At the rate I'm going, I'll get these Feature in Competition previews up by April. I'm going to have to be a bit more efficient. In the meantime here's what's up already are
Here are some excerpts and links to explore for The Temptation of St. Tony, which I have high hopes for. It would appear to be in the more 'esoteric' 'art' film category which is why it is a perfect festival film. The film makers are scheduled to attend the showings.
The St. Tony's website is spare.
From Fandango |
New York Times
A Take on Faith and Capitalism
By JEANNETTE CATSOULIS
Published: September 16, 2010
Bizarre and beautiful, disturbing and droll, “The Temptation of St. Tony” wonders what it means to be a good man. Kicking off with a quotation from Dante’s “Inferno,” this delirious sophomore feature from the Estonian filmmaker Veiko Ounpuu observes Tony (Taavi Eelmaa), a triumphantly depressed middle manager. Dissatisfied with his adulterous wife and a boss who orders him to sack all his factory workers, Tony descends into a midlife crisis that manifests itself as a series of increasingly hilarious, horrific visions.Or are they? [the review continues]
UK site Hey Guys writes:
A possessed priest walking up the side of a rundown church, a phantasmic lady floating in the woods, a dead dog that is black and wolf like returning from the dead are among the many strange sequences that help to create the uncomfortable and weird tone of The Temptation of St Tony (2010). There are many film references in the film which suggests director Veiko Õunpuu's need to showcase his immense knowledge of criterion collection films by making references that presumably are intended to entertain the film aficionados among us. Õunpuu's acknowledges this directly in the film when Tony's wife's lover teases Tony for being an angel who is hopelessly oblivious. His cruel teasing fetches his girlfriend's disdain. Should it invite our disdain? It depends not on whether you can take a joke but rather on whether you are willing to look past the offense to enjoy the bizarre and absurdist display.Jafarkas at Mixtapes gives us some background of the history of St. Anthony:
In early Christian lore, the Egyptian monk Anthony traveled to the Saharan desert in search of St. Paul, but instead encountered a host of demons who tormented him physically in order to test his enduring faith. For reasons known only to 4th century masochists, this piece of arcana is commonly referred to as “The Temptation of St. Anthony.” Because of the graphic demon battles and underlying implications of lust and desire, surrealist painters from Hieronymus Bosch to Salvador Dalí have felt compelled to depict this story in painting. Georges Méliès, the magician of early cinema and a pioneer of fantasy filmmaking, also made St. Anthony's dilemma the subject of one of his early shorts.
Dali's St. Anthony from Metal on Metal
From Wikipedia |
You can get more details on his life at Wikipedia and you can see the other two parts of Hieronymus Bosch Triptych of Temptations of St. Anthony on at another Wikipedia site.
Metal on Metal has a whole post with 14 paintings from depicting St. Anthony
This film was selected for Sundance and is the Estonian entry for Best Foreign Film at the Academy Awards. (Wikipedia says the population of Estonia is 1.3 million) Markku Pätilä & Jaagup Roomet have been nominated for best European Production Designer(s) at the 2010 European Film Awards for their work on Temptation of St. Tony. Coincidentally, the awards will be announced in Tallinn, Estonia - the film maker's home - on December 4, the same day the film first shows in Anchorage.
[UPDATE Dec. 4: St. Tony lost to Roman Polansky's The Ghostwriter which swept six of the 18 awards.]
1, we rented all the dresses.
ReplyDelete2, we gace it back so we won't dress a lot in that.
3, only we danced because it was a performance, but everyone was in suits or in elegant dresses
Thanks Ropi. (Ropi was answering questions I'd asked about his post on his college (in Budapest) ball in which he wore a tux and all the women wore the same white dresses.) There's a video there of the performance.
ReplyDeleteHi Steve - getting back into blogging and hope to be in touch more -- thanks for all the film-fest news, the St. Tony looks intriguing, more so as Maija (my better half) is from Latvia
ReplyDeleteGood to hear from you Michael, Yes, St. Tony was the one that dared to try something really meaningful and important and Taavi was great. I would not have recognized the man at the festival as the actor in the movie. He was totally different. I'm sure there was a lot that went completely over my head.
ReplyDeleteI did a peek of this year's features and documentaries in competition. Did you see that one? So you can look forward in anticipation instead of backward in regret.