations.  We soon learn that the teacher probably left because of some hushed-up homosexual scandal at his previous school.  What follows is a character study of a fundamentally decent, but flawed human being whose urges lead him to fall in love with a straight teen-age boy (not one of his students), while he is emotionally involved with the boy's dairy farmer mother.  What makes the film great is that it doesn't judge the teacher...rather it's about repentance, acceptance and, above all, the wonderful mutability of the human condition.  The Q&A opened with an angry statement by a man offended by the tack the film takes towards its main character.  He then walked out in a huff when a lady's impassioned defense (to thunderous applause) of the film followed his hostile attack.  This is a film which obviously divides audiences; but I felt that it came closer to my concept of what a great gay film should be than any serious drama I've ever seen.  That makes two first class gay films at this festival (along with Patrik 1.5); my cup runneth over.  *** 3/4

 DEPARTURES (Okuribito)  (d. Yojiro Takita; Japan)
Two years in a row, the Japanese have sent wonderful, challenging films which arrive under the radar and absolutely amaze.  Masahiro Motoki is a revelation, playing a cellist in a Tokyo orchestra who returns to his home village when the orchestra folds.  He finds a job of low repute, but immense personal satisfaction as sort of a ritualized undertaker, lovingly preparing bodies for what his boss calls departures (not a travel agency as he originally expected when he answered the want-ad).  This is an exquisitely evocative film, one which illuminates   Japanese culture and aesthetics in an emotionally and intellectually satisfying way.  *** 3/4

 ELDORADO (d. Bouli Lanners; Belgium)
Two men meet cute when one of them is caught by the other robbing his apartment.  They set off on a road trip and meet all sorts of interesting types and adventures.  Some of this is laugh-out-loud humorous.  But the film also feels meandering and plotless:  as if Wendy and Lucy had been directed by Aki Kaurismäki.   The director was also the lead actor...and there is definitely a comic auteur feeling to the film.  ** 3/4
EVERY LITTLE STEP (d. James Stern & Adam Del Deo)
This is a superb meta-documentary (being a film about trying out for a revival of the musical "A Chorus Line", which in turn is about trying out for a musical). Unexpectedly it turns out riveting & emotional on its own merits, rivaling the original. *** 3/4

 FIFTY DEAD MEN WALKING (d. Kari Skogland)
This is a film about the North Ireland troubles in the late 1990s.  It features Jim Sturges (another hot actor to watch) as the real-life IRA mole secretly working for British intelligence and his British handler (another great performance by Ben Kingsley who seems to be in every other quality film this year).  I desperately needed English sub-titles to make sense of great portions of the dialog...but the action was clear.  The film had something of the same look and pacing of Greengrass's Bloody Sunday or Loach's Wind that Shakes the Barley; but it was a more polished and risky effort, making a hero out of a morally questionable character.  Mostly this was due to the casting of Sturges whose soulful eyes make plausible the success of his longtime treachery.   I found the politics to be hard to follow; and the film is probably too gory for some.  ***

FINAL ARRANGEMENTS (Bouquet final) (d Michel Delgado)
A young man defies his "starving artist" father and gives up the dream of being a musician in favor of taking a job at an American owned mortuary conglomerate and spending a month as an apprentice mortician.   Hmmmm.  Sounds a little like the Japanese film which just won the Oscar, Departures.   But this is a very different film:  a sitcom based on playing out an elaborate deception as the young man is ashamed of his new profession and tries to hide it from his family and girlfriend.  The film actually is fairly entertaining despite its French farce clichés.  A lot of that has to do with the actors...Marc-André Grondin (just mentioned above in The First Day...) winningly plays the young man;  and Gérard Depardieu is in good form playing his father.  But the film really belongs to Didier Bourdon, who plays an embittered funeral home director who reluctantly takes the young man as apprentice to teach him the ropes.  ** 3/4
 
FLAME & CITRON (Flammen & Citronen) (d. Ole Christian Madsen)
This is a convincing (based on true events) story of two fighters in the Danish resistance during the final year of WWII.  Thure Lindhart and Mads Mikkelsen (the former steely eyed killer, the latter haunted by family attachments) are great in these roles.  The film looks authentic for the period.  But, for all that it may show a relatively unfamiliar Danish perspective on the war, the film seems strongly reminiscent of other films, for instance the French film from earlier this year, Female Agents; and especially Verhoeven's Black Book, in other words it isn't particularly original.    ***

A FRENCH GIGOLO (Cliente) (d. Josiane Balasko)
This is a pleasant and diverting romantic comedy.  Nathalie Baye is wonderful here, playing a woman of a certain age, a home shopping television personality and confirmed relationship-phobe who prefers to pay for her male companionship without complications.  She hooks up with a married, part time gigolo (Eric Caravaca, better than I've ever seen him), who is plying the trade clandestinely to keeping his wife (Isabelle Carré in another fragile blonde role) in the dark, but needing money to support his beloved's struggling hairdressing business.   The director has a secondary role as Baye's sister who has entirely different romantic intentions.   Good fun, well written, and surprisingly involving.  *** 1/4

GARDEN, THE (d. Scott Hamilton Kennedy)
Excellent and involving documentary about a disputed parcel of land in South Central Los Angeles which the "people" want to make into an urban farm against the absentee owner's will.  It's a depiction of political dynamite. *** 1/2

THE GIRL FROM MONACO (La fille de Monaco) (d. Anne Fontaine)
Fontaine has made a typical piece of French fluff, a bloated romantic comedy about a Parisian lawyer defending a big murder case in Monaco.  His employer hires a bodyguard for his protection, as the murder victim was apparently part of the Russian mafia.  And in a convoluted plot contrivance the lawyer gets involved with this ditzy tv weathergirl who once was romantically involved with the bodyguard; and things spin out of control.  It's all a rather pointless farce which only works to any degree because of its gorgeous photography and setting, and assured performances by expert farceur Fabrice Luchini and striking (albeit annoying in this role) newcomer Louise Bourgoin as the eponymous girl.   This is a sellout to pure commercialism by the director. ** 1/4

THE HURT LOCKER (d. Kathryn Bigelow)
The Hurt Locker is the long awaited sequel to the HBO series Generation Kill.  What?  You weren't awaiting such a sequel?  Well, I was.  And Bigelow delivers the goods in spades.  This is the film which is going to be looked back on as the definitive Iraq occupation experience, at least until a little more time brings additional perspective.  It's done from the point of view of a single Humvee crew of bomb defusers.  If there is any audience at all left for Iraqi war films (and let's not pussyfoot around...this film is an uncompromising, gung-ho war film about an unpopular war), then this should be a hit; and it should also make a star at last of Jeremy Renner, who is nothing short of remarkable as the sergeant who has defused 870 bombs and is ready for more.  He's not crazy, just dedicated in a way beyond heroics.   I saw somebody rate the film a zero in the popular film ballot.  Why someone who would not appreciate this film would even program it at all is beyond me.  ****

IL DIVO  (d. Paolo Sorrentino)
Giulio Andreotti was a powerful, long lasting Italian politician.  This fascinating, if confusingly complex film is a uniquely stylized biopic of the man's later years comprising the height of his powers and his fall when he's on trial for conspiring with the Mafia.  The film has an incredibly amazing look to it.  The wide screen cinematography, the visual design, all are so incredibly vivid and unique as to almost carry the film.  The film also benefits from an astounding performance by Toni Servillo as Andreotti, who is portrayed as a modern Julius Caesar with a quiet, intense intellectuality and power belied by his small, hunchback stature.  Unfortunately, the film is also so steeped in unfamiliar (to this American) Italian politics as to be virtually unfollowable plotwise.  Still, the film's fascinating imagery is enough to carry its two hour length.  ** 3/4

 INJU, LA BÊTE DANS L'OMBRES (Inju, the Beast in the Shadow) (d. Barbet Schroeder)
Benoit Magimel was the draw here, plus Barbet Schroeder's films are usually worth watching.  This is an American style flick about a French horror/thriller genre author caught up in an intrigue concerning the identity of a fellow writer who is wildly successful in his home country of Japan despite, or maybe because of, a total anonymity of Salinger proportions.  Schroeder has gathered an interesting Japanese cast to surround the very French, very arrogant character that Magimel plays.  The technical elements are all first class...this looks like a high budget horror genre film.  But I thought there were numerous flaws in the narrative, unlikely psychology on the part of the main character.  However, Schroeder somehow manages to sustain interest by going just a little bit too far towards violence and kink...the sex scene involving Magimel's feet was particularly salacious and erotic (for me, at least.)  An honorable failure.   ** 3/4

IN YOUR ABSENCE (En tu aucencia)  (d. Iván Noel)
A 13 year old fatherless boy in rural Andalucia (a remarkable performance by Francisco Alfonsin, a real find) seeks to bond with a stranger from the city whose car has broken down.  Turns out the stranger has an unexpected motivation to befriend the boy.  The countryside and village life are beautifully brought to life by this first time  director, who makes the best of an obvious low budget.  The sexual undercurrents are unmistakable; and about 15 minutes before the end the film takes a dark turn which caused a visible exodus of part of the audience.  But all is not what it seems.  Even after all is explained, it was still pretty ambiguous.   ***

KABEI - THE MOTHER (d. Yôji Yamada)
I was incredibly impressed by Yamada's Twilight Samurai trilogy and was eager to see what the master could do with a more modern day tale.  Once again he impressed and moved me to tears with this story of a Japanese family caught in the political turmoil of pre-WWII times when the father is sent to prison for the "thought crime" of opposing the war in China and the mother must raise their two daughters in relative poverty.  Yamada is adept at gently and touchingly portraying Japanese manners and customs.  And in this film, which shows so clearly the Japanese mind set which led up to Pearl Harbor, has great resonance for an American audience today.  *** 3/4

 THE KARAMAZOVS (d. Petr Zelenka; Czech Republic)
A troupe of Czech actors rehearse a production of a play based on The Brothers Karamazov which is to be presented in a huge, almost abandoned steel mill as part of an international arts festival.  To be truthful, I have never read the Dostoevsky's novel and I found the play-within-the-film to be hard to follow.  But I also felt emotionally distanced from the accompanying story which involved the actors and the few remaining steelworkers who were audience to the rehearsal.  ** 1/2

 KHAMSA (d. Karim Dridi)
Khamsa is Arabic for five, a lucky number for Marco...11 1/2,  half gypsy, who wears a pendant with the Arabic sign for Khamsa which was his only memorial of his long dead mother.  Marco has been in the French equivalent to Borstal after burning out his step-mother's trailer; but he has escaped and returned to his alcoholic father's gypsy caravan where he joins his cousins and some towelhead Arab urchins in petty crime.  The film rambles through various crises...but the kid who plays Marco (Marc Cortez) has the innocent exterior and tough interior to carry the film.   Also, it seems to be a very accurate depiction of the Roma lifestyle in southern France...a tribute to the dedication of the filmmaker having immersed himself with the actual culture for a year and a half before starting the film.  ** 3/4

KISSES (d. Lance Daly)
A young boy and girl (ages around 11) run away from semi-abusive homes and wander in the big city for an exhilarating and sometimes terrifying night.  The two kids are brilliant naturals and the film is a pure delight.  I was especially impressed by the assured off-the-cuff appearing direction.   This is Ratcatcher with heart.  *** 1/2

 KRABAT (d. Marco Kreuzpaintner)
Kreuzpaintner may be the best unheralded director making films today.  I expect that to change sooner or later, his talent is so gigantic.  He reminds me of another German visionary wunderkind, Tom Tykwer, whose breakthrough film Lola Rennt, came in his early 30's.  This film is apparently adapted from an epic German saga for young adults.  It's a tale of a 17th century sorcerer who teaches black arts to 12 boy apprentices during the Thirty Years War.  As Kreuzpaintner imagines it, the film takes on much of the grand design of the Lord of the Rings series (though on a much smaller, intimate scale) mixed with the youthful affect of the Harry Potter series.   On a much lower budget, and with only one star (Daniel Brühl) and promising young actor David Kross in the title role, the director has created an amazingly effective  special effects world similar to and as strange and convincing as the ones that Tim Burton creates.  Only a rather sappy and predictable love story which fails to spark detracts from the film's triumph.  I hate to say this...but to reach its deserved North American audience this film needs to be skillfully dubbed into English and given a real release.  It could be a monster hit.  *** 1/2

MARCELLO MARCELLO (d. Denis Rabaglia)
This is a romantic comedy in the form of a fable, set in a small picturesque town on a fictitious island in Southern Italy.  The eponymous Marcello (Francesco Mistichelli, a young actor who is the spitting image of a young Alain Delon) is a poor fisherman's son who is in love with the mayor's daughter.  The town has a peculiar local pairing up custom that wrecks havoc with the young people of the town; and Marcello, clever kid that he is, sets out to subvert the custom.  This is a beautiful gem of a film which just may win the audience award (it's been a while since I've heard applause in the middle of a film at the culmination of a brilliantly played scene...in this film it occurred several times, and well deserved.) *** 3/4

MESRINE:  PUBLIC ENEMY NUMBER ONE (Part 1 & 2) (d. Jean-François Richet)
This is the based-on-a-true-story of French gangster and bank robber Jacques Mesrine told in two parts à la the recent Che.  Vincent Cassell is virtually flawless in this part, truly a titanic performance.  Mesrine was a fascinating baddie:  equal parts Clyde Barrow and John Dillinger, but also a man particularly adept at escaping from custody.  I think the first part is slightly better than the second, although Mathieu Amalric is quite extraordinary as a companion criminal in the second part.  Also notable was Ludivine Sagnier, sexier than ever, as Mesrine's girlfriend late in his career.  Part 1: *** 1/2    Part 2:  *** 1/4

THE NECESSITIES OF LIFE (Ce quíl faut pour vivre) (d. Benoit Pilon; Canada)
The year is 1952, the setting icebound Baffin Island where an Inuit (then called Eskimo) family reside in the traditional ways.  But the father has TB, and the Canadian authorities send him to a sanitarium in Quebec where he is isolated by language and fears for his family's survival without him.  This is the set-up for this remarkably well played film which has the ring of historical accuracy and packs an emotional wallop.  Special note must be made for the wonderfully restrained performances of the Inuit man, Natar Ungalaaq and the teenage actor Paul André Brasseur who plays a young, bilingual, Inuit orphan boy, also ill, who befriends the man and helps him communicate.   I loved this quietly powerful film.  *** 1/2

OPIUM WAR (d. Siddiq Barmak; Afghanistan)
The Afghani film is about two American soldiers, survivors of a helicopter crash in a desolate area, who interact with an extended family of opium farmers who live in a deserted Russian tank.  The film suffered from two major deficits:  it seemed like over half of the film was in English (which would disqualify it from the competition), and badly written dialog at that; and the middle two thirds of the film lacked subtitles, which destroyed any narrative cohesion and vitiated the point of the film.  On the other hand, the bleak terrain and beautiful cinematography, combined with an inherently involving story (at least what I was able to glean despite the lack of subtitles) added up to a sorrowfully missed opportunity.  * 3/4

OUR BELOVED MONTH OF AUGUST (d. Miguel Gomes; Portugal)
I'm not sure what this film is all about...is it a documentary about small town Portuguese life centered around summer music events?  Or is it a mockumentary about a film crew making a documentary about these summer music events.  In any case, I couldn't manage to become engaged with the film, and for one of the rare times, I decided to leave early and abstain from ranking the film.   W/O

THE PARANOIDS (Los Paranoicos)  (d. Gabriel Medina)
Daniel Hendler is the draw here.  He is playing Luciano, a slacker type 30-something aspiring screen writer in present day Buenos Aires.  It's a role that Jeremy Davies could play in the American remake.  The film is ostensibly a romantic comedy...but Luciano is so antic and off-the-wall, that he's hard to relate to as a romantic hero.  His best friend from school has gone to Spain and based the hapless main character in a successful television comedy called "The Paranoids" on him.  Hendler carries the film, which overstays its slender premise.  He's in virtually every scene, and his performance is like an exposed nerve, edgy and electrifying.  ** 3/4

 PATRIK, AGE 1.5 (d. Ella Lemhagen)
Perhaps the best gay themed film I've seen in years.  Gören and Sven are a gay married couple, newly moved into a suburban home and qualified to adopt a kid.  Their application comes through for a 1.5 year old boy named Patrik; but there was a little misprint, and when troubled and homophobic 15 year old Patrik shows up at their door, they're convinced that it is a mistake.  The film is blessed with two outstanding performances which amaze:  Gustaf Skarsgard (2nd son of Stellan and whose older brother Alexander just made such an impact in the HBO series "Generation Kill") as the nurturing partner and Thomas Ljungman as the boy.   The film plays with the conventions of the romantic comedy with a gay twist.  It also presents its suburban milieu as a satire of normalcy, all vivid hues and exaggerated undercurrents of scandal.  A pure entertainment and a trenchant satire to boot:  a must-see for all future gay festivals and possibly a true breakout film destined for rare commercial success.  *** 1/2

SNOW (Snijeg) (d. Aida Begic; Bosnia)
This lovely and life affirming film takes place in a small Bosnian village in 1997, populated by women and girls who are struggling to survive by producing food products like plum jams which don't seem to have a viable market.  There are no men since all the men and boys of the village had been taken away by the Serbs in the war and executed.  This is yet another powerful and emotionally involving film about victims rising above their misery.  ***

 SOUNDS LIKE TEEN SPIRIT: A POPUMENTARY (d. Jamie Jay Johnson)
This is a wonderfully edited documentary about the Eurovision junior singing competition which attracts a huge television audience in Europe and has cultural import (at least according to the film) which transcends entertainment.  The director chose a few contestants to follow, and he chose interesting (even fascinating) types.  You have to be lucky to pick winners in a film like this; but even more important you have to be a fine judge of human interest to get it down on film to begin with.  Johnson succeeds beyond expectations, especially with his choice of the 10 year old boy who was Cyprus' entry along with his precocious younger sister.   Even though I might quibble with some of his extraneous choices (for instance using an opera aria over a key montage), overall I think he did an outstanding job of presenting the feeling and excitement of the pageant.  This is a big audience pleaser and a nice way to end a mostly dismal day of films at this festival.  *** 1/2

SUMMER HOURS (L'heure d'été)  (d. Olivier Assayas)
Assayas is in reflective, family mode here:  somewhat in the style of Les destinées sentimental, only with current day relevance.  Charles Berling, Jérémie Renier and Juliette Binoche are three siblings whose elderly mother is holding the flame of rememberance for her uncle, a famed but fading impressionist painter.  This more or less functional family meets every summer at the mother's country villa, a beautiful house filled with lovely (and expensive) collectables.  On the surface, it's all about inheritance.  But what distinguishes this film is the feeling of the appreciation for beauty and artistry.  Frankly, I was enchanted by this film.  Like Breitman's  The Man of My Life it weaves a tapistry which expresses the French appreciation of life through the beauty of the land and objects.  It also is a story of generations, how modern life is changing the French sensibility.  This is my favorite film by this masterful director.  *** 3/4

TERRIBLY HAPPY (d. Henrik Ruben Genz)
The title is ironic, as very little happiness occurs in the weird Jutland (apparently the underbelly of Denmark) village where our newly appointed local policeman has to deal with the town and its wayward inhabitants.  This is a subdued thriller quite reminiscent of a Coen Brothers film, drenched throughout with irony far more pressing than the mere title.  But I never fully accepted the reality of the film, even though the opening title claims that the film was based on an actual story.  ** 3/4

 THREE BLIND MICE (d. Matthew Newton)
Newton wrote, directed and played one of the lead actors in this dramedy about three Australian sailors on the last evening of leave before they must ship out again to service in the Persian Gulf.   The evening bursts with action:  picking up girls, a card game, dinner with future in-laws, second thoughts about desertion, prostitutes, fights, pratfalls, falling in love.   It's almost too rich in plot; and it doesn't help that much of it is shot in extreme close ups which tended to be disorienting on the big screen.  Still, the film had energy to spare, excellent acting, and a script which develops nicely as a character study of young men pushed to extremes.    ***

 TULPAN (d. Sergei Dvortsevoy; Kazakhstan)
This film is strongly reminiscent of another Oscar nominee of a few years ago, The Weeping Camel.  Only it takes place on the treeless steppes of Kazakhstan, instead of the similar terrain of Mongolia.  Like the previous film, it is the story of an isolated family of herdsmen, in this case of sheep being raised in an overgrazed environment.  The large, adorable family, mostly kids, live in a yurt; and the eldest boy must find a wife from the depleted neighboring stock of available young girls or move away from his agrarian dream to the big city.  Tulpan is the only available local girl and she resists his suit.  The film delves deeply into the lives of these herdsmen and brings their lifestyle and the rustic beauty of their environment to rich life.  *** 1/4

VOY A EXPLOTAR (I'm Going to Explode) (d. Gerardo Naranjo)
A troubled teenage boy, son of privilege in Mexico, convinces a teenage girl to run away with him (to his parent's rooftop, not all that far), which starts this disturbing and ultimately disappointing film.  Like the director's previous, and superior film, Drama/Mex the kids are convincing teenagers.  But unlike that film, this one devolves into shallow melodrama which feels both contrived as Romeo & Juliet and just as unrealistic.  ** 3/4

WELCOME (d. Philippe Lioret)
A superb issue oriented, emotionally devastating drama about a young Kurdish man determined to smuggle himself into Britain from the immigrant ghetto on the French shore near Calais.  Vincent London is about as good as he's ever been as the Frenchman swimming instructor who becomes involved in the boy's quest despite the French government's Draconian measures to isolate these illegals and prosecute the French people who are sympathetic to their cause.  Watch for actor Firat Ayverdi as the young Kurd, whose innocence, believability and simpatico are off the charts.   *** 3/4

WHITE NIGHT WEDDING (Brúdguminn) (d. Baltasar Kormákur)
Kormákur is in a playful mode in this comedy about a small Icelandic village and the native son, a college professor, who returns depressed from the city and his disastrous first marriage to the town only to become the obsession of a much younger woman determined to save him by marrying him.  The film has its amusements, especially in limning the quirky villagers.  The professor is played by an actor I admire greatly, Hilmir Snaer Gudnason, so remarkable in Peas at 5:30.   But this film dissolves into farce; and it just missed the mark for me.  ** 3/4

Wild Bees  (dir:  Bohdan Slama.  Czech Republic) (SIFF 2002)
This Czech film falls in the earthy small town comedy genre, with lots of interactions between a diverse set of characters including one fellow with a huge Michael Jackson hangup (who actually does a pretty fair imitation...but, why bother?)  It centers on two brothers and their search for love and/or sex.  Sort of pointless and aimless; but like many Czech films of this type, an amiable and fun experience to watch.  ** 3/4

WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM MYSELF (Aide-toi, et le Ciel t'aidera) (François Dupeyron)
This is a strange, but ingratiating film about a poor black family living on the dole in the Paris suburban ghetto.  It's a social commentary film (the mother, who works as a caretaker for the elderly,  is determined to better her family's lot despite her abusive husband and troubled children) and also a black comedy involving dead bodies buried in the basement.  The characters are all convincingly real...the neighbor, a randy, slightly creepy old man, is an especially interesting invention.  It all works a lot better than I would have expected.  *** 1/4

 ZIFT (d. Vladislav Todorov; Bulgaria)
Zift is defined at the beginning of this film as a tar like substance used as chewing gum, and colloquially:  shit.   The film lives up to both meanings of its title.   Basically this is a beautifully shot (in wide screen black & white), gritty story of a tough guy serving a term in a Bulgarian prison for a murder that he didn't commit in the early Communist era post-WWII.  When he is finally released in the '60s, he becomes embroiled in an intrigue over a diamond stolen or lost in the robbery which sent our protagonist to prison.  The film plays like HBO's Oz, with vivid torture and revenge sequences.  In other words, tough to watch, but fascinating and well played.  ***

Return to my 2009 SIFF Journal.