San Francisco Silent Film Festival 2014

The San Francisco Silent Film Festival (SFSFF) celebrates its 19th edition this weekend with a record-breaking 19 programs spread over four days. For diehard fans who believe nothing in the SFSFF line-up is "miss-able," that's going to mean back-to-back-to-back, 14-hour days happily ensconced in the bosom of San Francisco's renowned 1921 movie palace, the Castro Theatre. This year's fest kicks off on Thursday with the film that made Rudolph Valentino a star and ends Sunday evening with Buster Keaton's biggest commercial success. In between there'll be stops made for an Ozu gangster flick, an anomalous comedy from Carl Dreyer, a tribute to Max Linder, some Soviet sci-fi and a silent Sherlock Holmes.


In an unsettling, if inevitable sign of the times, it appears that only nine of this year's 17 feature films will be screened in 35mm (I've indicated which ones in the SFIFF preview below, based on information obtained from the indispensible Film On Film Foundation's Bay Area calendar.) I've also pointed out which presentations will additionally feature so-called "Orphan" films, i.e."newsreels, outtakes, amateur films, test reels, kinescopes, trailers, promotional and experimental films, early silent narratives, as well as random fragments with no discernible origin."


 
Thursday, May 29

 

7:00 PM The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (USA, 1921, dir. Rex Ingram, 35mm)
To commemorate the 100th anniversary of WWI, this year's festival opens with what many consider one of cinema's first anti-war films. It's also the movie that made Rudolph Valentino a household name and inspired an international obsession with gaucho pants and the tango. (It was also the top grossing film of 1921 and the silent era's sixth biggest all-time box office champ.) The unknown Valentino was hired at the insistence of screenwriter June Mathis, a personal friend who would pen several other Valentino vehicles including Blood and Sand. The actor was reportedly paid less than his fellow cast members and had to provide his own costumes. The latter I find a bit hard to believe. Valentino's co-star Alice Terry would soon marry the film's director Rex Ingram, who would himself go on to discover Ramon Navarro. Musical accompaniment will be provided by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra, who are celebrating their 25th anniversary this year. An opening night party will follow the screening at the top floor loft of the historic McRoskey Mattress Company Building.

Friday, May 30

10:00 AM Amazing Tales from the Archives (35mm & digital)
This is always one of the most popular events of the festival, and not just because admission is FREE! First up, Bryony Dixon of the British Film Institute's National Archive will present several early nature films and discuss how the genre's pioneers invented equipment and methodology which is still used today. Then Dan Streible of the Orphan Film Symposium will reveal everything there is to know about Fred Ott's Sneeze, the iconic five-seconds-long film which became the first motion picture copyrighted in the U.S. Ott was an assistant to Thomas Edison and in 1894 he was filmed sneezing after having taken a pinch of snuff. Finally, Oscar winners Craig Baron (visual effects) and Ben Burtt (sound design) will employ stills, clips and animation to discuss Charlie Chaplin's significant use of technical effects. Stephen Horne will accompany the proceedings.

1:00 PM Song of the Fishermen (China, 1934, dir. Cai Chusheng, digital)
Shot in an actual fishing village, this was China's first social-realist film and the first Chinese movie to win an international festival prize (at the Moscow International Film Festival in 1935). It was also the second film for actress Wang Renmei, whose memorable debut Wild Rose screened at SFSFF in 2009. Song was responsible for giving Wang her nickname "Wildcat of Shanghai," and during filming she announced her marriage to Jin Yang, who was considered China's Valentino. She consequently had her contract dropped by the Linhua Film Company, who believed a married actress wouldn't appeal to male audiences. This program will also include a pair of "Orphan" shorts, fragments of early (1911 and 1912) travelogues shot in the Umbria region of Italy. Musical accompaniment will be provided by Donald Sosin.

3:00 PM Midnight Madness (USA, 1928, dir. F. Harmon Weight, 35mm)
This silent melodrama is one of 75 once-thought-lost films which turned up in a New Zealand archive in 2009 and has since been restored. Loosely based on "The Taming of the Shrew," it's the story of a wealthy diamond mine owner (Clive Brook) who punishes his gold-digging bride (Jacqueline Logan) by dragging her off to live a miserable existence in Africa. The film was produced by Cecil B. DeMille in between tenures at Paramount and MGM, when he briefly had his own production company, DeMille Picture Corp. Star Clive Brook is best known, at least to me, as Marlene Dietrich's lover in Shanghai Express, and co-star Logan achieved some fame as Mary Magdalene in DeMille's 1927, The King of Kings. The film will be preceded by the "Orphan" film Josephine Baker Visits Volendam, a 1928 Fox Company newsreel in which the American entertainer goofs around during a visit to northwestern Holland. Accompaniment duties will be fulfilled by Stephen Horne.

5:00 PM The Parson's Widow (Sweden, 1920, dir. Carl Th. Dreyer, 35mm)
Eight years before his austere masterpiece The Passion of Joan of Arc, Carl Dreyer made this rare comedy of manners in which a young man of the cloth is tricked into marrying the elderly widow of his deceased predecessor. A Swedish film set in 17th century Norway and based on a Danish story, it was one of the first Scandinavian movies to employ location shooting (the open air museum of Maihaugen in Lillehammer, Norway, which contains over 200 medieval buildings). One of the film's many highlights is said to be the titular performance by septuagenarian character actress Hildur Carlberg, who passed away just two months before the film opened. This screening will be accompanied by Matti Bye (presumably without his ensemble).

7:30 PM Ramona (USA, 1928, dir. Edwin Carewe, 35mm)
The great Mexican actress Dolores del Rio stars in this adaptation of Helen Hunt Jackson's classic 1884 novel about the persecution of a mixed race woman (Scottish/Native American) in 19th century California. It's director Edwin Carewe, himself part-Chickasaw Indian, "discovered" del Rio at a wedding in Mexico and convinced her and her husband to move to Hollywood. He would ultimately direct her in seven films. Ramona was the first United Artists release to feature a synchronized score, and a recording of del Rio singing the title song can be heard here. The film was considered lost until a print was discovered in the Czech National Archive in 2010 and subsequently restored by the U.S. Library of Congress. The colorful history behind that Czech print includes confiscation by the Nazis, a two-decade stint in the USSR and then a return to Czechoslovakia in the 1960's, where it disappeared from inventory lists for nearly half a century. The venerable Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra will accompany this presentation.

10:00 PM Cosmic Voyage (USSR, 1936, dir. Vasil Zhuravlyov, digital)
The festival's two Late Shows this year both hail from the USSR, starting with this near-futuristic fantasy about a professor, his female assistant, a boy scout and a cat all journeying to the moon in 1946. The film is noted for its grounding in actual science, thanks to the contributions of Soviet rocket scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, as well as for its impressive sets, stop-motion animations, considerable humor and stupefying tracking shots. Although endorsed by the Communist Youth League – they wanted a film that would encourage an interest in space studies amongst the country's young – Cosmic Voyage was withdrawn from release shortly after its 1936 debut and remained unseen until the 1980's. The film will be preceded by the "Orphan" short, Niemeyer Pijptabak, a 1923 animated Dutch advertisement for Niemeyer brand pipe tobacco (presented in 35mm). Both will be accompanied by the Silent Movie Music Company (Guenter Buchwald and percussionist Frank Bockius).


Saturday, May 31

10:00 AM The Good Bad Man (USA, 1916, dir. Alan Dwan, 35mm)
1916 was a busy year for Douglas Fairbanks. He appeared in 11 films – 12 if you count an un-credited role in Griffith's Intolerance – including this Western in which he plays a Robin Hood-like bandit who steals from the rich in order to support "kids born in shame." (The Half-Breed, which was shown at last year's festival and also directed by Alan Dwan, hails from the same year). This screening marks the world premiere of a new restoration, completed via a three-way partnership between the festival, the Cinémathèque Française and the Film Preservation Society. The Good Bad Man will be preceded by the 1906 "Orphan" short, Fragment of Market Street, After the Fire. Donald Sosin will accompany.

12:00 PM Serge Bromberg's Treasure Trove (digital)
If I could only see one program at this year's fest, it would certainly be this new presentation from charismatic French preservationist/master showman Serge Bromberg, whose most recent Bay Area appearance was a mind-blowing program of rare and restored 3-D films at the 2011 SF International Film Festival. This go-round Bromberg will be showcasing a new version of Buster Keaton's 1922 short The Blacksmith, the world premiere of a complete two-reel version of Roscoe "Fatty" Arcbuckle's 1916 The Waiter's Ball and a work-in-progress look at Chaplin's 1916 Night in the Show, in which he plays two different characters. "Other surprises" are promised as well. As always, M. Bromberg will provide his own accompaniment.

2:00 PM The Epic of Everest (UK, 1924, dir. John Noel, digital)
This documentary is the official filmed record of explorer George Mallory and Andrew Irvine's failed (and fatal) attempt to climb the world's highest peak. It features some of our earliest moving images of Tibet and its people, and employed a specially designed telephoto lens which photographed the intrepid heroes from a distance of over two miles. The film was recently restored by the British Film Institute with help from the director's daughter, Sandra Noel. The BFI will receive this year's San Francisco Silent Film Festival Award at the screening, and the film itself will be introduced by Bryony Dixon, the BFI's Curator of Silent Film. Musical accompaniment will be provided by Stephen Horne and Frank Bockius.

4:30 PM Underground (UK, 1928, dir. Anthony Asquith, digital)
Saturday afternoon at the festival continues with a second recent BFI restoration, this one produced to celebrate the 150th anniversary of London's subway. This working class love story was the second film for director Anthony Asquith, whose revelatory 1929 A Cottage on Dartmoor thrilled this festival back in 2007. Although an aristocrat by birth, Asquith was also a staunch socialist (and rumored homosexual). His Underground is particularly noted for its German Expressionist lighting, use of Soviet-influenced montage and a climatic chase scene that's said to rival Hitchcock. Should you need further enticement, check out this lovely clip of the film's lovers flirting on a subway station escalator. None other than Leonard Maltin himself will be on hand to introduce the screening and Stephen Horne will accompany on piano.

7:00 PM Under the Lantern (Germany, 1928, dir. Gerhard Lamprecht, digital)
For the second year in a row, the festival's Saturday night primetime slot will be taken with a German film about a young woman's descent into prostitution. Let's hope it's half as brilliant as last year's radical reconstruction and restoration of G.W. Pabst's The Joyless Street. The Berlin-set Under the Latern is one of four silents from director Gerhard Lamprecht that were restored by Deutsche Kinemathek and premiered at 2013's Pordenone festival. Musical accompaniment for this screening will come from the Donald Sosin Ensemble, which includes Donald Sosin (composer/piano), Günter Buchwald (violin), Frank Bockius (percussion), and Sascha Jacobsen (bass).

10:00 PM The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr. West in the Land of the Bolsheviks (USSR, 1924, dir. Lev Kuleshov, digital)
Another late night, another Soviet silent – this one being an energetic spoof of American ignorance about the USSR, from one of Russia's foremost film theoreticians, Lev Kuleshov. The story concerns a YMCA executive who travels to Moscow and is kidnapped by a gang thieves pretending to be Bolsheviks (their leader is played by none other than fellow director/theoretician Vsevolod Pudovkin). As a longtime Russophile, I'm especially looking forward to the sightseeing tour of 1924 Moscow which purportedly ends the film. Speaking of comrade Pudovkin, Mr. West will be preceded by the Austrian trailer for his 1927 masterwork, Mother, which was recently discovered in the collection of the Austrian Film Museum and restored (and will be screened in 35mm). The Matti Bye Ensemble will accompany this program.


Sunday, June 1

10:00 AM Seven Years Bad Luck (USA, 1921, dir. Max Linder, digital)
The final day of the festival kicks off with a tribute to Max Linder, the French actor/writer/director now considered cinema's first comedy star and an inspiration to Chaplin. In this American-made feature, Linder's character breaks a mirror and finds that his luck worsens the more he tries to avoid unlucky circumstances. It features his famous empty mirror gag, which would be copied by the Marx Brothers, Lucille Ball and others. Four years after making this film, the depression-prone Linder would commit double suicide with his wife. He would be remembered in Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds in a scene where German soldiers discuss the relative merits of Linder vs. Chaplin. Also featured in this program is an American two-reeler from 1917 titled Max Wants a Divorce. The films will be introduced by fellow countryman Serge Bromberg, and Donald Sosin and Frank Bockius will accompany the hilarity.

12:00 PM Dragnet Girl (Japan, 1933, Yasujiro Ozu, 35mm)
The festival has screened several Ozu silents in the past, but for one reason or another I've always managed to miss them. I'm therefore doubly determined to not forego this anomalous Ozu gangster film starring future Kenji Mizoguchi muse Kinuyo Tanaka as a gun-toting moll. The film is said to reflect the Japanese master's love of old Hollywood, with its pulpy storyline, moody lighting, proto-noir shadows, fluid camerawork and cluttered mise-en-scène (the latter evoking Joseph von Sternberg). Appropriately enough, the film will be introduced by San Francisco's very own Czar of Noir, Eddie Muller, and Guenter Buchwald will accompany.

2:30 PM The Girl in Tails (Sweden, 1926, dir. Karin Swanström, 35mm)
This feminist comedy would be the fourth and final directorial effort of Karin Swanström, a beloved character actress who later became Swedish cinema's most influential figure as head of production for AB Svensk Filmindustri. The story revolves around a small-town girl who attends her graduation dance dressed in male attire and consequently falls in with a feminist collective upon being disowned by her father. (Swanström has a memorable role as the town's leading citizen). Accompanying this feature will be the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra.

5:00 PM The Sign of Four (UK, 1923, dir. Maurice Elvey, 35mm)
Between 1921 and 1923, actor Eille Norwood portrayed detective Sherlock Holmes in 45 shorts and two features, with The Sign of Four marking his silver screen farewell. No less than Arthur Conan Doyle was said to be an enormous fan of the actor's interpretation of Holmes. In this adventure, Holmes and Dr. Watson (the latter played by Arthur Cullin, substituting for Hubert Ellis who played the venerable doctor in all of the other films) investigate a murder which appears to have roots in India some years earlier. The film was shot on the streets of London and includes a thrilling chase on the Thames. Musical accompaniment will be provided by Donald Sosin on piano and Guenter Buchwald on violin.

7:00 PM Harbor Drift (Germany, 1929, dir. Leo Mittler, 35mm)
The festival's penultimate selection for 2014 is yet another slice of German miserablism from the 1920's. This one is a Hamburg-set parable about an old beggar, a prostitute and an unemployed young man who find a pearl necklace they hope will bring salvation. But of course it only leads to further degradation. Produced by Germany's communist-leaning "Prometheus" film collective, the film is said to be heavily influenced by Soviet cinema and is perhaps the best film directed by the little known Leo Mittler. Stephen Horne will accompany the film on piano, with assistance from Frank Bockius on percussion.

9:00 PM The Navigator (USA, 1924, dir. Buster Keaton, Donald Crisp, digital)
The 2014 SF Silent Film Festival sails into the sunset aboard an empty 370-foot long steamship, together with a pair of hapless passengers played by Buster Keaton and Kathryn McGuire. This comedy was Keaton's fourth feature and biggest commercial success, with a script written after Keaton's longtime art director Fred Gabourie, had rescued the film's ship from the scrapheap. Officially known as the USAT Buford, the vessel had been used to transport 249 American "undesirables," including activist Emma Goldman, from the US to the USSR in 1919. The movie's underwater scenes were filmed at the bottom of Lake Tahoe, where the water was so cold the crew could only shoot for 10 minutes at a time. Preceding The Navigator will be the 1929 short Pochta, a masterpiece of Soviet animation which follows a letter on its trip around the world. Guenter Buchwald will accompany the short (which will be presented in 35mm) and the Matti Bye Ensemble will do the musical honors for the Keaton film. The program will be introduced by Leonard Maltin and Frank Buxton. 

SFIFF57 2014 Wrap-Up

 

The 57th edition of the San Francisco International Film Festival (SFIFF57) concluded last Thursday and I've spent the past seven days reflecting back on what certainly felt like one of the best festivals of recent years. Below are some impressions of 20 films I caught during the 15-day run of the fest, in the order in which I saw them.


No No: A Dockumentary (USA, dir. Jeffrey Radice)
While I wasn't able to attend SFIFF57's opening night festivities, this portrait of Dock "No No" Ellis, the fiercely proud, high living African American major league baseball player who pitched a 1970 no-hitter while tripping on LSD, proved a most excellent way to begin my 2014 festival. Even better was the accompanying 10-minute short, Mike Jacobs' The High Five, which went on to win the festival's Golden Gate Award for best doc short. This joyful look into the celebratory sports gesture revealed that it was created at a 1977 Dodgers game by two future Bay Area sports legends, Dusty Baker and Glenn Burke. I became an accidental sports fan for all of two hours.

Tip Top (France, dir. Serge Bozon)
I'm willing to bet no other film in the festival was as universally loathed as this "screwball" policier about two perverse female cops investigating the death of an informant. While I was ambivalent about the director's 2007 drag-king WWI musical La France, his latest had an anarchic spirit I found admirable. For better or worse, my indelible image of SFIFF57 will probably be Isabelle Huppert's tongue lapping up blood droplets that slipped from the tip of her nose.

Queen Margot: The Director's Cut (France, 1994, dir. Patrice Chéreau)
At the last minute I made the decision to forego a 225-minute marathon screening of the French TV series Agnès Varda: From Here to There and catch this 159-minute orgy of 16th century French court intrigue instead. Restored for its 20th anniversary, Chéreau re-cut his acclaimed epic before his death last autumn, choosing the best materials from the film's French, International and U.S. versions. It was both bloodier and sexier than I remembered. And while the film is currently enjoying a week's run at NYC's Film Forum, I'm not aware of any plans to bring it back to the Bay Area. As for the Varda TV series, I caught it at home on DVD screener and it was of course, brilliant and enormously fun. I mean, centenarian Manuel do Oliveira doing Chaplin impersonations?

Chinese Puzzle (France, dir. Cédric Klapisch)
I probably would have skipped this film – it opens at Landmark's Embarcadero Cinemas on May 23 – were it not for the added value of seeing its director and lead actor in the flesh. If I'd skipped it, however, I might have missed one of the most entertaining evenings I've had in 38 years of attending the festival. This new film finds several characters from director Klapisch's L'Auberge Espagnole and Russian Dolls alive and well and living in NYC. In all aspects, Chinese Puzzle is better and much funnier than any three-quel has a right to be. Unfortunately actor Romain Duris, who's a longtime personal favorite and in almost every frame, had little to say during the Q&A save for a few jaunty rejoinders to questions directed at Klapisch. To any Audrey Tautou-haters out there, prepare to be astonished by a scene in which the Amélie actress speaks flawless Mandarin (don't ask), a task Klapisch says she spent three months preparing for. Chinese Puzzle ultimately polled second place for the festival's narrative feature audience award.

Our Sunhi (South Korea, dir. Hong Sang-soo)
I've see all but one of Hong's 15 features and his latest, for which he won a Best Director prize at Locarno, falls somewhere in the middle of my love-hate continuum for the director and his works. This one, while certainly clever enough, seemed mostly distinguished by its lack of a fractured narrative structure, and by having its female protagonist be as obnoxious as her male counterparts.

Ten Thousand Waves (UK, 2010, dir. Isaac Julien)
For some reason I was oddly unmoved by Issac Julien's MoMA-commissioned installation work, which impressionistically riffs on the tragic 2004 drowning of 23 Chinese cockle pickers in the UK (a tale more straightforwardly told in Nick Broomfield's 2006 narrative feature, Ghosts). Perhaps it was the medium? Instead of being projected onto nine gigantic screens, as it is in a museum setting, all nine differing images simultaneously occupied the Sundance Kabuki Cinemas' large screen in House One. Julien, who was at the festival to receive this year's Persistence of Vision Award, admitted we were possibly the only audience who would ever see it presented that way. I was considerably more taken with the career-spanning conversation between the director and film writer B. Ruby Rich, which preceded the screening.

Norte, the End of History (Philippines, dir. Lav Diaz)
I've long wanted to see a film by this acclaimed Filipino director, but have been intimidated by running times that can stretch as long as 12 hours. This was my final film of the festival's opening weekend and despite wanting nothing more than to go home to bed, I found myself riveted by all 250 minutes of Diaz' boldly original reimagining of Dostoyevsky's "Crime and Punishment." If you missed it at the festival, San Francisco's Yerba Buena Center for the Arts will screen it four more times in the latter half of June. I'm seriously contemplating a re-visit.

Tracks (UK/Australia, dir. John Curran)
Mia Wasikowska portrays Robyn Davis, the young Australian adventuress who trekked across 2000 miles of desert outback in 1977, in this better-than-I –expected tale of personal discovery with loads of spectacular landscape photography. My true reason for seeing the movie was actor Adam Driver, adorable as always in the role of a National Geographic photographer who helps Davis secure financing and becomes her contact with the outside world. I left the Tracks knowing more than I'll ever need about the behavior and training of feral camels.

Stray Dogs (Taiwan/France, dir. Tsai Ming-liang)
Tsai Ming-liang is one of my favorite directors and it was a thrill getting to see his latest work on the big screen. One re-enters a familiar world possessed of Tsai's recurring themes and signifiers – pathos, alienation, endless rain, food abuse, transcendent compositions and of course, his legendary long takes. But seriously folks, those final two shots – a 14-minute static close-up of actors Lee Kang-sheng and Chen Shiang-chyi staring at "something," followed by a 7-minute long-shot of them and that "something" – was cruel and unusual punishment for even this longtime fan.

Club Sandwich (Mexico, dir. Fernando Eimbcke)
I knew this would be one of my favorite films of the festival and I was not proved wrong. Director Eimbcke follows up Duck Season and Lake Tahoe with another heartfelt and hilarious deadpan comedy, this one about a pubescent boy encountering first love while on holiday with his single mother at an off-season beach resort. I can't wait to see it again. The screening was enhanced by the personal appearance of the charming Mr. Eimbcke, whose first two films played SFIFF without him in attendance.

Happiness (France/Finland, dir. Thomas Balmès)
This ethnographic docu-drama begins with Bhutan's king telling a cheering crowd of his decision to bring them electricity and the internet. It ends with a shot of bewildered villagers watching WrestleMania. What's the Bhutanese phrase for "be careful what you wish for?" In between there's an affecting tale of a young boy entrusted to a monastery, who eventually accompanies an uncle to the city for the purpose of buying a TV set. As would be expected, the scenery en route is stunning.

The Blue Wave (Turkey, dir. Zeynep Dadak, Merve Kayan)
This was the only film in the festival which failed to engage me in any way. I would suggest re-titling it, Mundane Mini-Dramas of a Bourgeois Turkish Teenager. For the remainder of the festival I lived in mortal fear it might win the SFIFF57 New Director's Prize. (It didn't).

Abuse of Weakness (France, dir. Catherine Breillat)
Isabelle Huppert gives yet another startling performance as Maud Schoenberg, a filmmaker who suffers a series of strokes and is subsequently fleeced out of nearly €1 million by a professional conman she wants to star in her next movie. The story is based on real events from the life of director Breillat, and is the ultimate filmic rendering of what it must be like to be totally dispossessed of oneself. Huppert is at her most harrowingly memorable in the physical and speech therapy scenes, as well as the finale where she struggles to explain her victimization to family and associates. "It was me, but it was not me."

The Trip to Italy (UK/Italy, dir. Michael Winterbottom)
Comedians Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon continue the often hilarious shtick they began in Winterbottom's 2010 The Trip with this Italian-set sequel featuring heartier food, lovelier scenery and still more celebrity impersonations (Gore Vidal, Clint Eastwood, Tom Hardy and yes, a Michael Caine redux). It also feels less fresh this go-round and I wouldn't hold my breath for a third installment. Their deconstruction of the word "kumquat" is in itself worth the admission price.

Boyhood (USA, dir. Richard Linklater)
If there was an unqualified masterpiece at SFIFF57, it was surely this incomparable paean to one boy's childhood and adolescence which was 12 years in the making. The screening was the highlight of a program honoring Linklater with 2014's SFIFF Founder's Directing Award at the Castro Theatre. A reel of career highlights kicked off the evening, followed by an on-stage interview conducted by none other than actress Parker Posey, who, along with Ben Affleck and Mathew McConaughey, made her feature film debut in Linklater's 1993 film Dazed and Confused. While perhaps the rambling Posey wasn't the best choice for a cogent inquiry into the director's esteemed filmography, she and Linklater had a genial rapport which easily won over the audience. After the screening, the filmmaker returned to the stage for a Q&A with his daughter Lorelei, who plays the main character's slightly older sister. The now college-age actress who was eight when filming began, described the dozen-years ordeal of making Boyhood as her personal "12 Years a Slave," and admitted begging her father to kill off her character sometime around the fourth year of production. Boyhood, which to the best of my knowledge has no precedent in the history of narrative cinema, opens at Landmark's Embarcadero Cinemas on July 18.

Freedom Summer (USA, dir. Stanley Nelson)
This exemplary documentary takes an in-depth look at 1964's Mississippi Summer Project, which saw over a thousand volunteers descend upon the Magnolia State to register African American voters (at a time when only 6.7% of Mississippi blacks were registered due to intimidation and archaic literacy tests). While I was familiar with much of this material, of total news to me was the movement's effort to unseat the state's official delegation to that summer's Democratic convention in Atlantic City. This occupies a large chunk of the film and is certain to alter any opinion you might have about L.B.J. Freedom Summer was produced for the PBS series "American Experience" and will air this summer starting on June 24. It polled second place for the festival's documentary audience award.

Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter (USA, dir. David Zellner)
While I'm inclined to avoid films described as "quirky American indies," a slew of rave reviews from Sundance had me checking this one out and boy, am I glad I did. Japanese superstar Rinko Kikuchi (Oscar-nominated for her role in Babel) stars as a malcontented, delusional "office lady" obsessed with finding the money buried by Steve Buscemi in the Coen Brothers' movie Fargo. The film's Japan-set first half is a painfully funny prelude – complete with noodle-slurping pet rabbit – for Kumiko's eventual arrival in a wintry Minnesota. Improperly attired and penniless save for a stolen credit card, she's guided toward her goal by a gallery of benevolently off-key Minnesotans. Writer/director David Zellner and his brother, writer Nathan Zellner were on-hand for a Q&A in which they revealed the story comes from a message-boards-era online urban legend, and that they wanted to create a story about someone in an "extreme state of isolation" using "multiple versions of reality."

Eastern Boys (France, dir. Robin Campillo)
A gay, middle-aged Parisian professional gets more than he bargained for after hooking up with a Ukrainian hustler in this, one of the very best films I saw at SFIFF57. What begins as another film equating danger with gay male erotic desire – à la Alain Guiraudie's Stranger by the Lake – slowly morphs into a tender love story of parental-like concern and then transforms again into the most intense, nerve-wracking thriller I've seen in years. Director Campillo is best known for co-writing the films of Laurent Cantet (The Class) and his only previous feature as director is the 2004 zombie flick, They Came Back, which is now sitting atop my Netflix queue.

Manakamana (USA/Nepal, dir. Stephanie Spray, Pacho Velez)
This hypnotic, contemplative documentary of sorts consists of only 12 shots, all 10-minute unbroken long-takes of passengers riding a suspended cable car up to (or down from) a mountaintop Nepalese temple. I was particularly struck by how the directors create a sense of suspense and anticipation each time the cable cars finish their run and enter the darkened building where passengers exit and board. For roughly 30 seconds the screen goes nearly black and we watch vague silhouettes leave the car. Seconds later, other shadowy figures get on board and remain mysterious until the car jolts into the sunlight. Three long-haired, Nepalese heavy-metal dudes transmogrify into two old ladies eating rapidly melting popsicles who in turn metamorphose into two young American tourists who then re-emerge as goats.

Night Moves (USA, dir. Kelly Reichardt)
Low-key indie director Reichardt (Wendy and Lucy) surprises us once again by following up 2010's lost-pioneers-in-the-desert drama Meek's Cutoff with this quasi-thriller about a trio of Oregon eco-terrorists intent on blowing up a dam. The first hour introduces the film's protagonists – a confident rich girl (Dakota Fanning), a taciturn co-op farmer (Jesse Eisenberg) and a backwoodsman (Peter Sarsgaard) – and meticulously follows every move of their final preparations leading up to and including the big event. The film's moodier second half delves into psychological aftermath, as an unforeseen consequence causes one of the three to consider surrendering to authorities.

Cross-published on The Evening Class.

SFIFF57 2014 Preview Capsules

 
Salvation Army (France/Morocco/Switzerland, dir. Abdellah Taïa)

Moroccan writer Abdellah Taïa makes a memorably assured filmmaking debut with this adaptation of his autobiographical novel. As a gay teenager living in Casablanca with his large family, Abdellah is preyed upon by horny men in the souks, while indulging his own sexual obsession for an older brother at home. Events during a seaside holiday trigger the desire for a different life, and mid-film we're thrust ten years ahead to Geneva, where an older Abdellah will take up residence in the local Salvation Army while waiting for a Swiss scholarship to kick in. Taïa directs his film with an economy of filmic language, employing short, spare scenes which speak volumes. The film eschews any musical score, yet it is music upon which Salvation Army's abruptly poignant final moment rests. Taïa is aided immeasurably by the exquisitely restrained camerawork of ace DP Agnès Godard. This is my favorite of the films I previewed, and is one of 11 films competing for this year's SFIFF New Directors Prize.


School of Babel (France dir. Julie Bertuccelli)

While Julie Bertuccelli is best known for narrative features such as Since Otar Left and The Tree, is it in the documentary realm where I believe she really shines. Her latest is a compelling and compassionate look at one year in a Parisian "reception" class for 11-year-old immigrants, where they study French language and culture, as well as a general curriculum. The disparate students include a Jewish boy whose family fled neo-Nazi attacks in Serbia, a girl from Guinea who faces genital mutilation if returned home, and a boy with Asperger Syndrome whose single mother left Ireland in search of economic opportunity. They're guided by an empathetic but resolute teacher, Brigitte Cervoni, who will also help them produce a class video they'll bring to a youth film festival in Chartres. The parent-student-teacher conferences, where students are frequently put in the awkward position of playing interpreter, are particularly illuminating. School of Babel begins on Day One with each student writing "hello" on the chalkboard in their native language and ends with intensely emotional farewells on graduation day. Be sure to have a handkerchief in hand.


The Reconstruction (Argentina dir. Juan Taratuto)

Writer/director Juan Taratuto wastes no time in telling the audience that his main character is a miserable S.O.B. In the opening scene, we watch Eduardo barrel down a deserted Patagonia highway, refusing to stop when he passes a woman screaming next to an overturned vehicle. Clearly, this is a man in dire need of reconstruction. In short order he receives a call from Mario, a former co-worker living in the tourist town of Ushuaia, and very reluctantly agrees to watch over Mario's gift shop while he undergoes medical tests. Mario lives with a wife and two teenage daughters and enjoys a warm family life, an environment into which the bristly Eduardo fits like a space alien. When a tragedy occurs, Eduardo is presented with the opportunity to rediscover his humanity, but is he already too broken to try? Diego Peretti, the eagle-beaked and beady-eyed actor who also stars in the upcoming The German Doctor, gives a haunting performance and is reported as having collaborated with Taratuto on the script. Considering the subject matter, it's worth mentioning that the film never once feels mawkish or manipulative. Two quietly devastating scenes in particular – which of course I can't divulge here – are as memorable as anything I've seen at the movies this year.


What Now? Remind Me (Portugal dir. Joaquim Pinto)

Although I might not be familiar with the previous films of director Joaquim Pinto, I'm very aware of the filmmakers on whose films he has worked in the sound department, ranging from Manoel de Oliveira to André Téchiné to Christophe Honoré. In this intimate, nearly 3-hour documentary made during a year the director suffered the toxic (and occasionally delusional) effects of HIV and Hepatitis C treatments, Pinto reflects back on his life and career. Sharing screentime with Pinto are his strapping younger husband (and frequent film collaborator) Nuno Leonel, their four dogs and the arid plot of land in the Azores they've called home for 10 years. Featuring a non-stop voiceover commentary from Pinto, the film touches on everything from his university years in the GDR, the nature of diseases, cave dwellings of our ancestors and the passage of time. Visually the film blends archival footage and quotidian verité with flourishes of superimposition and animation. There's even a discrete scene of sexual intimacy between Pinto and his husband. What Now? Remind Me is a staggeringly original work which deservedly won both the FIPRESCI and Grand Jury prizes at last year's Locarno Film Festival.


If You Don't, I Will (France, dir. Sophie Fillières)

Two of my favorite French actors, Mathieu Amalric and Emmanuelle Devos, team up once again as a prickly on-screen couple in this wickedly offbeat tale of a marriage on the rocks. Pierre and Pomme are empty-nesters who've reached the point where even simple conversations devolve into a volley of passive-aggressive barb slinging. During a particularly contentious mountain hike mid-film, Pomme decides she's had enough and takes off to go live alone in the forest. Pierre returns home and feigns disconcern, at least initially, when Pomme fails to return after several days. While the film takes a slightly dark turn here, bemusement is always around the corner, such as when Pomme crashes a chamber music festival, or when a chamois abruptly drops out of the sky and into her forest abode. Director Fillières also wrote the screenplay and the film marks her third collaboration with the outstanding Devos. If You Don't, I Will is the second funniest film I've seen this year (after Bruce LaBruce's Gerontophilia).

Cross-published on The Evening Class.

SFIFF57 2014 – Perusing the Line-Up – Elsewhere in the World

The 57th San Francisco International Film Festival (SFIFF57) will be taking off in just a few days time. In recent posts, we've looked at this year's awards and special programs, as well as SFIFF57's extensive line-up of French selections and films from other parts of Europe. Now it's time to wrap up this year's round-the-world perusal with highlights of SFIFF57's ambitious roster of films from Asia, Africa, the Middle East and the Americas.

 
Asia

While my enthusiasm for new Asian cinema has perhaps waned in recent years, I'm always game to see a new work by a favorite filmmaker. At this year's festival, that film will be Tsai Ming-liang's Stray Dogs. SFIFF has a long history with the minimalist Taiwanese director, going back to 1992's Rebels of the Neon Gods. (Not that I'm bragging, but that film's original Chinese poster hangs in my bathroom). The festival was also responsible for bringing us Vive l'amour (1994), The River (1997), The Hole (1998) and The Wayward Cloud (2005). The consensus seems to be that his new film, Stray Dogs, is a return to form following the misfire of Face, Tsai's 2009 tripped-out take on Salomé (which remains unseen in the Bay Area). At this year's Golden Horse Awards – essentially the Oscars® for Chinese language indie/art films – Tsai won Best Director and his longtime filmic muse, Lee Kang-sheng, took Best Actor for this story of a father and two children surviving on the streets of Taipei. It's been very touching to have watched Lee age under Tsai's admiring gaze these past 22 years.

 

Another big name Asian auteur with a film in SFIFF57 is the prolific South Korean, Hong Sang-soo. Our Sunhi is one of two movies the filmmaker released in 2013, and it's the one that won him the Best Director prize at the Locarno Film Festival. Hong has been making films since 1996 and Our Sunhi is his 15th feature. His films are probably an acquired taste, with their squicky protagonists (as often as not, a drunken blowhard film director) and kinked-out narrative structures. Honestly, I found his earlier works almost unbearable. But I've been converted and am now fully on board the Hong train, eagerly awaiting a date with Our Sunhi.

 

Filipino cinema has experienced a renaissance in the Bay Area, thanks to curator Joel Shepard of the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA). One of the directors he champions is Lav Diaz, an award-winning independent filmmaker whose socially and politically conscious films are also noted for their extreme length (2004's Evolution of a Filipino Family clocked in at nine hours). While my own singular experience with a Diaz film saw me lasting only halfway through 2011's six-hour Century of Birthing, I'm committed to catching the entirety of SFIFF57 selection Norte, the End of History. Running a brisk four hours and 15 minutes, Norte screened in Cannes' Un Certain Regard sidebar last year, and is said to be Diaz' most accessible film. If you're unable to catch it during the festival, YBCA will screen it four more times in June. On a related note, the festival will also present a 4K digital restoration of master Lino Brocka's 1975 masterpiece Manila in the Claws of Light. The film, which for some reason was titled Manila in the Claws of Darkness when I saw it at the festival decades ago, has been restored by Martin Scorsese's World Cinema Foundation with the assistance of Mike De Leon, the film's original cinematographer and an acclaimed director in his own right.

 

Two films from Kazakhstan have secured slots in the festival, Seric Aprymov's Bauyr (Little Brother) and Emir Baigazin's Harmony Lessons. I caught the latter at this year's Palm Springs International Film Festival and fully recommend it as a troubling, intensely cinematic allegory of institutionalized bullying and authoritarianism. A major caveat – animals were definitely harmed during filming, including, but not limited to, a roach getting fried on a miniature electric chair. There's also ample violence meted out against the film's teenage protagonists. I anticipate the unnerving Harmony Lessons will be one of the most talked about films at SFIFF57 amongst those who see it. Other possibilities within the festival's Asian narrative features include Peter Chan's American Dream in China (with cinematography by Chris Doyle), Firestorm starring Hong Kong superstar Andy Lau, South Korean Late Show entry Intruders, Mary is Happy, Mary is Happy, with a story constructed from the Twitter musings of a Thai teen, and finally Tomako in Moratorium, from Nobuhiro Yamashita, director of 2005's hysterically funny Linda, Linda, Linda.

 

It happens that all three Asian documentaries I plan to see are works by Western filmmakers. My top doc choice of the entire festival is Stephanie Spray and Pacho Velez' Manakamana, which arrives from the visionary folks at Harvard's Sensory Ethnography Lab (Sweetgrass, Leviathan.) It consists of only a dozen shots, all long takes of passengers riding a cable car up to the titular Nepalese mountaintop temple. On one trip it's a group of schoolboys, on another it's three old ladies eating rapidly melting ice cream cones, and on another it's a bunch of goats. I am truly looking forward to seeing this. From over in neighboring Bhutan there's also Thomas Balmès' Happiness, a docu-fiction hybrid that witnesses the changes brought to a small village by the arrival of electricity and the internet. Balmès is best known for the 2010 commercial hit documentary, Babies, and this new film is scored by favorite indie band, British Sea Power. Lastly, in Swiss director Luc Schaedler's Three Letters from China, we're presented with three intimate views of life in a rapidly changing People's Republic.


 
Middle East/Africa
 

The film I most want to see from this region is Mohammad Rasoulof's Manuscripts Don't Burn, a clandestinely filmed drama about Iran's Secret Service police and their harassment of artists and intellectuals. Rasoulof would certainly have first-hand knowledge on that subject. The film is being likened more to 2011's solemn Goodbye (SFIFF55) than the director's earlier, otherworldly allegories like Iron Island and The White Meadows. The SFIFF57 line-up also features a trio of promising Sundance award winners from this part of the world. Zeresenay Berhane Mehari's Difret is an Ethiopian legal drama focused on women's rights, which won the festival's World Cinema Audience Award. Sundance awarded its Grand Jury Prize for World Cinema Documentary to Talal Derki's Return to Homs, a harrowing look at the effects of revolution on two young men in Syria's third largest city. The festival's documentary jury also saw to fit to award a special prize for "Cinematic Bravery" to Hubert Sauper's We Come as Friends, which examines the human cost of neo-colonialism in the newly formed nation of South Sudan. Sauper, whose 2004 Oscar®-nominated Darwin's Nightmare is one

of my all-time favorites, is expected to attend the festival. Finally, in Noaz Deshi's fevered White Shadow, a Tanzanian albino teen struggles to remain alive in a culture that believes his body parts have restorative properties. The film has gotten incredible buzz since its Venice premiere, including the signing on of Ryan Gosling as executive producer. Variety's Guy Lodge praised the film as being "stylistically reckless in the best possible way," as it "veers wildly between earthy verité and near-ecstatic surrealism." White Shadow, as well as Difret will be competing for this year's New Director's Prize.

 
U.S.A.

Out of all the movies in the festival line-up, it appears that Justin Simien's social satire Dear White People is the one Bay Area audiences are most excited about. Its two SFIFF57 screenings were among the very first to go to rush. A retinue of folks associated with the film is expected to attend the festival. As for me, I'm most looking forward to Night Moves, the eco-terrorism thriller from Kelly Reichardt (Wendy and Lucky, Meek's Cutoff), starring Dakota Fanning, Jesse Eisenberg and Peter Sarsgaard. I'm also hoping to see the adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's Child of God, directed by and co-starring the ubiquitous James Franco. (SFIFF57's Centerpiece Film Palo Alto, also co-stars Franco is a based on a book of his short stories). The film is Franco's second 2013 directorial literary adaptation, following William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying. And because I love Susan Sarandon and nostalgic movies set in East coast seashore resort towns, I might also have to take a look at Michael Tully's Ping Pong Summer.

 

While we are still waiting, at least as of this writing, for the festival to announce who will receive this year's Peter J. Owens Acting Award, it should be noted that SFIFF57 offers other opportunities for star-gazing. Indie queen Patricia Clarkson will attend the world premiere of Last Weekend on May 2, along with other cast members and the film's co-directors, Tom Williams and Tom Dolby. Dolby wrote the screenplay and is the son of pioneering sound engineer, Ray Dolby. Clarkson plays a well-to-do Lake Tahoe matriarch who gathers the family together for one final Labor Day weekend at the family manor. "Saturday Night Live" co-alumni Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig will also be in town for the May 1 screening of Craig Johnson's dysfunctional family dramedy The Skeleton Twins. It will be the film's first screening since its Sundance premiere back in January. (Update 4/22 It has been announced that Jeremy Irons will receive this year's Peter J. Owens Acting Award on Wednesday, April 30.)

Roughly half of this year's U.S. feature films are documentaries, and a typically eclectic bunch they are. The first to grab my attention was Jeffrey Radice's No No: A Dockmentary. I'm no sports fan, but who doesn't want to see a film about the man who pitched a no-hitter, major league baseball game in 1970 while tripping on LSD? The player's name was Dock Ellis and his reputation as an African American rabble rouser who was told everything he did was a no-no, earned him the nickname, "The Muhammad Ali of the Ballpark." The film earns bonus points by having a score composed by the Beastie Boys' Adam Horovitz. No No: A Dockumentary will be shown with Michael Jacobs' 10-minute short The High Five, which explores "the origin of the seemingly most instinctual of celebratory gestures."

Perhaps as a result of Twenty Feet from Stardom winning last year's audience award for Best Documentary – not to mention that Oscar® – SFIFF57 will feature four music-related documentaries. These include a reminiscence of indie singer/songwriter Elliott Smith (Heaven Adores You), a stylized look at a day in the life of Australian rocker, author, screenwriter and film composer Nick Cave (20,000 Days on Earth), a bio-doc of the Grateful Dead's legendary rhythm guitarist (The Other One: The Long Strange Trip of Bob Weir) and finally a portrait of veteran entertainment manager Shep Gordon (Supermensch: The Legend of Shep Gordon). The latter reps the directorial debut of actor/comedian Mike Myers, and Mr. Gordon himself is expected to attend the festival. (The film opens at Landmark's Embarcadero Cinemas on June 13). Also attending the fest will be The Dead's Bob Weir, who is expected to perform a mini-concert at his May 2 screening. I can only assume word has not gotten out about this, as tickets still seem to be available.

 

Here's a rundown of a few other American docs of possible interest. Jeremy Ambers' Impossible Light explores artist Leo Villareal's dream, which was to cover the Oakland Bay Bridge's suspension cables with 25,000 computer-programmed LED lights. It's quite beautiful to see, if you haven't been to the Embarcadero yet to experience it. I'm therefore curious why the festival has given this film of such obvious local interest just one screening – and scheduled it at 4:00 p.m. on a weekday. (The fest's printed program mentions a potential free outdoor screening, but details have yet to be released.) (Update 4/22 The free screening will take place at 8 pm on May 5 at The Exploritorium. It is free with registration, two tickets maxiumum per person.) (Update 4/28 There will be a non-festival screeening of Impossible Light at the Roxie Theatre at 7 p.m. on May 8.) Biographical documentaries of a non-musical nature at SFIFF57 include The Dog, a 10-years-in-the-making portrait of John Wojtowicz, the real-life person portrayed by Al Pacino in Dog Day Afternoon, and Burt's Buzz, where you'll learn all about the bearded guy with the railroad cap whose singular image has graced billions of lip balm packages. Social issue documentaries are a mainstay of this festival and among this year's selections are films about Cesar Chavez (Cesar's Last Fast), the Mississippi civil rights movement in the summer of 1964 (Freedom Summer) and a conflict between immigrant workers and locals in a North Dakota fracking boomtown (The Overnighters).

 
Latin America

For a few years now, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has sponsored a SFIFF World Cinema Spotlight, which "calls attention to a current trend in international filmmaking, bringing to light hot topics, reinvigorated genres, underappreciated filmmakers and national cinemas." This year the festival has chosen to spotlight New Voices in Latin American Cinema, with five films from first and second-time directors hailing from Costa Rica (Neto Villalobos' All About the Feathers), Mexico (Claudia Sainte-Luce's The Amazing Catfish), Venezuela (Mariana Rondón's Bad Hair), Argentina (Benjamin Naishtat's History of Fear) and Uruguay (Manolo Nieto's The Militant). They are joined by three additional features in making up SFIFF57's eight-film line-up of recent works from Latin America. For a savvy and extensive critical overview of these films, I defer to my esteemed colleague Michael Guillén at The Evening Class, whose special focus is Latin American Cinema. I'll end by saying that I am particularly excited the festival has programmed Club Sandwich, the third film from Mexican director Fernando Eimbcke. While SFIFF has shown his two previous features, Duck Season and Lake Tahoe, this is the first time that Eimbcke himself is scheduled to accompany his film to the Bay Area. 

Cross-published on The Evening Class.