2018 SEATTLE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL REVIEWS

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All films rated on a 5-star (best) scale

Unfortunately this nagging chest cold means I'm going to have to skip the final four days of the festival and start my drive back to L.A. too early.  It's been a blast; and I'll be back sometime in the future to this wonderful, exhausting, exhilarating film festival we call SIFF! 

Wednesday, 6/6  Festival day 21
Final two reviews to be completed ASAP.

TYREL  (2018  d. Sebastian Silva)  ***

EIGHT HOURS DON'T MAKE A DAY (5)  (2018,  d. Rainer Werner Fassbinder)  (episode ****  series **** 1/2)


Tuesday 6/5  Festival day 20  (Still not 100% healthy; but soldiering on since I suspect it is allergies.)
MY BIG ITALIAN GAY WEDDING  (2018,  d. Marcelo Martinessi) ***
No surprises here...the film's title says it all. Antonio and Paolo are living comfortably gay lives in Berlin when they decide to get married at Antonio's ancient Italian hilltop village Civita di Bagnoregio, where his father is mayor. Much angst and merriment ensue. But while entertaining, the film just touches the surface of relationships and sexual politics in Italy. It does suddenly end in a musical number which seems rushed and gratuitous, but has all of the visual campiness that the rest of the film lacked.

McQUEEN  (2108,  d. Ian Bonhote, Peter Ettedgui)  *****
Alexander McQueen (Lee to family and friends) was an English fashion icon, designer and international luminary of the 1990s through 2010, when he hung himself at the peak of his fame and success [note: it did seem an odd and troubling coincidence to watch this film the same day that fashion icon Kate Spade reportedly hung herself in New York.]

I was enthralled by this documentary, which covered his life through interviews, photos and videos. But what the film made abundantly clear was that McQueen was a fabulous talent, a troubled, workaholic genius, who traveled the path from skilled tailoring apprentice to world-class couturier in Paris and London. I was astounded by the video recordings of his fashion shows and the inventiveness and sheer brilliance of his often transgressive designs. However, through superb editing and sensitive interviews with family, colleagues and friends, the film also managed to personalize our perception of this shy, pudgy boy-man who could not manage to survive a single day after the death of his mother. That achievement, transporting this viewer into really caring for the artist and man, was worthy of 5-stars for me.

THE POET AND THE BOY  (2018,  d. Yang-hee Kim)  *** 1/2
Thirty-something Korean poet Hyon (pudgy actor Yang Ik-June), is listlessly going through life writing poems and resisting his wife's obstinate requests to inseminate her. In the course of this off-center romantic dramedy, Hyon becomes fixated on a beautiful teenage boy who works at a new doughnut shop near his home. It may be a sexual attraction; but Hyon is too shy to go there. The film reminded me in some ways of Thomas Mann's "Death in Venice" (without the death, of course.) Youthful actor Ga-ram Jung played the "boy" with a naive canniness that was particularly attractive. The film is frustratingly slow to get anywhere; and I'm not a particular fan of Korean poetry (of which there is a lot quoted in dialogue). However, it played as particularly true-to-life for me and I definitely could relate to the characters.
Monday 6/4 Festival day 19
I'm feeling a little better, maybe I've fought off the cold.  Nevertheless I'm going to take the day off to rest and recuperate.

Sunday 6/3  Festival day 18
SECRET FESTIVAL #3  *** 1/2
A successful restoration of a classic that I'd already seen.  Still, worth watching again.

CRIMES OF MONSIEUR LANGE, THE  (2018,  d. Jean Renoir)  ***

This B&W dramedy was made in 1936 by the great director Jean Renoir.  It has been restored with pristine visuals; but the sound track remains somewhat tinny and distorted.  The story of a justified homicide by an aggrieved author who was ripped off by an evil, dishonest publisher is told in an extended flashback.  The film showed flashes of the genius of later Renoir films...but, perhaps because I was tired and feeling the onset of a cold, I couldn't get engaged with the story or characters. 

I've been feeling fatigue and the possible onset of a cold; so I took the rest of the day off.

Saturday 6/2  Festival day 17
A ROUGH DRAFT  (2018,  d. Sergey Mokritskiy)  ***
This is a complex, Russian sci-fi thriller adapted from a novel by the same author who created the Night Watch/Day Watch universe. Thus you know right off the bat that it is going to be challenging to watch. It's the story of a video game creator who is somehow trapped in a multiverse where he is the gatekeeper between dimensions reached by going through doors in a mysteriously constructed cylindrical building. It's as if he's trapped in one of his own games, only it is a rough draft of his creation badly in need of a rewrite. I didn't enjoy the film...the twists and turns of the plot defied coherence. But the special f/x were spectacular and original enough to merit a watch. However, the unresolved ending left the film open to a necessary sequel which, frankly, I have little desire to watch (unlike Day Watch which was an improvement over the first film.) All I can add is that director Sergey Mokritskiy seemed to be less in control of the action than his predecessor at the Russian sci-fi game, Timur Bekmambetov (whom I consider to be a genius.)

LEMONADE  (2018,  d. Ioana Uricaru) ****
Mara (Malina Manovici) is an attractive 30-something Romanian woman, a rehabilitation nurse trying to obtain her U.S. Green Card. She has outstayed her visa; but has recently married an American man whom she has been helping recover from a work accident. At the start of this involving drama, her 10-year old son Dragos has arrived from Romania...and Mara and her husband are in the midst of interviews with a corrupt naturalization agent. At this point everything including the kitchen sink falls on poor Mara and Dragos. The film is wonderfully written and acted; but maybe goes a tad too far for comfort in portraying its all-too realistic and tragic story of today's immigration process and the possible abuses of power that can occur.

SCOTCH - A GOLDEN DREAM  (2018,  d.  Andrew Peat) ** 1/2
A competent, polished, but for me somewhat boring, documentary to sell the idea of scotch whisky, from the entire process of manufacture to the story of Master blender Jim McEwan and his family and various single malt distilleries in the Hebrides islands northwest of Scotland. 

NEVER STEADY, NEVER STILL  (2018,  d. Kathleen Hepburn)  *** 1/2
Shirley Henderson is nothing short of astounding playing Judy, suddenly widowed mother of a shy, sexually confused 19-year old son (Théodore Pellerin). Judy is suffering from advanced Parkinson's (never steady, never still...the mark of the disease). The family lives in a particularly isolated and desolate part of the inner channel north of Vancouver, B.C. This is a shatteringly dismal slice-of-life drama as the mother and son cope with adversity. But it is so well acted, so true-to-life, that for all the despair, the film somehow became a triumph of the human spirit, albeit a distressing one. Director Kathleen Hepburn expanded this story from a short film. She shot it in 2-perf 35mm film; and the wide screen vistas are striking. I couldn't help admiring the film making even as I left the theater depressed.
Friday 6/1  Festival day 16
QUEERAMA  (2018,  d. Daisy Asquith)  *** 1/2
This is a compilation documentary made up of scenes from a century of British movies depicting LGBTQ characters and lifestyle. These cleverly edited scenes were mixed in with old B&W documentary interviews about gayness from various sources. It's all cut together with a marvelous musical track of songs with gay subtexts by Hercules & Love Affair, Goldfrapp, and primarily John Grant. I did miss that scenes from the seminal British TV series "Queer as Folk" were absent; but I suppose it was difficult enough to get the rights to use as many sources as the film makers managed to find and use. The film is entertaining; but not particularly profound. However it is a useful reference...presenting a valid history of the advancements in gay rights in Britain which will undoubtedly be a treasure trove for future film historians.

A MOMENT IN THE REEDS  (2018,  d. Mikko Makela)  *****
Leevi (portrayed by handsome blond actor Janne Puustinen) is a Finnish 20-something man studying literature afar in Paris. He's returned home to help his widower father (Miko Melender) remodel for sale their old summer vacation home, situated on a lake in a pristine forest. The father hires a Syrian refugee, Tareq, an architect in his country, but now making a living as a handy-man. Tareq was played with compassion and intelligence by actor Boodi Kabbani. When dad leaves to tend to his failing business, the two young men work together, enjoy saunas, swimming, boating and incidentally, eventually start a beautifully authentic love affair. This is the set-up for one of the most profoundly touching contemporary gay films I've ever watched. I was reminded of the 2011 masterpiece, Andrew Haigh's Weekend...another film which examined in depth a short-term but authentic in every way (including artistically realistic sex scenes) gay encounter. But this film contained, in addition, an examination of the problems of being a political refugee in Europe, and even more being a gay one estranged from one's endangered family back home. This provides substance above and beyond the typical gay film, which may explain why I'm giving it my rarest of 5-star ratings. I was profoundly moved, titillated and educated all at once.

AMATEURS  (2018,  d.  Gabriela  Pichler)
** 1/2
The fictional Swedish town of Lafors has seen better days, as its once prosperous industries failed and populous left.  When a German conglomerate indicates that Lafors is in the running to house their new expansion project which will add many hundreds of new jobs, the town council at first enlists school children to make a PR film with their smartphones touting their town and region.  Two mischievous girls, Aida and Dana take charge...and proceed to make a truthful, amateur video which perhaps is too true to real life for the original purpose.  There is humor and originality here; but the film goes on too long and takes too many meandering trips into the trivialities of town life before the payoff of the final screening of the scandalous finished project.

PIG  (2018,  d. Mani Haghighi)  *** 1/2
This visually dazzling and politically dangerous Iranian film tells the story of a banned film director who is being stalked by one woman, in love with another...all while a serial killer is busy beheading a series of other film directors and etching "pig" on their foreheads in their own blood. If that sounds zany, well, it sort of is; but the film manages to have a coherent script and an incredible central performance by Hasan Kasmai, whose character Hassan is jealous that all these other directors got to be murdered, and why not him? Occasionally laugh-out-loud funny (actually the most laughs in a full theater than I've heard in a long while), always outrageous, even maybe a little too frenzied, this is an Iranian film that breaks the mold!
Thursday 5/31  Festival day 15
NAPLES IN VEILS  (2018,  d. Ferzan Ozpetek)  *** 1/2
A difficult film from one of my favorite directors.  I'll try to express my opinion in a later review.

DOUBTFUL  (2018,  d. Eliran Elia)  ***
In this occasionally illuminating Israeli film, Assi (Ran Danker) is a film-maker who is serving community service time for some infraction by holding group therapy sessions for a number of Israeli juvenile delinquents.  Among the group is a particularly troubled youth, Eden (an impressive performance by novice actor Adar Hazazi Gersch).  The two somewhat bond as mentor and mentee; but the pathway to salvation is hard for
both characters and just as distressing for the audience to watch.

C'EST LA VIE!  (2018,  d.  Olivier Nakache, Eric Teledana) ** 1/2
A frazzled wedding planner (Jean-Pierre Bacri) gathers an assortment of vivid characters to help run a huge party celebrating the marriage of a hopelessly crass and parvenu groom client. The film is structured as a French farce; but it is only occasionally amusing and mostly exhaustingly lengthy with maybe three endings too many. Still the production was impressive, with a large cast of fine French actors and striking cinematography.

1985  (2018,  d. Yen Tan)  **** 1/2
1985 was the year when AIDS finally entered the general consciousness as a hopeless, always fatal "gay" disease (it was the year Rock Hudson died.) This heartbreakingly truthful American indie film recounts the story of one conservative Christian, Texan family, whose closeted and dying elder son, Adrian, has returned for Christmas from self-imposed exile in New York City. Shot on 16mm film in artfully obscure B&W, this is about as realistic a depiction of the corrosive effects of the homophobia, secrets and fears of the era that we've seen yet. Kudos to director Yen Tan for his sensitive, somehow hopeful script and casting: Cory Michael Smith as the gay son, Michael Chiklis and Virginia Madsen as sympathetic, if willfully ignorant parents, and Aidan Langford as Adrian's artistic, much younger brother. I was impressed by how positive and hopeful this tragic story made me feel through the flow of my tears.

MUTAFUKAZ  (2018,  d.  Shdjird Nishimi, Guillaume Renard)
  ***
This is a mostly incoherent, but visually striking, animated sci-fi, dystopian, gang banging, alien invasion film. It takes place in a fictional Dark Meat City, which looks a lot like a dilapidated future Los Angeles. It features a runt of a pizza delivery boy hero and various other apparitions. All the signage and visual cues are in English; but the version watched had only French dialogue with subtitles. And the vocal acting wasn't even that good. This is one case where quality dubbing of the dialogue into English would have been fitting with the material and improved the experience (for anglophone audiences, anyway) immensely. It would have been worth it, since the dazzling animation visuals and amusing hip-hop sensibility were almost enough to turn the film into a real winner
Wednesday 5/30  Festival day 14
NUMBER ONE  (2018,  d. Tanie Marshall)  ****
In this timely, feminist thriller, Emmanuelle Devos is Emmanuelle Blachey, a tough business woman who is in a fight with the entrenched male hierarchy to become the first woman CEO of a French top 40 company. She is a wife and mother; but also an effective fighter in the industrial trenches of smears and rivalries. This is an intelligent film, with an unpredictable script that examines the rarefied and misogynistic world of the upper echelons, where even the French language, with its separate masculine and feminine genders for everything, tends to discriminate against women in business. Director Tonie Marshall provided the film with a rich gloss of production design, and effectively realistic casting, especially Devos, who is totally convincing in portraying both sides of her character's persona.

EIGHT HOURS DON'T MAKE A DAY (3)  
(2018,  d. Rainer Werner Fassbinder)  *** 1/2
Continuing the early-1970s German family sitcom from the great Fassbinder, this episode concentrates on the working class son and his mates at the metalworking company.  Personally, I prefer the episodes which concentrate on the main family, especially the dotty, but canny grandmother, to the goings-on in the factory.  But, as usual with this series, the sharp writing and amazingly topical situations make for involving viewing.

EIGHT HOURS DON'T MAKE A DAY (4)  (2018,  d. Rainer Werner Fassbinder)
  **** 1/2
The fourth 90-minute episode concentrates on the central family:  the 40ish son decides to marry his girlfriend, while his sister's marriage is on the rocks.  The episode ends with a revealing drunken post-wedding party that is a wonderful example of Fassbinder's talent for constantly moving the camera from revealing close-up to close-up.  4/5 of the way through this series, it is clear that this is a seminal sitcom that could have been a roaring success even on American television.

Tuesday 5/29  Festival day 13
THE LONG DUMB ROAD  (2018,  d. Hannah Fidell)  *** 1/2
Nathan (another ingratiating performance by Tony Rivolori) is 19-years old and on his way by car from his family home in Austin to attend art school in L.A. After his car breaks down, he reluctantly picks up a scruffy, just fired, auto mechanic hitchhiker, Richard (Jason Mantzoukas ), who fixes the loose hose and off they go. They get as far as New Mexico when the predictable disasters start to occur. This is a fun road-trip movie, with nice scenery and well portrayed characters. But I could see the disaster coming from the start, as Nathan was sympathetically naive, and Richard most clearly shady. Still, this off-center buddy film worked for me.

THE REPORTS ON SARAH AND SALEEM  (2018,  d. Muayad Alayan)  ****
In this riviting, revealing, contemporary Palestinian film Sarah, an Israeli woman married to an army colonel, has a sexual affair with Saleem, a married Palestinian delivery man whose wife is in late term pregnancy. All parties become enmeshed in a political drama of scandal leading to unavoidable security apparatus involvement. As inevitable as night following day, events spin out of control. However, the characters are so true-to-life and the politics so convincingly complex, yet understandable and probably unavoidable, that the film just has the ring of tragic truth.

LOTS OF KIDS, A MONKEY AND A CASTLE  (2018,  d. Gustavo Salmeron) **
This documentary is basically one, long, often amusing home movie about a voluble, rich old lady and her extended family. Septuagenarian Julia Salmeron never stops talking about her life of progeny and her prodigious pack-rat accumulation of things, including a castle full of antiquities. The film's arc is one of upper-middle class upbringing to riches to (almost) rags after the fortune is lost in the bank crisis of 2008. The film was produced by the family itself, directed with love by Julia's son, Gustavo. But the subject matter never quite justified the amount of time I spent with this family watching their lives on film.

GOING WEST  (2018,  d. Henrick Martin Daslsbakken)
  *** 1/2
Kaspar (cute actor, Benjamin Helstad) is a recently unemployed elementary school music teacher. His father, Georg (a spirited performance by Ingar Helge Gimle) is a cross-dressing recent widower, gone to seed in his mourning for his seamstress wife. Together the two set off through the Norwegian countryside in the father's motorcycle and sidecar to attend a quilting bee on a remote island, bringing the late matriarch's last quilt to be judged. That's the start of a heartening, well observed road trip where father and son bond, and try to heal from their loss. The various characters met on the road are well written; and the film gets to its predictable ok ending with some very inventively written episodes on the way.
Monday 5/28  Festival day 12
THE BLEEDING EDGE  (2018,  d. Kirby Dick)  ***
This documentary illustrates in furious detail the sins of the medical equipment industry in the U.S., companies and devices that are much more un-regulated by the FDA than big pharma drugs (and unlikely to become more adequately regulated under the current administration.) The film indicts such devices as metal joints which cause cobalt poisoning, and radiation overdoses from CT scans. But the film concentrates on two disastrously harmful female reproductive devices: Essure sterilization coils along with contraceptive meshes. This is an example of a pro-active documentary that has an important message, but delivers it at such length and repetition that it threatens to becomes boring from too much information.

BLOODY MILK  (2018,  d. Hubert Charuel)  *** 1/2
Pierre (an intense performance by Swann Arlaud) is a 30-something French dairy farmer, who is single handedly running the family enterprise, with occasional help from his veterinarian sister (Sara Giraudeau). When one of his cows contracts a bovine hemorrhagic disease which is sweeping through European herds, he attempts to save his charges from official mass euthanasia by hiding evidence of the infection. This is an often fascinating look at the processes of dairy farming, and a cautionary tale of the dangers and consequences of modern day husbandry.

VIRUS TROPICAL  (2018,  d. Santiago Caicedo)  ***
This is a rather mundane telling of a modern day Ecuadorian family's story from the youngest (of three) daughter's point of view. The film was adapted from an autobiographical graphic novel, and was presented in simplistic and uniquely artistic B&W animation along with a series of catchy songs which fell short of making this a musical, but still worked to advance the story. . The family saga didn't much interest me; but the unique animation technique and vocal talent were of a high quality...which made the banal plot easier to enjoy.

MOBILE HOMES  (2018,  d. Vladimir de Fontenay)
  ****
Ali (an intense, if unsympathetic performance by Imogene Poots) was a young, irresponsible mother of an 8-year old irrepressible boy (a strong debut from age-appropriate Frank Oulton). They are traveling along the Canadian-U.S. border from motel to motel with attractive, petty criminal boyfriend Evan (Calum Turner), scrounging a tawdry existence to make enough money to afford a mobile home of their own. However, fate and bad fortune intervene. This is a fine example of a film with characters that are mostly repugnant...but one becomes intensely involved with them anyway out of empathy and sympathy. This isn't an easy trick to pull off; but director Vladimir de Fontenay managed to do it with excellent casting and a knack for presenting propulsive action on screen that was viscerally affecting.

Sunday 5/27  Festival day 11
SECRET FESTIVAL #2  *** 1/2
A true audience film, well received by the audience here; but reminiscent of similar films from the same country. 

NEW TURN  (2018,  d. Doris Wong)  ***
This is a somewhat touching road-trip film: four strangers touring Taiwan by bicycle in search of something missing from their lives. Leading the searchers was A-Lan, who sets out from Hong Kong to find her heretofore unknown identical twin living somewhere in Taiwan. Both twins were played by actress Cherry Ngan, in a nifty job of acting and special effects. Another searcher was Zhenting (played by attractive actor Ting-hu Zhang), who blamed himself for the death of his older brother and was searching for expiation. The film mixed romance, slapstick, sentimentality and tragedy into a frothy travelogue. I enjoyed it; but it was mostly empty calories.

FALLING  (2018,  d. Marina Stepanska) ****
This is a bittersweet love story from present day Ukraine. Anton (a charismatic debut performance by Andriy Seletskiy) was a talented musician, recently released from rehab for various addictions. He's living with his elderly grandfather in the forests outside Kiev when he meets and falls for Katya (beautiful actress Dasha Plahtiy), who is in an unsatisfying relationship with a German man. These are sympathetic, if flawed, characters that I could relate to and hope the best for. But first-time director Marina Stepanska had a darker fate for them, one that affected me deeply. This isn't a feel-good love story, quite the opposite. But it was well enough portrayed to be worth watching.
Saturday 5/26  Festival day 10
LOVE GILDA  (2018,  d. Lisa D'Apolito)  **** 1/2
Who doesn't love Gilda Radner? Certainly nothing in this documentary is less than lovable. She was funny, amazingly human for a celebrity (watch the film if you don't believe that), and tragically died too young of recurring ovarian cancer. For my money it's hard for a celebrity bio-doc to deserve 5-stars, there's just so much importance that can attach to one life. But at a film festival so far that has (for me at least) been filled with serious dramas and cautionary documentaries, it's great to actually laugh continuously along with an audience (until the tears of mourning this fragile comic genius inevitably arrive.)

THE PLACE  (2018,  d. Paolo Genovese)  ***
In this Italian puzzle of a film, a mysterious man sits for the entire film at the same table in a diner called "The Place." He ceaselessly holds court as ten people arrive in turn at his table to request a wish to be granted and to be given a task to fulfill in order to have the wish come true. Gradually it becomes clear that the requests and off-screen tasks are somehow interconnected between the characters. It's a clever bit of circular plotting; but the pace of the film was so languid and static that my attention wandered at times. Still, the fine cast and the enigmatic premise (who is this mystery manipulator...maybe the devil?) held my interest.
Friday, 5/25  Festival day 9
SUMMER 1993  (2018, d. Carla Simón) *** 1/2
Two seconds into the opening shot of this Spanish language festival film I realized that I had already watched it months before and hadn't remembered the title...senior moment in action. Still, it was a refreshing, sun-shiny break in a series of dismal dramas: the story of a mischievous 8-year old girl whose parents had both died of AIDS, now being raised by her compassionate aunt and uncle, who also are raising an impressionable younger little girl. For all the tragic circumstances, this is a feel-good film which edifies the human condition.

THE THIRD MURDER  (2018,  d. Hirokazu Kore-eda) ** 1/2
Director Hirozaku Kor-eda is one of my all-time favorite film makers (he just won the Palm d'Or at Cannes for his subsequent film.)  However, this turgid, talky courtroom procedural was 180 degrees opposite in affect from the brilliantly insightful family films from him that I've loved in the past.  Even though I suffered through stretches of boredom, this film still raised important questions about the justice system and the death penalty in general.  Kor-eda stalwart Koji Yakusho plays a confessed murderer who masterfully manipulates the system to achieve the verdict that he wants.  It's a legal conundrum; but by the time it was resolved I didn't much care.

THE CAPTAIN  (2018,  d. Robert Schwentke)  ****
This ferocious, belief-defying, yet somehow ringing true, war drama takes place in the final two weeks of WWII, somewhere behind the front lines in Germany. A young private, Willi Herold (a superb, inventive performance by Max Hubacher) is a deserter, who has escaped capture in the forest. He discovers an abandoned automobile and a trunk filled with the belongings of a Wehrmacht captain, whereupon he dons the outfit and pulls off a ruthless impersonation of a real captain, who supposedly is under orders directly from the Fuhrer. His uniform gave him the power to wreck havoc with the remnant army. Filmed in horrifyingly realistic B&W, the film takes a revisionist German view of the war's closing days, satirizing the kind of authoritarianism that led to the excesses of the Third Reich.
Thursday, 5/24  Festival day 8
DARK RIVER  (2018,  d. Clio Barnard) *** 1/2
At the start of this dark drama, Alice (Ruth Wilson) has returned to her family's Yorkshire sheep ranch after 15 years absence. Her father (Sean Bean) had just died; and Joe (Mark Stanley), her brother that stayed on the land, is reluctant to share the tenancy with his prodigal sister. But the family has shared terrible past secrets, gradually disclosed in flashbacks...corrosive secrets which lead to tragedy and sacrifice. The Yorkshire accents were difficult to decipher. But the stark landscape and hardscrabble work of farming and raising sheep were strikingly photographed and portrayed. The film worked as a revealing people story, despite the bleakness of the plot.
MARLINA THE MURDERER IN FOUR ACTS  (2018,  d. Mouly Surya)  **
This satirical Indonesian film starts with Marlina's husband dead and embalmed in their ranch house living room. Seven men then show up to rob and rape the widow. Murders, adventures reminiscent of an off kilter spaghetti western, a childbirth and several grisly revenges ensue. I didn't find it as amusing and satisfying as (apparently) most of the audience did.

SEE YOU UP THERE  (2018,  d. Albert Dupontel) ****
In the final days of WWI, two soldiers, Albert and Eduard are forced out of the trenches by a bloodthirsty lieutenant for one last charge. Albert, an older clerk by trade (played by director, Albert Dupontel), is saved by Eduard, artistic young son of a rich tyrant father (Niels Arestrup.) But Eduard is soon thereafter disfigured horribly by mortar fire. Tended by Albert, Eduard recovers, changes his name, and decides to hide his destroyed lower face by creating artistic masks. What ensues is a typically French, absurdist caper film, sort of a male buddy version of Amélie, taking place in the same post-war 1920s era of A Very Long Engagement.. Only this time without cute gamine star of this sort of film, Audrie Tautou. Her leading role is instead played by today's equivalent male player...doe-eyed, Argentinian teenage actor Nahuel Paréz Biscayart, who is becoming a grown-up movie star in France. Dupontel directs the film with an eye for gorgeously detailed visuals and a sure hand with actors, while successfully asserting control over the unconventionally fabulist script, which was adapted from a recent Pierre Lemaitre novel.
Wednesday 5/23  Festival day 7
SADIE  (2018,  d. Megan Griffiths)  **** 1/2
A ferociously good American indie centered around Sadie (played by Sophia Mitri Schloss), a 13-year old girl living with her mother in a Northwest area trailer-park.  Her adored father has been absent fighting overseas for 4 years; and her mother (Melanie Lynskey) is moving on, especially into the start of a relationship with a newly arrived in the trailer- park, sympathetic, but troubled, ex-soldier (John Gallagher, Jr.).   That is the set-up for a film about abandonment and growing pains and relationships, with sympathetic performances that hit all the right notes and a script that is authentic, revealing and tragic all at once. 

HARD PAINT  (2018,  d. Filipe Matzembacher, Marcio Reolan)  ***
This is a dark, sexy Brazilian film about a 20-something gay boy who makes a living of sorts in an online erotic chat room, performing naked blacklight body painting for paying viewers.  He's in some sort of legal trouble, hardly ever leaves his apartment, and still manages to get into a relationship of sorts with another chat room dancer.  The film is a hard-R (or maybe even X-rated) for its full frontal, even tumescent, nudity. 

EIGHT HOURS DON'T MAKE A DAY (1)  (2018,  d. Rainer Werner Fassbinder) ***
This is the first of 5 episodes from an early 1970s TV series directed by the great German film maker Rainer Fassbinder.  This episode sets the scene:  a multi-generation small family living a sort of sit-com life (think the original Roseanne, or All in the Family, without the political implications.)  It's well done (no laugh track!), with interesting characters, including the working class son's factory co-workers, expanding the circle of social involvement.

EIGHT HOURS DON'T MAKE A DAY (2) (2018, d. Rainer Werner Fassbinder)  *** 1/2

Episode 2 is a farce featuring the dotty, but clever grandmother starting an illegal kindergarten with her new boy friend, like an old-folks "I Love Lucy" episode.  Here the sit-com takes flight and becomes something worth continuing to watch (episodes 3,4, and 5 coming up on successive Wednesdays for the rest of the festival.)


Tuesday, 5/22  Festival day 6
MADEMOISELLE PARADIS (2018,  d.  Barbara Albert)  ****
This interesting 18th century costume drama tells the based-on-true-story of a young, blind, Austrian piano prodigy, Maria Theresia von Paradis whose sight underwent a temporary remission under the care of the famed "Dr." Mesmer. See it for the extraordinary lead performance by Maria Dragus, whose eyes flawlessly expressed both blindness and sight as her indomitable artistic spirit struggled with her exploitative parents. Credit director Barbara Albert for flawless period costumes, sets and casting, plus a script of convincing authenticity.

MARILYN 
(2018,  d. Martin Rodriguez Redondo)  ***
This is a based-on-true-story family drama.  Marcos is a gay, cross-dressing teenager living on a dairy farm in repressive rural Argentina.  He is personified with absolute conviction by actor Walter Rodriguez, whose attractiveness and star quality leap off the screen.  However the rural milieu and an inflexibly unsympathetic mother make life for Marcos's alter-ego "Marilyn" too hard to bear.  The film is a convincing, difficult coming of age story.  Motivations are clearly drawn; but the slow pace and depressing story detracted from my totally relating to the film. 

LEAVE NO TRACE  (2018,  d. Debra Granik)  **** 1/2
A former soldier (another fine, nuanced performance by Ben Foster) is suffering from a pernicious form of PTSD, which requires a back-to-nature withdrawal from society. Except that he is still responsible for the upbringing of his motherless teenage daughter (an impressive debut from New Zealand-born Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie.) Director Debra Granik brought this subtle family saga to vivid life. See it for the lovely Northwest forest milieus and the innately good, if flawed characters revealed here. For me, this was a more intimate and lower keyed version of my favorite film of two years ago, Captain Fantastic. Like that film, I became deeply involved with the story and characters without quite supporting their choices and lifestyle.

LOOKING FOR?  (2018,  d. Tung-yen Chou)  *** 1/2
This is a documentary that examines the modern day phenomenon of worldwide internet apps for gay hookups, such as Grindr. It does this with multiple interviews by on-screen director Chou Tung-Yen of several sexually active gay men from far-flung big cities (including Taipei, Beijing, Seoul, San Francisco, New York, London). Chou added some artistic transition scenes of multiple men holding smartphones against a black background. But the interviews were paramount here, the 60 or so subjects well chosen for their honesty and verbal intelligence (and mostly youthful attractiveness, I suppose.) Personally, as a gay man in my 70s, I find myself resenting the ageism of apps like Grindr...and yet I can't help but wish that they had been around when I was young. These interviews, and the smart and attractive director who asked so many of the right questions, did manage to arrive at some remarkably revealing lifestyle truths.
Monday, 5/21 Festival day 5
MOUNTAIN  (2018,  d.  Jennifer Peedom) **** 1/2
This documentary collects some of the most awesome, world spanning, high resolution footage ever shot of a wide range of mountains, and the daredevils and risk takers who scale, climb, ski, fly, jump, and otherwise risk life and limb on their slopes. It's all presented with a beautiful orchestral score and poetic, if somewhat over florid, narration in the sonorous voice of Willem Dafoe. It's best seen on the largest screen possible to appreciate the majesty of the visuals, much of which were aerials impossibly shot using drones, or photographed close-up on the slopes at risk of life and limb. Those with a fear of heights might best think twice; but even those people (among them myself), should attempt to risk watching this in the safety of the cinema. I could argue a bit at some of the editing decisions and the over-all pacing; but on merit, this is a must-see documentary.

BEAST  (2018, d. Michael Pearce)  *** 1/2
This is a curious combination of love story, crime thriller and horror film, all occurring in the lush forests, towns and seashore on the isle of Jersey. It features a pair of outrageous and career-making performances by Jessie Buckley and Johnny Flynn as the well-matched, if screwed-up central couple. Many in the audience walked out of the theater volubly hating on the film. I had reservations; but overall sort of loved the film for daring to go to the extremes of human experience that it eventually reached.
Sunday, 5/20 Festival day 4
SECRET FEST. #1   ****
Can't say more, the film title is a sworn secret, after all.  But I can say that this film was intriguing and even important to me, personally.  Your mileage may have varied.

SANSHO THE BAILIFF  (2018,  d.  Kenji Mizoguchi)  ****
This intimate B&W Japanese drama from 1954 has been lovingly restored with a newly mixed sound track. It's one of the few all-time top films that I had missed heretofore. And even though its 11th century class conflict and beset family kidnapping and slavery plot seemed a little simplistic by today's standards, this film still involved and moved me. I'm still not sure why the minor character of Sansho the bailiff was featured in the title...must be something about the historical Japanese culture that edified that character over the long suffering central family. In any case, the beautiful compositions and cinematography, and the moral clarity of director Kenji Mizoguchi's vision and story telling technique made clear why this is a deserved classic art film.

SULEMAN MOUNTAIN  (2018,  d. Elizaveta Stichava)  ***
This road-trip movie takes place in today's mountany Kyrgyzstan, at the base of Suleiman Mountain, an imposing central Asian landmark. Pre-teenager Ulik is living in an orphanage when his shaman healer mother, Zhipara, claims to have found and rescued her long-lost son. They then join Zhipara's ex-husband, an itinerant grifter who owns a rusty East German truck and hauls freight and gambles his way through life with his younger second wife. The film really centers on Ulik, who proves to be both clever and moral, in contrast to his birth family. I was thoroughly entertained by this film, which combined a revealing glimpse into a vital Moslem culture with a family saga and fun road trip. It wasn't a polished gem of a film technically; but certainly held my interest.

RACER & THE JAILBIRD  (2018,  d. Michaël R. Raskam)
****
Bibi is an unlikely racecar driver, a beautiful girl from a wealthy family who beats the guys on the track in her Porche.   Actress Adele Exarchopoulos is remarkable in the role, worldly wise and interesting, but also vulnerable.   Gigi is a rakish, devilishly attractive man who happens to be in a gang of childhood friends who rob banks.  He's played by one of my favorite actors, Matthias Schoenaerts, who has never been more magnetic and attractive than here.  The two meet and fall in love despite Gigi's secret and dangerous life of crime.  Until the film went off the rails for me in the third act, I was adoring every moment of this adrenaline filled story, and was ready to award it 5-stars.  However, in keeping with its "live fast with tragic consequences" story, the ending left me feeling bereft and even maybe a little cheated.  Still, this was a totally absorbing thrill ride of a film; and Belgian director Michael Roskam (<b><i>Bullhead</i></b>, also with an unforgettable Schoenaerts performance) is one hell of an action director.

Saturday 5/19  Festival day 3
FREAKS & GEEKS: THE DOCUMENTARY   (2018,  d. Brent Hodge)  *****
OK, I'll admit up front that I was a dyed in the wool "Freaks and Geeks" enthusiast when it first aired for one glorious season back in 1999. I watched every episode on NBC and then bought the collection package when it was released a few years later. So it wouldn't be strange if I loved this documentary. That said, I did love this documentary...if only for the passion that the film makers put into it, for instance interviewing important cast, creatives and crew members today in sets carefully re-created from their lairs in the show. But the film goes further with heretofore unseen footage of casting videos, staff meetings, on-set backstage scenes and parties. And most importantly: interviews today with the suits who axed the show, which provided background and personified without rancor what seemed at the time inconceivable, that they cancelled this incredible, Zeitgeist influencing, stars-to-be studded, sublime and original dramedy. But with this respectful, loving, thrilling documentary the show lives on in a way.

I MISS YOU WHEN I SEE YOU   (2018,  d. Simon Chung) ***
Kevin and Jamie were schoolboy friends in Hong Kong. Near to graduation, Kevin's family was emigrating to Sydney when "straight" Jamie planted a kiss on "gay" Kevin's lips. Cut to ten years later, Kevin has been institutionalized with depression, and Jamie visits him in Australia. Soon after, they rekindle their friendship, more or less, when Kevin returns to Hong Kong. That's about the bare bones of the plot of this slow to develop, journey of personal discovery film. I was particularly taken by Jun Li's subtly effective performance as Kevin, fighting an often losing battle with his internalized homophobia and bipolar syndrome. However, I was a little disappointed by how coyly the film approached the gay angle compared to other recent Asian films.

BLINDSPOTTING  (2018,  d. Carlos López Estrada) *** 1/2
This contemporary indie buddy dramedy explores three critical days in the lives of two lifelong, hip-hop loving friends living and working as moving truck workers in Oakland, CA. Collin (dreadlocks sporting Daveed Diggs) is cautiously trying to survive his final 3 days of probation after serving time. His white buddy, Miles (Rafael Casal) has an angry chip on his shoulder...fighting out-of-control battles against hipsters and gentrifiers that put his friend's upcoming freedom at risk. What ensues is an entertainment about race and class, that is at times funny, at times violent, but always presented with convincing acting and a superbly written, anecdote filled script. Director Carlos Lopez Estrada is an undeniable talent with a populist bent, that I expect has a really interesting future in film.

PROSPECT  (2018,  d. Zeek Earl,  Chris Caldwell)
  **
This low-budget sci-fi film takes place on an exotic planet's moon, where the earthlike vegetation is lush; but the atmosphere apparently isn't breathable. A father and his teen-age daughter are prospecting for valuable jewels and become embroiled in a series of battles with other prospectors. The story is rudimentary and didn't always make perfect sense to me. For instance, motivations and actions were suspect; and there were discontinuities in the narrative that bothered me a bit. Still, the film makers and actors managed to design lived-in spaceships and an extra-terrestrial planetary environment that seemed real enough to belie the film's low budget.

Friday, 5/18  Festival day 2
VR  ZONE
This experimental SIFF exhibit makes available about 28 Virtual Reality short films of varying quality.  To start, let me get it out there:  I love VR and hope that it represents a viable future for entertainment films despite the cumbersome equipment needed today.  I was disappointed that the technology of the exhibit hasn't progressed markedly from what was available the last time SIFF did a VR show (SIFF-X, 2016).  But the quality of the entertainment on view has definitely progressed as artists try out the new media.  In the 90 minutes allotted I managed to watch only about nine productions.  I wish I had examined the program beforehand, as I missed several that I would have liked to experience.  The ones I did manage to watch ranged from impressionistic music videos to IMAX-4D like nature documentaries to full-on dramatic enactments placing the viewer inside the 3-D action space.  I wish I had programmed more of this last type, since I personally hold out great promise for the medium.  Only one, an R-rated tour through a couple's increasingly failing relationship called "The Visigoths," was a full fledged drama, with a series of well acted scenes that provided the viewer with a experience of close personal involvement that enhanced the drama.   Another, "Queerskins:  A Love Story," created an elaborate reality space filled with actual objects to go with the one-scene narrative short taking place in an automobile where two grieving, devout parents were bickering with regret as they mourned their son who had died of AIDS.  However, the dialogue and acting were not quite good enough to sustain the experience, although the technology allowing user interactivity with manual manipulation of objects within the VR space was impressive.   All in all, I really enjoyed and was over-all entertained by what was on view. 

THE ETERNAL ROAD  (2018,  d. AJ Annila)  ****
Based on a true story, this is the epic saga of a Finnish man's odyssey through the horrors of collectivization in the Soviet Union during the 1930s. Jussi (an impressive performance by Tommi Korpela) was a construction worker in the U.S. who returned to Finland, married, had two kids...and then was forced by Finnish patriots to escape wounded to the USSR. There he also was forced against his will by Soviet security to join and spy on a collective farm of an idealistic, religious American cult that had settled in Russia in 1931. The film is about Jussi's trials and survival; but it is also about the horrible, forgotten fate of American idealists that emigrated to the Communist paradise and were never assimilated or trusted by the regime. The production values of this film were excellent, superb cinematography and acting that matched the best of contemporary epic film making. The true historical story is an important one to tell, even as the torture and violence was hard to watch.

FIRST REFORMED   (2018,  d. Paul Schrader) ****
In this contemporary American gothic thriller, Ethan Hawke plays Reverend Toller, who leads a sparse congregation in a 250 year-old church in upstate New York. He's tortured by his past, the breakup of his marriage, his son's death in the Iraq war; but he is doing his best to comfort his flock. At the start of the film, one of his parishioners was a pregnant married woman (Amanda Seyfried) whose eco-activist husband (Philip Etinger) has demanded she abort the child. What ensues is a bleak parable of trial and redemption, written and directed by Paul Schrader in his most gripping film in years. It's a difficult watch; and frankly I was confused by the ending...was it real? Or maybe a fantasy reality? Either way, this is a powerful statement by committed artists.

THE CHILDREN ACT
  (2018,  d. Richard Eyre) ****
Emma Thompson is remarkable here playing Fiona, an English family court judge faced with the dilemma of Adam, a 17-year old boy dying of leukemia who refuses on religious grounds to undergo a life-saving blood transfusion. The law is clear; but Fiona, whose marriage to Jack (Stanley Tucci) is on the rocks, becomes too involved personally in the case. Adam was played by Fionn Whitehead, who was impressive as the central young soldier in Dunkirk. The story was based on a novel by Ian McEwan, his second filmed book at this festival. It's a story of a good people subsumed by a moral dilemma. Director Richard Eyre has a sure hand with actors; and I was totally involved with the intelligent world of laws and manners that was created here.

Thursday, 5/17  press screening
THE SONG OF SCORPIONS (2018,  d. Anup Singh) *
In this slooooow and seemingly endless Indian film, Noreen is a beautiful young woman, a scorpion bite healer who is living with her elderly grandmother in a small desert community. An older man falls for her, a rape happens, her grandma disappears into the desert, and many scorpion bites ensue. This is a revenge drama from the aggrieved woman's point of view; but it takes its time getting to any meaningful action. The desert scenery was striking, if mostly comprised of the same wind gutted dunes. I never quite believed in these characters, and their actions seemed insufficiently motivated to me.

LET THE SUNSHINE IN   (2018,  d. Claire Denis) ** 1/2
Juliette Binoche is lovely here, playing a divorced woman of a certain age who is trying to find an appropriate man to spend her life with. In the course of the film she dates (and occasionally beds) several men, mostly in excessively talky scenes in restaurants or various apartments. Unaccountably, most of the men more or less reject her or visa versa. Finally she visits a psychic (Gerard Depardieu, grizzled and voluable) whose advice isn't all that helpful. Claire Denis directed this from clearly a woman's viewpoint. I suspect this was meant to be a rom-com French style...but if the film actually had a point other than the nihilism of heterosexual relationships in this day and age, I wasn't able to glean it.

A SKIN SO SOFT  (2018,  d. Denis Côté)
** 1/2
This French Canadian documentary follows the lives of five male body builders. They are a disparate bunch: among them a wrestler, a strong-man competitor, an Asian family man, a professional fitness instructor. But all are dedicated to their regimens to add muscle bulk and tone their bodies with competition in mind. This is a process film; the film focuses on the how they work out, but not why they become so dedicated to the point of obsession. For an audience like myself, that is not so attuned to the sport of body building, watching this process eventually became tedious. At one point they all set out on a nature retreat together where they swam and relaxed. That provided a restful interlude of male bonding. But mostly the film failed to engage or provide any understanding in depth of these men.
Wednesday, 5/16  press screening
THE MISEDUCATION OF CAMERON POST (2018, d. Desiree Akhavan) ***
Cameron (Chloë Grace Moretz) was a high-school student in 1992, when she was discovered making love with a girl in the back seat of a car. Her religious parents sent her to a Christian camp where the psychologist (Jenifer Ehle) and the formerly gay Reverend (John Gallagher, Jr.) worked, mostly in group therapy sessions with Cameron and others, to re-educate away the gay. What happens to the children at the camp is somewhat predictable (in fact, the photo used to advertise the film is a certain plot spoiler, although it hardly matters.) Still, the acting, especially some of the youthful cast, raised the level of the film from merely watchable to admirable. Conversion therapy was a big deal in the early 1990s, not so much today. But the message of this film is still pertinent and valuable.

SKATE KITCHEN  (2018,  d. Crystal Moselle)
  *
Camille (Rachelle Vinberg) was 18, living with her Puerto Rican mother on Long Island. After recovering from a skate board accident, and promising her mother that she'd quit boarding, instead, Camille runs away to Manhattan (is the film title a reference to Hell's Kitchen?) and joins a group of rowdy skater chicks. Incidentally she gets involved with a dyed-red hair photographer and skater boy (Jaden Smith, an actual actor! in a cast of unfamiliars obviously chosen for their skate board prowesses) who eschews sex, telling Camille that he only thinks of her as a sister. Typically, nothing much happens. The kids skate, smoke dope, have sex, fight, make up, skate some more...all to a loud soundtrack of urban pop music tracks. Maybe there was enough narrative material for a 15 minute short film about girl skate boarders here (a subject that, honestly, doesn't float my boat.) For me, the film was simply interminable at 100 minutes, and the first time at this festival that I looked at my watch...twice.
Tuesday, 5/15 press screening
FAKE TATTOOS  (2018,  d. Pascal Plante)  ****
At the start of this film, long-haired Québecois, Theo (Anthony Therrien) is celebrating his 18th birthday by attending a punk rock rave. Afterwards, he's sitting at a diner when vivacious, blonde, 19-year old Mag (a star-making turn by Rose-Marie Parreault), admires his "fake" arm tattoo, admits she's on the rebound, and overcomes his reticence to converse. She invites Theo to bicycle them to her parents house, and they start an affair with a two-week expiration date since Theo is scheduled to leave Montreal to live with his older sister. That is the set-up of this youthful romantic drama that reminded me of the films of the fondly remembered French New Wave of the 1960s...sort of as if the humanist Truffaut had made a typically edgy Godard film about a mismatched couple.

 A KID LIKE JAKE  (2018,  d. Silas Howard)
  **** 1/2
Alex and Greg Wheeler are a married couple dealing with an expressive, likely gender non-conforming 4-year old son, Jake. Claire Danes plays the tightly wound wife, unable to quite accept her son's status, despite some obvious signs (acting out, being bullied, preferring dolls and girl's outfits), as noted by the sympathetic director of the kid's pre-school (another sterling supporting role from Octavia Spencer). On the other hand, Jim Parsons, in a stroke of perfect casting, plays the more understanding, metrosexual father...a successful adult therapist who is struggling to cope with the realities facing both Alex and Jake. The film is an acting tour de force...I believed every nuance of these characters. Perhaps much of this authenticity can be credited to the transgender director, Silas Howard, who delivered a film exploring themes that are so contemporary that they simply have never been shown as deeply and sympathetically in any previous film.
Monday 5/14 press screening
HEARTS BEAT LOUD  (2018, d. Brett Haley) *** 1/2
Frank Fisher once was a musician who toured with his singer wife until she died in a bicycle accident on the streets of Brooklyn. Now he is a single father, owner of a failing vinyl oldies record store, and raising a teenage girl, Sam, who intends to start pre-med courses at UCLA. But Sam is showing all the signs of having her mother's talent for singing and song writing; and Frank needs to get back to creating music. That is the set-up for a tender family drama with a great soundtrack of original songs and a somewhat predictable story arc of a father and lesbian daughter bonding over music and overcoming obstacles.

Nick Offerman plays Frank with his usual acerbic manner mixed with tenderness. He also plays a mean guitar. Kiersey Clemens, who plays Sam, is new to me. She's a find, with a fine singing voice and acting chops to match. Toni Collette and Ted Danson are largely underdeveloped neighborhood characters. And then for variety, there is Sam's sweet affair with her bestie, Rose (Sasha Lane, in a breakout performance). This is one of those small, well made American indie films that make going to film festivals worthwhile, since they rarely make a dent at the box office these days.

PICK OF THE LITTER (2018,  d. Don Hardy Jr. Dana Nachman  ****
This surprisingly involving documentary tells the story of one litter of five Labrador puppies that were bred to be guide dogs for the blind.  Each puppy was given a name starting with "P", and each were assigned to a series of skilled and loving handlers and trainers to find the one in three that can ultimately pass the strict tests and be given to a qualified blind person.  Let's just be honest, I'm not a dog person.  However, the film was so well structured, treating each puppy's journey as something akin to a sporting event...watching them bond with their trainers and rooting for them as they grow in skill or fail to progress...that I was won over completely. 

ON CHESIL BEACH  (2018,  d. Dominic Cooke)
****
In the summer of 1962, a young couple are spending their wedding night in a formal hotel at an English beach resort. But this is a story steeped in English reserve, adapted from an Ian McEwan novel of manners by the celebrated author himself. I haven't read the source book; but I imagine it must have been attempting something like a modernization of a Jane Austen-ish type novel.

Saoirse Ronin, no stranger to McEwen having made her initial impact in his story Atonement, played the newly-wed girl, Florence. She was a skilled musician, daughter of an industrialist and a snob of a mother (Emily Watson), but utterly unprepared for the rigors of matrimony. Handsome Billy Howle played the enthusiastic, if somewhat naive, groom, Edward: son of a grammar school teacher and a brain damaged mother (a disparity of class that was meaningful in 1962 England).

The script jumps around in time throughout the difficult wedding night events, intercutting scenes from each character's past which explored each newly-wed's early years and their courtship, but with a mysterious ambiguity about the couples' actions and motivations. The result is a frustrating experience at times, more Victorian than mid-20th Century...but ultimately an emotionally cathartic one by the time the story, which continues on to events in 1975 and then 2007, is fully told. Director Dominic Cooke added visual flair, an authentic feeling for the period, and drew fine performances from his cast. This is a notable prestige drama about characters contemporary to myself (although of a totally different culture) that just worked for me. 


May 10, press screening
LOOKING FOR OUM KULTHUM  (2018,  d. Shirin Neshat)  * 1/2
Oum Kulthum was an Egyptian torch singer who thrived with her emotional, Arabic anthems from the 1920s to the 1970s throughout the historic regimes of King Farouk and General Nasser. This frankly boring and mostly uninvolving (for me, at least) melodrama tells her story through the eyes of Mita, a female Iranian film director (stolidly played by Neda Rahmanian), who has written a script about Kulthum's life and music. Mita casts her film with three age appropriate singers playing Kulthum; and proceeds to direct the famous singer's biopic as a "film-within-a-film". However, film maker Mita's own contemporary story, one of self-doubt and Arabic misogyny, overwhelms the more interesting biopic that she is directing, which at least has the advantage of fabulous costumes, great production design, and beautifully sung songs. Other than that, the majority of the resulting film is a resounding "meh."

WE THE ANIMALS  (2018,  d. Jeremiah Zagar) *** 1/2
This small scale, American indie drama tells the story of a bi-racial Puerto Rican family living in rural upstate New York. Pa (Raúl Castillo) and Ma (Sheila Vand) had a tempestuous marriage with three young sons. The two older boys were mischievous urchins. But the youngest, Jonah (Evan Rosado), was a sensitive 10 year-old momma's boy, who expressed himself with impressionistic drawings (turned into imaginative animation by the film makers.) The story turns mainly on the on-off relationship of the self-involved parents...but mostly on young Jonah's coming of age and his recognition of his almost subliminal attraction to an older neighbor boy. Basically there were two parallel stories being told: parents and children...each authentic by themselves and convincing when they intersected. I was impressed by the direction and acting, especially that of little Evan Rosado's Jonah, one of those special child performances that make a film memorable.

May 9, press screening
THE LAST SUIT (El último traje)  (2018,  d. Pablo Solarz) *****
Just when you think there's nothing more under the sun to be mined from the Holocaust, this immensely moving Argentinian film offers just that.  Abraham (a powerful performance by Miguel Ángel Solá) was a Polish concentration camp survivor who witnessed his family and younger sister die before he escaped near the end of WWII.   At the start of the film he is 88 and living in Argentina.   His children have sold his home and are preparing to send him to a care facility.  But Abraham has one last task to perform:  somehow get to Poland to deliver a suit he made for the non-Jew, childhood friend who saved his life back in 1945.  What ensues is a road trip of fateful encounters and hardships.  Several times watching this film I was reduced to helpless tears...it was that authentically touching.  Director Pablo Solarz and his remarkable cast really do justice to a fine script that is leavened with humor and  pathos and somehow avoids excessive sentimentality.   If Argentina were to submit this film for the foreign language Oscar competition, I wouldn't bet against it winning.

AFTER THE WAR (Dopo la guerra)  (2018,  d. Annarita Zambrano)
*** 1/2
In early 1980s Italy,  Marco was a leftist revolutionary who committed a heinous political murder and was granted asylum in France.  Twenty years later, in 2002, he has a 16-year old French daughter, is completely disassociated from his Italian family in Bologna, and is an academic suddenly faced with deportation back to Italy to serve a life prison sentence.  He goes into hiding, and sets in motion an escape with his reluctant daughter to Nicaragua.  That is the set up for a fairly involving drama about the consequences of political terror, not only to the terrorists, but also to the associated, innocent family members.  The film is slow to develop its action plot; but ultimately succeeds as an especially illuminating people story.

May 8, press screening
THREE PEAKS (Zrei zinnen)  (2018,  d. Jan  Zabeil) ****
In this tense, slow to develop thriller, Aaron (Alexander Fehling) has become involved with a woman, Lea (Bérénice Bejo), who has an 8-year old son, Tristan (Arian Montgomery).  Aaron is German, Lea is French, and Tristan's absent birth father, whom the boy remains attached to, is English; and it seems that Tristan is clever enough to be fluent in all three languages.  The film opens with Aaron teaching Tristan to swim at a public resort pool, which foreshadows a feeling of impending danger.   The three then hike up to Aaron's summer cabin in the Italian Dolomite mountains...and are soon enjoying the back-to-nature experience.  But Tristan's real father is always a disrupting presence by phone; and as much as Aaron wants to successfully bond with Tristan, the mischievous boy has other plans.  That is the setup for a suspenseful story of complex family dynamics in a gorgeous mountain setting that is fraught with lurking perils.  At times I was feeling such anxiety watching the film that I wanted to hide my eyes.  But the fine acting and direction, and the realistic psychology of the script ultimately won me over.

THAT SUMMER  (2018,  d. Göran Hugo Olsson)
** 1/2
Grey Gardens was a seminal cinema verité  documentary from the 1970s.  I have only seen sequences from the Maysles film; but I definitely was aware of the two eccentric women, Little Edie and her elderly mother Edith Bouvier Beale, who lived secluded lives in a derelict Long Island mansion.  It turns out that the summer prior to the making of the famous documentary, niece Lee Bouvier Radziwill and artist friend Peter Beard shot their own documentary, with funding from Lee's sister Jackie Onassis and husband Ari.  That footage languished in storage for 45 years until a Swedish director, Gören Olsson cut it together into this illuminating, if somewhat diffuse film featuring the two women nattering on about their lives, their cats and the local raccoons among other things.  The film adds the present day reminiscences of Peter Beard, who shot the footage and lives today among his art in Montauk, NY.   There is a certain fascination with these people and their times; but the film only intermittently held my interest.

May 7, press screening
PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF DESIRE  (2018,  d.  Hao Wu) ** 1/2
This documentary illustrates a Chinese internet phenomenon called yy.net, where millions of anonymous patrons watch on-line and contribute money to web-cam personalities. Huge amounts of money are at stake. The film focuses on two vloggers: a 22 year old female singer and a 25 year old male comedian/raconteur. Their acts and lives are examined in some detail...but the business model of the enterprise that supports all this is kept a little murky. As a film, the videography and animated special effects sequences are inventive and state-of-the-art; however there's a pervasive undercurrent of monetary corruption, exploitation and sleaziness about the entire enterprise. I realize that there are similar web sites in other countries; but the Chinese with their huge population and nouveau riche social culture seem to have fostered a particularly venal version.

THE RETURN  (2018,  d. Malene Choi)
** 
In this film pitched midway between documentary and impressionist drama, a 35-year old Korean woman who had been adopted at birth by a Danish family has returned to her home country to search for her birth mother.  While settled in at a hostel devoted to helping such returnees, she meets a fellow Korean-Danish man on a similar quest.  For me, except for one sequence of a successful reunion of mother and grown child, the film just meandered and was unfortunately somewhat boring. 

May 4, press screening
SWEET COUNTRY  (2018,  d. Warwick Thornton) ***
In this Australian "western" set in the 1920s, Sam, an Aboriginal farm hand (Hamilton Morris) shoots a crazy drunk white man (Ewen Leslie) in self defense. Unsurprisingly in that era of extreme racial prejudice, a hunting posse sets out to track and bring to "justice" the fleeing man and his wife through the stark and imposing outback scenery. Familiar grizzled actors Bryan Brown and Sam Neill also are featured playing somewhat upstanding settlers who are part of the posse. The film was bleak, inhabited by malevolent whites and downtrodden, sullen blacks. It was all too predictable and mean...film making to respect but not enjoy.

MAKING THE GRADE  (2018,  d. Ken Wardrop) ****
This heartwarming documentary tells the varied stories of dozens of adorable Irish children as they learn to play piano. The film is structured by grade level from one to eight, and features a series of individual instructors, many of whom are elderly women. The students vary in talent; but in the course of the film the playing becomes more proficient and the teachers more strict. A film like this depends on the personalities depicted; and here the film makers have made some fortuitous choices...many of the kids and teachers are delightfully insightful and quirky. Maybe I was particularly intrigued by this film since it brought back mixed feelings about my own youthful attempts at learning piano. I tried for years to master the instrument with little to show from the effort. I could totally relate to the people on screen. Nice job.

AMERICAN ANIMALS  (2018,  d. Bart Layton)
  *** 1/2
This is a caper film, based on an actual true story from 2004, about four Kentucky college students who try to rip off some very rare and valuable books from the special collection of one of their school libraries .   It's a case of rare ineptitude...criminals whose ambitions exceed their talents for crime.  However, despite that, the scope of planning and execution of the robbery makes for an entertaining, if cautionary, movie.  Some of this is due to the sheer craziness of the idea, and the canniness of the casting...especially the two lead actors, who foment the plot, who were played by innocent appearing Barry Keoghan (recently seen in <b><i>Dunkirk</i></b>), and superficially clever Evan Peters (a regular on TV's "American Horror Story.")  The film features a series of cameos of the real people recounting their experience from present day perspective, which adds to the verisimilitude of the story. 


May 3, press screening
GUILTY, THE  (2018,  d. Gustav Möller)  **** 1/2
Asgur, a Danish policeman manning an emergency phone line while awaiting a decision on a line of duty killing, receives a call from a distraught mother of two who sobs that she is in a van being kidnapped. This sets off a frantic and suspenseful police chase, entirely shown through Asgur's activities monitoring and guiding the chase remotely from the offices of the Danish equivalent to 9-1-1. Asgur was played by the superb actor Jakob Cedergren, in a tour de force performance predominately shot in close-ups on his face as he handled the phones. The tension and suspense build; yet thanks to the skillful direction and editing I found myself continuously at the edge of my seat, and completely focused on Cedergren's actions and the plight of the unseen, anguished victims.

GOLD SEEKERS  (2018,  d. Juan Carlos Maneqlia, Tana Schémobori)  ** 1/2
Manu (played by sympathetic newcomer Tomás Arrendondo) is a teenage newspaper delivery boy living in Asunción, Paraguay.  At the start of the film he finds a treasure map in a book his dying grandfather gave him.  That sets off a frenetic chase film where several of his avaricious friends and some other low-lifes attempt to recover the treasure.   Most of the characters were unlikable; and the action occasionally degenerated into implausible farce.  It was all mildly diverting; but for me it was too silly and slapstick to actually enjoy. 

BREATH  (2018,  d. Simon Baker)
   *** 1/2
This evocative coming of age film takes place in the 1970s somewhere in rural, coastal Australia. Two "almost 14" boys, studious Pikelet (Samson Coulter) and wild-child Loonie (Ben Spence) become friends and discover surfing together. They soon find a mentor in Sando, a world famous surfing pro who has retired to a hippie lifestyle of surfing and sex with his girlfriend Eva. Sando is played by Australian Simon Baker, familiar from starring in a long-running American TV show "The Mentalist." Baker also directed this film, his first feature, and does a serviceable job...especially with the amazingly realistic surfing and underwater sequences. The story itself, adapted from a novel by Tim Winton, centers on young Pikelet and how he deals with fear of the great waves and his introduction to sex with an affair with a grown-up woman (the age discordance is appropriate to the era the film is set in; but seems oddly inappropriate today.) I really enjoyed this film: beautiful people, gorgeous ocean vistas, involving story. But the narrative occasionally feels disjointed; and others may find the story troubling.
May 2, press screening
UNDER THE TREE  (2018,  d. Hafsteinn Sigurdsson ) ****
Black comedy from Iceland about two neighbor families feuding over a shade tree.  Good fun; but sometimes the characters go too far into the implausible.

RUSSIAN FIVE, THE  (2018,  d. Joshua Riehl)  ****
In the 1990s, the Detroit Red Wings hockey team imported five Russian players to try to bring the Stanley Cup to that city for the first time in over 40 years. This documentary tells the amazing and often moving story of those players and their team of destiny. I have zero interest in hockey...I've never been able to follow the itty-bitty puck, and the entire working class ethos of the sport just has no appeal. But this film was so well edited and had such an emotionally uplifting true story to tell (and which all came as news to me), that my indifference to the sport hardly mattered. Not that I've suddenly turned into a hockey fan. But I'm a fan of this film.

DISOBEDIENCE  (2018,  d. Sebastián Lelio)  ***
In this turgid, but well acted, drama, Ronit (Rachel Weisz) plays the apostate daughter of a famed London Ashkenazi rabbi, who returns from exile in the U.S. for her father's funeral. It soon turns out that the reason for Ronit's expulsion from her father's insular cult was that the old rabbi had discovered her affair with a woman, Esti (Rachel McAdams), and disowned Ronit. However, Esti remained behind and submitted to a loveless marriage with the old rabbi's favored acolyte, Dovid (Alessandro Nivola). Ronit's return, and the restart of the blatant lesbian affair between her and Esti sets off a crisis in the Orthodox Jewish community. OK, that's more than the usual number of plot spoilers from me...but this film is more about complex human relationships and corrosive religious faith than about salacious sex (although there is some of that, too.) Frankly, I didn't enjoy watching this film; but the acting (especially, for me, Nivola's surprisingly humanistic take on religious rectitude) was impressive.
Tentative upcoming schedule which will remain tentative forever.

DIVE, THE  [work in progress]  (2018,  D. Yona Rozenkier)
GOOD WEEK FOR DEMOCRACY, A  (2018,  d. Cecilia Bjork)
THUNDER ROAD  (2018,  d. Jim Cummings)
BLESSED, THE  (2018,  d.  Sofia Djama)
JULIA BLUE  (2018  d. Roxy Toporowych)
PUZZLE  (2018,  d. Marc Turtletaub)
ANCHOR AND HOPE  (2018,  d. Carlos Marques-Marcel)
BLAZE  (2018,  d. Ethan Hawke)
GIRLS ALWAYS HAPPY  (2018,  Mingming Yang)
            OR
RETURN TO MOUNT KENNEDY  (2018,  d. Eric Becker)
PRAYER BEFORE DAWN, A  (2018,  d. Jean-Stéphane Savaire)
SECRET FESTIVAL #4
CHEDENG AND APPLE  (2018,  d. Rae Red, Fatrick Tabada)
LITTLE TITO AND THE ALIENS  (2018,  d. Paola Randi)
KILLING JESUS  (2018,  d. Laura Mora Oretega)
NEVER GOIN' BACK  (2018,  d. Augustine Frizzell)